Complaint Review: Michael B. Schulman & Associates PC - Melville New York

Michael B. Schulman (MBS) tried, vigorously, to defraud my family out of more than $9,000, and victimized us for 3+ years.

We contracted with MBS to serve as an intermediary with an attorney who had been bullying us for months with groundless allegations of impropriety.  MBS was asked to review a few, noncomplex documents and our oral/written summaries, then proactively and expeditiously resolve the conflict.  In no way was he retained to perform an investigation, conduct research, create a formal legal defense, or represent us before any court or mediating body.

MBS’s handling of the situation involved numerous lapses in ethical conduct, adherence to professional standards, and legal behavior, including:

1. He collected a large retainer without (ever) communicating a strategy or timeline for dealing with the adversary, or proposing how the retainer would be spent. He ignored emails submitted by us at the outset, which provided the essential content and approach for speedy resolution of the conflict.

2. He billed $3,000+ for phone calls and emails of minor and repetitive substance -- vs. taking a decisive, offensive position. This prolonged the conflict and further incited the adversary.

3. He billed $6,000+ for unrequested, unexplained, undocumented, and un-presented (to anyone) “research” and “review” -- by an associate unknown to us -- that is unlikely to exist anywhere but on the invoices. This was FRAUD.

4. He burned through the retainer, exceeded it, and seized additional funds from our credit card with no discussion, no approval, and no advance notice.

[The NY State Unified Court System Rules Of Professional Conduct include: Rule 1.5(a) “A lawyer shall not make an agreement for, charge, or collect an excessive or illegal fee or expense.” Rule 8.4 (c) “A lawyer or law firm shall not engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”]

5. He kept the conflict in a stalemate for 3 months -- while “spending” $9,000+ -- requiring us to break the stalemate and resolve the conflict OURSELVES by composing a letter based on the content of the abovementioned emails.

6. He agreed, in writing, to a $4,000 “credit,” but never returned funds to us, forcing us into a fee-dispute arbitration.

7. He lied abjectly and totally to the bar association arbitrator about conducting “extensive research” in two specific areas. He submitted additional phony and excessive billing prior to the arbitration, 21 months after the fact, for the primary purpose of cancelling the promised credit and squeezing us for more money.

8. He violated his own contractual agreement to abide by the arbitration decision (a 52% refund of what had been paid and dismissal of the unpaid balance), refusing to refund the amount specified by the arbitrator. He forced us to petition the Court to confirm the arbitration, and to fight his attempt to have the Court try the fee dispute. (A court official with decades of experience told us he’d never before encountered an attorney who would not honor an arbitration decision.)

9. He used multiple, unethical tactics and delays to deter justice. He claimed we had never been served by his summons, when twice he was notified of such. Twice we served a “demand for complaint” (his reason to dispute the arbitration award in court), which he never answered. He forced us to file a motion to dismiss his summons and an opposition to his motion to extend time for service of the summons. After many months and countless, stressful hours documenting and submitting our case – as pro se parties – the Court confirmed the award and denied MBS’s legal actions.

Our experience with MBS is only the tip of a huge, filthy iceberg. MBS’s law license was suspended by the NY Bar in 1985. He was “publicly reprimanded” by the FL Bar in 1989. An online search of civil-case records shows that, between 2003 and 2016, MBS was or is, PERSONALLY, either the plaintiff or defendant in 13 cases before the Suffolk County Supreme Court dealing with disputes over arbitration decisions, improper billing, fraud, professional misconduct, incompetence, and “legal malpractice.”