Complaint Review: Paul Rogers Kennedy - Delray Beach Florida

I was originally contacted by the Center for Debt Relief of
America aka the Center for Legal Justice.  I was seeking help with credit card debt.  I thought this was a Government program,
at first.  However the sales person
that sold me on signing up with Paul Rogers Kennedy explained to me that their
attorney could use Federal rules and regulations that would be able to wipe my
debt clean.  All I would need to do
was pay him a percentage of my debt. 
Like all scams, it sounded too good to be true, but I was comforted by
the fact that I was hiring an actual attorney.  What I hired this attorney to do was to dispute my credit
card cases and dispose of the debt. 
According to the sales person, if a credit card company even called me
once after I was represented, attorney Kennedy would slam them with a $10,000
fee.  Therefore, these credit card
companies would be forced to settle my debt because they couldnt follow
Federal Guidelines and Rules.  I
was also told that he would do all this while protecting my credit score.  I was promised my credit score would be
monitored and if anything negative was reported it would be immediately
disputed.  That is what I was told
he would be able to do, and that is the only reason I hired him.

This attorney has not only not done anything that was
promised to me, but he has not done anything for me.   I am now in a worse position than I was when I hired
him a year ago.  None of my
accounts have been settled, and he has scammed me out of nearly $5000 worth of
money.  When I first began with
Paul Rogers Kenney in January 2010, he was partnered with Esquire Litigation
Services.  I diligently kept my
call logs and sent in all my original documents regarding all correspondence
and all my accounts.  I did this
regularly and sent weekly call logs and all documentation to Esquire Litigation
Services.  I then received a form
letter from Paul Kennedy, dated June 28, 2011, stating that he has severed ties
with Esquire Litigation services. 
The letter
stated that misrepresentations had been made to the clients about the results
that could be achieved for clients. 
It went on to detail the tumultuous relationship.  A negative relationship that I can now
understand is part of Mr. Kennedys M.O. 
As soon as I received this correspondence, I immediately began calling
his firm.  However, you cannot get
through to a person, ever.  You
always get an answering machine. 
They dont return calls.  I
was concerned that all those documents and logs I had spent the last 6 months
diligently collecting to prove my case had been lost due to this break up
with Esquire Litigation Services. 
Finally a paralegal returned my call and told me that they had some of
my documents.  I asked for them to
give me an update on my file and they said the attorney would need to call
me.  I never heard anything.  From this point on, I began emailing
asking for updates and calling and leaving messages, but would not get any
responses.  Once and a while Mr.
Kennedy would write back and say, I am out of the office, I will get back to
you tomorrow.  But then he would
not get back to me.  I have
attached correspondence showing the letter that I received on June 29,
2011.  Then a trail of emails
 where I would ask for updates and get no response or a quick
brush-off with no update and no follow up.  He would often promise to get back to me tomorrow, but he
never would.  For the entire year,
Mr. Kennedy has been unavailable and non-responsive to inquiries regarding the
status of my file.  My patience ran
out when I was served with a Summons and Complaint on the Discover Card case in
October, 2011.  I was promised it
would never get that far, that Mr. Kennedy would use the Federal rules and
regulations to get these debts all magically wiped away.  But what really upset me was that he
never Answered the Complaint.  He
still to date has not Answered the Complaint.  I emailed and called and emailed and called to remind him
about the deadline and to ask him if he had filed an Answer.  I am obviously concerned about a default
judgment being entered against me because my attorney has chosen to just ignore
the fact that he needs to file an Answer. 
I finally called the attorney grievance committee to complain that Mr.
Kennedy was not responding to my calls or emails after three months.  They directed me to you for help in
recovering my fees.  When Mr.
Kennedy finally did respond to my influx of phone calls and emails, he
basically made me an offer that if I signed a release promising not to file
any complaints or sue him for malpractice then he would turn over my file and
give me $3000.  To me, that seemed
like blackmail.  Also, I am not yet
sure what the ramifications of Mr. Kennedy simply ignoring my case and not
doing any legal work on it will be. 
Are there going to be defaults entered against me?  How many offers went unanswered?  I have had difficultly getting any
honest and straight answers from him on the status of my file.  He also has refused to give me my file
until I pointed him to the ethical opinion that stated he has to.  Now I must send him $40.00, $25.00 for
the file fee and then a $.15 per page copy fee in order to obtain my file.  When I threw a fit, he did forward me a
portion of the correspondence on January 24, 2011, and just in that small
portion I found an offer from a creditor that was ignored and never forwarded
to me dated April 18, 2011, and a letter dated September 12, 2011,
where he wrote to PayPal and let them know he no longer represents me.  I just find it unbelievable that
creditors sent offers to him on my behalf and no one ever bothered to relay
them to me or tell me about them. 
I find it even more bothersome that he wrote to one creditor in the
course of his representation that he no longer represented me?!  Also I am furious that I paid this man,
a licensed attorney, nearly $5000, and he did not file a timely answer to a
complaint after I had asked him to numerous times.  But what I find most appalling is that he would attempt to
blackmail me with the return of my file and $3000 by forcing me to sign this
comprehensive release that gets him off the hook for taking my money and doing
absolutely nothing on any of my cases. 
Not only is this disgusting behavior, this is also a direct violation of
Floridas ethical rules for attorneys.
Kennedy, because I refused to sign the release attached as Exhibit E, then sent
me a letter dated January 26, 2012, terminating our attorney-client
relationship. When I
told him that I would not release him from representing me without a full
refund, he told me that I would have to sue him in Florida, that he would not
do any legal work for me and he would not give me a refund.  He has, to date, not returned any funds
to me and refuses to do any legal work for me.  Therefore, he has done nothing to earn any of the fees that
he is withholding from me.  The
attorney has not performed any of his duties under the contract, and has of his
own accord terminated the relationship prior to completing any of the work he
had promised to under the contract.  Not that he is competent to perform them!
In fact, I believe that this attorneys actions have actually been to my
detriment.
He is running a scam and taking advantage of people who are financially
struggling.  I know he has
committed ethics breaches and malpractice with me, so I am sure he has with countless others.  I encourage all victims to contact the Florida Bar Association and make a complaint against this man to stop him from scamming innocent people.