Complaint Review: Robert Teague - Phoenix Arizona

Robert Ray Teague was once the most familiar faces on television—he was the face and voice of Phillips and Wroblewski best known for singing the praises of bankruptcy to the masses.  Not many people, however, are familiar with the darker side of Mr. Teague, a sharp contrast to his smiling face on the famous television commercials.

Teague, a self-proclaimed devout Mormon, has admitted to having his fair share of challenges and a somewhat checkered past in his career as an attorney.  Mr. Teague is known for having multiple affairs with women who attended his church, one of whom he ultimately married. Teague’s previous wife also had cause to serve him with a protective order that alleged Teague to be a danger to her and their children.

Teague was admitted to the State Bar of Arizona in 1998.  Teague, a summarily unsuccessful businessman, proved himself unable to effectively operate a legal practice, thus creating numerous financial problems for himself and his family.  Desperate to be able to support his family, Teague responded to an ad seeking an associate attorney for a bankruptcy law firm.  Five years later, he was promoted to supervising attorney at that same firm, with full power to hire and reorganize the department as he saw fit.  He began by hiring family members, some with absolutely no experience whatsoever, and hired non-attorney staff, compensating them with annual salaries in excess of $100,000.  At one point, he had over 80 employees at his charge and he permitted his non-attorney employees to practice law without a license or supervision of any kind.  Teague is notorious for not actually wanting to work; Gerald Owens, a non-attorney hired by Teague, ran the bankruptcy department with no guidance or counsel from Teague.  It was actually Mr. Owens who filed Teague’s application for Board certification as a bankruptcy specialist; Teague often sought answers and advice from Owens as he had very little practical knowledge of bankruptcy himself.

Teague forbid his staff to speak to Jeffrey Phillips and David Wroblewski, the principals of the law firm.  Teague customarily misrepresented cases and client information routinely even though they trusted Teague to be honest and forthright; this would prove to be a disastrous error in judgment on their parts.  Teague consistently neglected clients and cases; he avoided calls and 

 directed Owens to speak to clients and deliberately lie to them.   If any member of Teague’s staff would question the lack of work being done on a particular case, they would be harshly reprimanded, and even terminated, for doing so.   Teague had no sense of loyalty or obligation to his clients or to the firm; his television commercial “celebrity status” was all he appeared to be interested in.

Teague outwardly bragged about his ability to falsify a bill and cheat clients out of money; if ever a client fired the firm or made a formal complaint with the Bar Association, Teague would create a bill that would show no refund was due to the client.  In April, 2010, Jeffrey Phillips discovered inconsistencies within the bankruptcy department.  Mr. Phillips advised Robert Teague that he “wanted to make changes within the department”; Teague threatened Mr. Phillips, stating that “if any changes were made, he and all of his employees would leave the firm and subsequently file complaints of professional misconduct with the Arizona State Bar Association”.  Teague went on to say “I AM the Bankruptcy Department!”. 

Jeffrey Phillips began reducing overhead, restructuring and reorganizing the Bankruptcy Department, but to no avail.  Under insurmountable tension and pressure, Jeffrey Phillips was forced to transfer the Bankruptcy Department to David Wroblewski. Phillips and Wroblewski found themselves facing hundreds of client complaints and subsequent requests for refunds potentially totaling millions of dollars. Teague, proving himself to be a master of deceit, had successfully convinced several attorneys that it was he, not Phillips, protecting the clients that had been defrauded by the firm.  His plan was to use Phillips and Wroblewski as scapegoats and shift all of the blame and responsibility for years of professional misconduct, infinite counts of willful misrepresentations and neglecting clients and cases to them; Teague blatantly lied to The Bar Association, attorneys, clients and staff in an effort to protect himself.  Teague’s ultimate plan was to steal clients from Phillips and Wroblewski; and he found a friend ally in Eric Thieroff, another attorney with the firm, as well as help from many of the non-attorney staff he employed in his capacity as supervising attorney at Phillips and Wroblewski.

On February 9, 2011, while Teague was out of the office due t “stress-related issues”, Teague received a phone call from Thieroff informing him that there was a rumor that Teague was to be fired. Teague’s response was to instruct Thieroff to duplicate Phillips and Wroblewski’s client database in full; apparently Teague had already set up his own office and one of the employees at the firm helped Teague contact EVERY client the firm had, soliciting them to demand a refund from Phillips and Wroblewski and inviting them to become a client of his firm.  Teague gave a brilliantly crafted recounting of false statements and fraudulent declarations to the Arizona State Bar, rendering him able to successfully execute the grandest scam in the history of bankruptcy.  This would be the final demise of Phillips and Wroblewski, but the real victims were the thousands of clients who never received the services they paid for nor a refund for the money they had paid for their bankruptcy filings.  Teague accepted only the clients who agreed to pay him (again) to file their cases; the rest were simply abandoned. 

After only two years in practice, Robert Teague is once again bankrupt and a complete failure.  He has, however, successfully managed to avoid any reprimands and suspensions from practicing law from the Arizona State Bar Association to date.  It is with great consternation and hesitation that anyone should wonder, what is Robert Teague wholly capable of and who will he victimize next?