Michael Palumbo

This review could not be more disingenuous, false and dastardly. He should be ashamed of himself for writing it. However,, since he posted it everyone can benefit from it as a cautionary tale of why you should never try to defend a traffic ticket by yourself. By reading this you are going to greatly benefit from this past client's mistake and mishandling of this ticket. This client came to us already having gotten his license suspended for failing to appear in court. However, before that he burnt his 1 free adjournment by accepting a 1 month adjournment. We would have never accepted such a short date. In other words, this is what he did - he plead "not guilty" and they sent him a court date. He had it adjourned a whopping month (which was his only adjournment of right), and then he failed to appear in court. His license was then suspended and he went to the court and did not know what he needed to do in order to get his license un-suspended. So he got the case back on the calendar without un-suspending his license. He calls us at 3:00 the DAY BEFORE the 8:30 a.m. hearing date, and we were still able to get his personal court appearance waived, go to court for him, and do the job for him. The only thing he states is true is that the Staten Island court is horrific. When we appeared in court the next day we had no leverage because he had already ignorantly burned his 1 free adjournment by getting it adjourned a mere month and gotten himself suspended by then failing to appear. Consequently, we had 2 choices (1) get the case adjourned another 10 months WITHOUT having his suspension lifted, or (2) doing the trial that day and resolving the case and his suspension. Obviously, we acted in his best interests and did the trial. Had he come to us when he had first received the ticket none of this would have happened. We always get longer adjourn dates than 1 month on the first date. Then, on a second date when we request an adjournment if they say no we can take no action and post a small bond for another date. In this case his ticket was already bonded (he had did that himself), AND he was suspended (again through no fault of ours). We would have delayed this case at least a year, he would not have gotten suspended, and whether or not he would have been convicted is anyone's guess. However, risk of loss is always on the client, not the law firm. We gave this client a yeoman's service. He called us a mere 17 1/2 hours prior to his court appearance and we were able to service him without charging him a premium for the rush we had to put on the job and the 11th hour rescheduling of our attorneys going to court the next day. By the next day his license suspension was lifted. Further, he was consulted on everything that I expressed here. We told him that it was highly unlikely we could get another date without his license remaining suspended due to the corner that he himself had painted him into. He understood exactly what he had done to himself and could not have been happier that we were going to resolve his suspension and case. He knew that there was a chance he was going to be found guilty. In fact, the actual verdict was secondary to him to just being able to legally drive again. This review cannot be more false and dastardly, and he should be ashamed of himself for writing it.