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Showing 1 - 2 of 2 reviews | Punctuality

Posted by anonymous | December 31, 2020 | Hired Attorney | Speeding & Traffic Ticket

Lawyer managed to get me more point that DA suggested

I contacted.the DA office as soon as I got the ticket. The DA offered to give me two point and standard fine. As I am a resident of Florida two points would just count as any number of points as Florida would impose three points on me if I was charged with any points in another state. I contacted Mr ...Palumbo and told him about the DA offer. Mr Palumbo said he would try to get me a better deal and he normally gets good results. However, he said, if he could not get a better deal he would revert to the original offer made by the DA. When Mr Palumbo received my signed retainer and all the documents, the offer was still valid for 10 more days. Eight days after the initial conference, when you decide you would accept an offer or go to trial, I received an email from one of his delegates saying that they resolved my case and got me three points plus the standard fine. They also gave me the wrong legal advice by saying that I can remove up to four points if I took a driving school in New York, not being aware that my license is issued in Florida and in order to qualify for the points reduction my license had to be issued by NYS. Florida won't allow driving school to reduce points on an out of state ticket. I told his delegate that the original offer was for two points and they responded immediately saying do not pay the fine we will get back to you. TWO WEEKs later I found an email from Mr Palumbo saying that the offer of two point had expired and that in law any offer can be withdrawn unless accepted. Then why did not he accepted when he had the time to do that as the offer was, according to the letter from the DA, still valid for ten more days. During those 10 days he would have been able to negotiate a better deal and if not as he original promised, revert to the offer that was on the table. He insists that every thing was made in a timely manner and no delay in management the case was encountered. The case did not even go to court. He did not even file a discovery request to check what was wrong with the officer or their equipment. I have had a clean driving record for over 30 years. I have never been stopped for speeding or even any other minor offense, my driving record was sent to Mr Palumbo with the retainer. A person with this driving history is worth standing a trial. Mr Palumbo boasts his firm is the only firm that offers money back guarantee which I had to ask for after he left me worse off regarding the number of points, fine and also the fees paid to him. I asked for that, he said you do not have a right for a refund. He claimed that the original proposed charge was 6 points and he managed to reduced them to three. Which is not my case as my original proposed charge was two points and he managed to upgrade it to three points. My take on him is if he could not get a better deal that what the DA originally offered, he should have gone to trial. When I Told him that he said you would've needed to come all the way to New York if he went for trial. I did not have the slightest objection to that. I had a clean driving record and wanted to keep it clean that is why I hired him in the first place. Also if I hired an attorney why did have I have to appear in court when I already gave him an authorization to appear on my behalf. I did not like the way Mr Palumbo handled my case, he left me worse off than when I hired him. He gets paid for me to be in a better position not a worse one. I did not like his false claim of money back guarantee. He claimed that he reduced the charge when the charge was already less than what he got eventually. I was wrong to expect the lawyer I hired and paid from my hard earned money to be on my side. I was wrong to expect honesty and proper handling of a case as I thought lawyers would do. I was wrong to think that the lawyer I hired would argue on my behalf not argue with me giving me false statements. I have evidence in email correspondences available for inspection

Michael Palumbo

Replied last December 31, 2020

This review is a misleading lie. He contacted us on 11/28/17 after representing himself pro se. His received his ticket back in August of 2017. He was charged with doing 89 MPH in a 65 MPH zone, which is a 6 point speeding ticket, NOT a 2 point violation as he makes up in his review. He lives in Florida and could not make the court appearance. When he called he advised that he had already been made an offer of reduction to a 2 point violation. I recommended that he accept the deal by mail, but he wanted 0 points. I told him that if he hired us we would try but that there were no guarantees. This was also reflected in my retainer which he signed - that there were no guarantees. Despite the fact that he knew about the court date in August, and contacted us 10/28/17, he still waited until 11/6/17 to hire us. He claims that " the offer was still valid for 10 more days." That is a LIE! The prosecution can withdraw an offer ANYTIME before it's accepted. I explained this to him ad nauseum. Yet he still has the audacity to claim that the offer was "valid" when we were retained. The records he sent me revealed that the offer was made on 10/10/17. Nowhere on the papers he received did it indicate an "expiration date." He did NOTHING until he called us on 10/28/17, and then did not hire us until 11/8/17. By then the prosecutor had withdrawn the offer. We would have NO WAY of knowing this, as we cannot act on a client’s behalf until hired. In addition, had the offer really been valid for 30 days it would have expired on 11/9/17, a mere 3 days after he hired us. No way could he have tried to negotiate a new offer in that short of period of time, and if any document reflected that the deal was due to expire on that date I would have rejected the case because there would have been nothing we could have done for him. We found out that the offer was pulled when we tried to negotiate a better deal. In my experience it has never before occurred in a traffic ticket case so was totally unforeseeable, but is nonetheless proper. A prosecutor can withdraw an offer before accepted. We timely accepted the new offer of 3 points and had his matter timely resolved so that his NYS driving privileges did not get suspended, which would have triggered Florida to suspend his license as well. We moved this case at the 11th hour with speed, diligence, and accuracy. He also claims that we did not " file a discovery request to check what was wrong with speed, the officer or their equipment." This is actually true. We didn't do it because by the time we got the case our time to file discovery demands had already expired - his prior lawyer, HIM, did not make any discovery demands. There was nothing we could do by the time we got the case. We also did try, when he called us after the fact incessantly complaining, to re-plea it to a better deal. We had NO OBLIGATION to do this mind you, as we had fully executed on our agreement with him. We did this as an accommodation and to give the best customer service possible. As for giving him his money back, we guarantee to reduce or eliminate the points from what was CHARGED. He was CHARGED with 6 points, and we negotiated him to 3 points. We fully executed within the terms of the agreement and the guarantee. He claims that "the case did not even go to court," yet that’s an impossibility. He confirmed in an e-mail that he understood the risks involved. He simply had unrealistic expectations despite what he was consulted on and what was reflected in his signed retainer. His offer went backwards and, even though it was through no fault of our office I can understand why he is upset. However, that does not give him the right to tell false and misleading lies in relating his experience with our office. We did nothing wrong and represented him professionally and competently.

Posted by Scott | September 25, 2018 | Hired Attorney

Amazing!

Working with Michael Palumbo & Associates helped me a lot. They were easy to deal with, professional and timely. Best of all, they minimized my exposure greatly. I would recommend them to everyone.

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