Michael Paul DiRaimondo

Worked with him in immigration through the IJ and BIA stages, and fired him after he let us down for the second time at the BIA. We were in a much worse position after working with Diraimondo. Not at all effective as an attorney, extremely overpriced, and dismissive and unprofessional. One am...ongst many such rude occurrences was when he called me to be aggressive and rude to me about how I was allegedly "being rude to his secretary," which was an absurd and false accusation he made because I wanted to pick up my documents from their offices. He didn't listen to our pleas to include several strong evidence-backed arguments, and later it became clear that those arguments were extremely important. Instead of admitting to his mistake he continued to make more mistakes and put our case into an even worse position. Worse than all of this, after we fired him, he went out to insult me, my father and my family before the very government prosecutors against whom we hired him to defend us, for sending him "nonsense illegible papers.... that he had no time to waste on" though he never said anything of the sort when we were actually working together. Again, turns out later, these "nonsense papers" he didn't want to read and lied to us about--while at the same time charging us $450/hour for 0.1hours, and 3.3hours and .7 hours and 1.6 hours, etc etc "for reviewing documents"--turned out to have all the arguments he failed to mention in his awful "brief." When I fired him, he started texting me and harassing me, trying to get me to pay him another ~$10,000 for work he didn't do. Also something that only occurred to me later after firing him is that I doubt he ever read most of the documents we sent him nor did he write any of the briefs. I believe he has a bunch of other younger attorneys at his little facade of a "law firm" to whom he contracts out his work that people paid for HIM to do. His bills also have several other lackeys listed as receiving the money we were paying him. Deceitful. I would not recommend working with Diraimondo as I believe he is an awful attorney who will put you in a worse position than you started, and it will cost you thousands upon thousands. I could write pages more and include more details. I only wish I could attach documents as I would gladly attach his "work" here as well as his text messages to me. Again, I could write pages more, but I am not going to bother wasting my time on this guy, and you shouldn't either.

Please be aware of anything they tell you and promise in the initial interview because none of it will happen later on. They just want your deposit money so that they can later bill you 0.5 hour/$450 for reading an e-mail from you. They will have you thinking that because of their connections and par...tner's prior employments will help speed up your case. It is untruthful. Furthermore their paralegal and associate lawyer's are rude and ignorant. They have delayed our case 2 months because legal documents were drafted with BOTH parties names misspelled even thought they had our legal documents to double check to. Later when asked about any of their mistakes they become rude and defensive.

I WISHED I WOULD HAVE READ ALL THE REVIEWS POSTED BY OTHER CLIENTS, BUT I DIDN'T AND NOW I HAVE SPENT MORE ABOUT 18,OOO DOLLARS AND NOTHING HAVE BEEN DONE WITH MY CASE. THIS LAWYER LIED TO ME FROM THE INITIAL CONSULTATION. I TRUSTED HIM AND HE DECEIVED ME. HE TOLD ME HE WILL CHARGE THE TOTAL OF 11,5...00.00 FOR THE WHOLE CASE. I PAID THIS AMOUNT IN FULL. HE TOLD ME IN A MONTH MY NEPHEW WILL GET OUT OF THE INMIGRATION DETENTION CENTER. IT'S BEEN MORE THAN A YEAR AND MY NEPHEW IS STILL DETAINED. DURING THIS YEAR HE KEPT ASKING ME MORE MONEY THAN WHAT WE AGREED. I HAVE PAID AN EXTRA 9,000 DOLLARS MORE. NOW HE WANTS ANOTHER 5,000 AND SINCE I HAVE REFUSED TO GIVE HIM MORE MONEY NOW HE DOESN'T ANSWERS MY PHONE CALLS. I TRY TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO GO TO HIS OFFICE AND HIS STAFF WON'T GIVE ME AN APPOINTMENT UNLESS I PAID THE 5,000 FIRST. I KEEP CALLING AND THE SECRETARY KEEPS HANGING ON ME. AT THIS POINT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. THE CASE IS NOT SOLVED YET. HE PROMISED WAS FALSE. I FEEL STRESSED AND VERY DISSAPOINTED. I FEEL I HAVE BEEN LIED, DECEIVED AND ROBBED. PLEASE DON'T HIRED HIM OR YOU WILL REGRET IT AS MUCH AS I DO.

Absolutely unprofessional lawyer - already submitted my complaint to the NY bar. Showed up MISSING our documents when we arrived to court. Had no reason, nor apology - was simply "too busy and slipped his mind." Is that a joke? He also had forgotten my partners name. For the amount paid, that's ju...st salt on a slug. Further, he harassed myself and my partner via text message when we filed a complaint about him losing our documents prior to trial. A half-way decent human being would have apologized for the mistake and worked harder to remedy it. Not Michael. He seems to believe that owning your mistakes and praising them is the way to go. Avoid at all costs.