Michael Palumbo

Mohammed, your review is disingenuous and misleading. You received your ticket on 10/8/17. You did not immediately hire us. You first went to court yourself on 5/18/18, and had it adjourned to 3/15/19. In that 10 month period you did absolutely nothing until Tuesday, 3/12/19 when you called our office. I explained to you that our calendar was full for the rest of the week and that I would see if we could get coverage at the last minute, but in order to do that I may have to obtain more per diem coverage, which would result in extraordinary costs which I would have to pass along to you should you want to hire us. I then confirmed that I could in fact commit you and sent you a retainer which reflected the additional expenses we had to shoulder due to your recalcitrance in failing to diligently handle this matter. Everything was disclosed to you, and you agreed to this. We went to court for you on 3/15/19 as agreed, and had the case adjourned to 9/27/19. On 9/27/19 we went back to court for you and had the case adjourned to 4/24/20. On that date the pandemic was in full swing. The court was closed and in full blown panic mode and did not know what to do. Motorists were getting their licenses suspended left and right through no fault of their own with no immediate recourse to reinstate their license, because it had to be done in person at the court, which was closed. Through this crisis, my law firm joined forces with several others that did a volume practice in NYC and fought diligently and as a voice of one to protect our clients. On at least two occasions I personally e-mailed Mark J.F. Schroed, the commissioner of the NYC DMV, to cut through the red tape to protect you and all of my clients. I assured commissioner Schroed that if our concerns were not addressed that we would escalate it to the bar association and the governor's office. I was also in constant contact with Bushra Vahdat, the chief judge of the NYC traffic court. Through my efforts, personally and in unison with my colleagues, neither you or any of my clients had their licenses suspended or were in any way prejudiced. I was eventually able to have your case re-calendared for 10/13/20, which was a full 3 years after the ticket was written, and we were successful in getting the original charge dismissed and having you found guilty of a 4 point speed and not a 6 point speed. As I expressed to you in my closing communication, that was a significant result, because we avoided a $300.00 additional fine which would have triggered had you hit 6 points. In addition, we had the matter adjourned so far out that the conviction will not trigger thousand of dollars of insurance increases. The bottom line is that we gave you a Yoeman's service. Your lack of diligence is what caused us to have to charge you what we did, and that only went to offset the additional out of pocket expenses we had to lay out. I am also proud of how our office advocated for you during the pandemic and did not allow the bureaucratic sloth and apathy of the TVB during the pandemic victimize you, or any of my clients. If now that you know the full story of what we did and how we handled your case, if your prospective as to your ROI has changed, you should do the right thing and amend your review to reflect your revised opinion.