- Report: #1375885
Complaint Review: Ronald D. Coleman - New York New York
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Author Confirmed
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Ronald D. Coleman
44 Wall Street New York, 10005 New York, USA
Phone:
201-342-6000
Web:
http://www.archerlaw.com
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Ronald D. Coleman, Archer & Greiner Avoid lawyer Ronald D. Coleman at All Costs! New York New York, New Jersey
Lawyer Ronald D. Coleman, of N.J. and N.Y., failed to pursue my claims with due diligence and failed to act in my best interest and according to my goals and the terms of our agreement. In a November 2015 meeting, I repeatedly made clear that I did NOT want to litigate my claims and he agreed. He stated that he would spend $2000.00 of my $5500.00 retainer to review materials, draft and mail demand letters, and negotiate with the defendants for four claims. But he only pursued one of my claims--and half-heartedly at that when he blew off a scheduled four-way conference call because he simply “forgot.” Oops.
Then in two months later, I received an invoice showing he’d used up $2863.00--nearly 2/3 of my retainer--pursing a single claim. Only one of four. When I protested that his excessive spending violated the terms of our agreement, he said that the upfront costs would be higher to formulate initial demand letters and evidence, and because they’d be reused with each subsequent claim, fewer hours would be expended with each.
Then, two months later, I received an invoice showing he’d spent my whole retainer PLUS an additional $2000.00 worth of time on just two letters and two phone calls. In additon, he didn;t even write either letter; the first one he copies verbatim onto his letterhead from my former attorney and I wrote the second one. This conclusively showed that his intention all along was to litigate, not try to settle, because taking a case to court puts more money in his pocket.
In total, he spent a whopping $4,863.00 on mailing two letters and making two phone calls!
Don’t be fooled by his ratings: 10.0 out of 10.0 stars of Avvo.com and an A+ pre-eminent ranking on Martindale.com. HE IS DECEITFUL AND NOT TO BE TRUSTED!
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Ronald
Roseland,New Jersey,
United States
The credibility of a lawyer's signature
#2REBUTTAL Individual responds
Fri, January 19, 2018
I am grateful that this former client was kind enough to alert readers to the multitude of positive reviews about my services and my work that can be found on the Internet. I am listed as lead counsel of record in numerous cases across the U.S., many of them published, in which I have defended the rights of gripe sites (such as this one) to make such comments available to the public. And in that work I learned that while people who are disappointed frequently take to Internet to vent their frustration, very few take the time to post positive reviews. So the fact that there are so many nice comments from former clients available online is very gratifying.
One of the points we stressed in our work defending review sites is that the person being reviewed always has recourse to the same forum to post his own response. Unlike a business owner or representative, however, it is very difficult for professionals such as lawyers to respond to a particular client's complaints in public, even if where, as here, she has maintained her anonymity in her post. There are many reasons for this, but this is not the place to discuss them! (I am happy to talk to anyone who is interested in the topic, however.) Of course I am disappointed that this client feels so strongly about her experience that she believes it will be helpful in some way to post negative reviews about my work.
I can say this: We billed this client for the work of two attorneys, including myself, that was necessary to analyze this client's claims and establish that they were, in our independent professional judgment, valid. No lawyer whose signature is worth anything will place it at the bottom of a demand letter without doing this first. This client's claims were very serious. We never write a letter threatening litigation without being prepared to litigate. Therefore, we take the approach that when we make claims on a client's behalf as a way to begin negotiations, we must know right then that if those claims were to be tested in court, we were prepared to demonstrate that they were not baseless.
We are obligated to do this as a matter of professional ethics, which governs our the duties that run from us to our own client, to the recipient of the letter and to the legal system of which we are officers. The fact that I insist on meeting these duties to the best of my abilities, and work with others who do, is no small part of what makes my signature "worth" what it is. Ultimately this client was not pleased with our approach to representation, and we parted ways after we wrote off a significant amount of time as as a courtesy in recognition of her dissatisfaction. We will not invest yet more time in the matter, but appreciate the opportunity provided to address her comments here.
