Jason Alan Ostendorf

A close reading of this complaint shows that the only real issue was that I billed for my services. It is not wrong for an attorney to be paid for his work. Interestingly, the person omits the fact that I offered her several discounts. When it became clear that the insurance company we sued was trying to bully her with paperwork in order to raise litigation expenses, I felt bad for her, and offered several discounts (I would not bill for a task here and there in an effort to actually keep costs down). Indeed, after adding together all of the discounts noted in this person's invoices, I saved her over $1,000. But again, she conveniently omits this fact. The last issue with the person's criticism concerns the termination. When a client fires a lawyer, the lawyer is required to notify the court. This is for the client's protection. It causes the court to temporarily pause and allow the client some time to get their affairs in order and seek alternative counsel. So, there is no merit to the person's complaints along these lines.

There are a few problems with the above complaint. Having said that, the only thing lacking from it is the truth. The potential client told my secretary to schedule the consultation for 12:30. Within minutes of this conversation, my secretary sent an email to the potential client confirming the 12:30 time. This was more than 24 hours before the consultation, and we never received any notification of any scheduling conflict. We know the email address was correct because the potential client replied to it. It should be noted that his all caps reply included 48 exclamation points ("!") ... On the day of the scheduled consultation, I waited in my office for the potential client to arrive. I was not performing work in any other case, so that I could devote my full attention to him once he arrived. After he was twenty minutes late, I called and left a voice message on his cell phone noting that he was late, and asking for his whereabouts and whether he would be coming in. I specifically informed the client that I had to leave the office at 2:00 p.m. We never received a call back. (We know the number was correct, because we later received several calls from the client from that number where he called us, among other things, "F---ing idiots".) While we offered to reschedule at no charge, we were not willing to offer a refund for two reasons. First, I waited from 12:15 until 2:00 for the client. My hourly rate is $300 (the $150 consultation rate is a discount to potential clients), so the failure to so much as inform us that he would not be attending the consultation resulted in a financial loss of time that could have been devoted to other clients. Secondly, the potential client was just flat out rude. Again, we did offer at first to reschedule at no charge. (This normal, reasonable offer prompted the potential client to refer to us as "f---ing idiots" ...) I am a lawyer, not a psychiatrist. As such, I will make no allegations regarding the mental status of this potential client. I do, however, invite the reader of this post to form their own judgment.

It should be noted that the potential client attempted to file papers against me based on these allegations. Not surprisingly, the allegations are without merit and the papers were dismissed.