Melvin Warren Hoffman

Mr. Hoffman had assured us that our son who needed accomodations from the BOE for special education, ADD and reading disorders - would have have no problem getting the accomodations if we hired him and went through with an impartial hearing, with all of the evidence and evaluations we had regarding o...ur son's disabilities, this would be a slam dunk. On the day of the hearing, he reassured us that the BOE didn't have a leg to stand on and that it would be an easy case to win. We came (as we thought) fully prepared with all of our documentation and notes do defend our case, but he failed to let us know that all of our info had to be remembered by heart and that we would not be able to recite any of our notes regarding dates and conversations. He did not prepare us for the routine questions the BOE would be asking, he on several occasions failed to mention all the issues our son had (the judge was quick to point out his many mistakes during the hearing), couldn't remember all of the accomodations we were seeking - which again the judge questioned him on, failed to prepare our witnesses (teacher, tutor and psycologist) for the questions they were asked - (as you have to remember that the lawyer for the BOE tries their best to make you tongue tied and mislead you and your witnesses), never objected to any lies or misinformation the BOE lawyer and witnesses provided, ever though we had provided him with everything he needed to know about our case (and the judge does not allow you to itterupt to correct him). He also never objected to the 2 witnesses for the BOE (that gave testimony over the phone) when they were clearly reading their notes sitting in front of them - which is a no-no (you could hear them turning pages and saying "well it says here...". Once the hearing had concluded, and we asked him what happened he started to back peddle responding "well I told you that you had a slim chance of winning this case, but I did what you wanted - this would be a very tough one to win (as if we would have gone through with this extremely stressful expirience knowing we had no chance of winning and paid him a ton of money knowing we were going to throw it all away). In the end, we lost the case and threw away our money. I would not hire him again.