Claude Bernard Lavallee

I had a consult with Mr. Lavallee about a family member who had done something that anyone would agree violated my rights, but that I wasn’t sure was a crime, exactly. I did not want litigation, just wanted Lavallee to write a letter to my relative stating that during the period when the person wa...s doing a certain thing, they were violating my property rights, and committing what is technically called X [a certain legal term] and that had I chosen to I would have been able to pursue the matterlvia a lawsuit, So what I wanted was for them to be told by an authority that they had violated my rights, and that if the did something like that in the future they could bring a trouble down on themselves. From what I have read my request for a letter like that was not unusual, and yes it was certainly possible to state that what my relative had done was actionable. But Mr. Lavallee just flat-out refused to do it. He had various reasons. Several times he said, I don’t want to do litigation, and each time I said, “yeah, I don’t want litigation. Just a letter saying that if they do again something like what they did before, they will be committing X, and will not be in a good position if I elected to litigate.” Then he’d shift to another reason for not writing the letter: There was nothing to say because the person wasn’t doing the thing any more. And I’d say “yes that’s true, but you can still write a letter saying that during the period when they were doing it they were doing it, they were violating my rights.” And he’d say, but what’s the point? And then he’d switch to doing some amateur version of counseling, saying he thought that with family an attempt to work things out was better than involving lawyers. And I’d say, “you may be right, but I’m not here for therapy, I’m here to ask you to perform a legal service.” And then he’d start to a story about a family member of his own, and how he’d handled it, and I’d bring up back to the issue of why, exactly, he object to the letter. For a while he was saying that he saw why I minded what had happened, but that my family member had not exactly broken the law. And I said, but anyone would agree it’s unfair and wrong, and I made up an example of my doing an analogous thing to him. “If I did that, surely you’d have some recourse to make me stop. What would it be?” And he just refused to even discuss that example. Also, he was a bad listener. When I’d try to lay the whole situtaion out for him, which I could have done in 15 mins. max, he kept interrupting with questions about peripheral matters, such as what a certain family member did for work. Their work was irrelevant to the problem, and by asking he was interrupting my giving him the big picture. Also,while I was talking he’d be squinting at the note his secretary had left him, summarizing what I wanted (somewhat inaccurately) instead of just sitting and taking it in. Overall he came across as disorganized, distracted and paternalistic. One other thing. When I called to make the consult appointment, his secretary told me he absolutely would not meet online “because there’s so much fraud around.” I tried persuading her, but eventually gave in and agreed to meet in person. That was highly inconvenient, and also forced me to do $50 worth of Ubering. Then 35 mins before the appointment, when I was already in the Uber, he texted to say that if i wanted litigation, he wasn’t going to do it, and also that he’d only have an hour to talk.. Since I didn’t want litigation I came anyway, but it sure was inconsiderate of him to insist I come in person then sort of halfway cancel at a time when I was likely to already be en route. Oh yeah, I also brought my passport as extra ID. I expected to be asked to show ID at his office, since they were concerned about fraud and impersonation but nope, nobody asked to see it. Meeting with Lavallee was crummy and pointless.