Kenneth Edward Labowitz

We lived in England for the duration of our dealings with Mr K E Labowitz of Dingman Labowitz PC, Alexandria, VA which hindered communication somewhat but shouldn't have been a problem with a dedicated counsel. Mr Labowitz. had been engaged by the executor of a will as the trustee of a testamentar...y trust left to our infant son: “to pay for his future university education”. It was a sad, bad experience for us: Mr Labowitz oversaw a loss in wealth of ~63% and his failure to perform his duties as per the published directives has left a lot of questions. For starters, the lawyer-client relationship begins with a discussion of fees, yet Mr Labowitz never discussed his fees with us even though the Virginia Bar has published instructions on this subject. The lawyer's fee shall be adequately explained to the client. When the lawyer has not regularly represented the client, the amount, basis or rate of the fee shall be communicated to the client, preferably in writing, before or within a reasonable time after commencing the representation. Amongst a vast (sic) amount of correspondence between Mr Labowitz, the Virginia Bar, and me, but completely out of the blue, Mr Labowitz averred that he had discussed his fees with me via a phone call. (This would have required an international call involving a 5 hour local time difference.) Sending a document via email or mail would have been more efficient and would have provided hardcopy reference material. Even more worrying is the fact that I have never spoken to Mr Labowitz. (It is not simply the case that I have forgotten the conversation he refers to. People like us don’t receive calls from American attorneys and it would have been a memorable event.) Mr Labowitz may have been confusing me with another of his international clients. Nevertheless I asked him to check his records for the call details. He declined but the fact remains that we never knew what fees were deducted from the trust. The VA Bar saw no need to query the differences between our versions, accepting the statement of their member. Considering its stated purpose the trust appeared a natural candidate for investing in safe, long-term instruments for the 15 years of its lifetime yet it matured with a loss of ~63%, (down from $114k to $43K). We cannot determine how this loss came about because we never received monthly statements from the trustee or the account manager at Wells Fargo despite several requests for them over the years. We were also unable to get answers about tax paid (even though the trust never turned a profit) as well as several other things usually of interest to an owner of managed investments. Mr Labowitz moved the trust to a different financial institution for its final year. He never told us about the move and when we found out he would not explain why he made it. It made no sense considering the trust was severely depleted. I made a formal complaint to the VA Bar which resisted accepting it but eventually put it on the docket and he was exonerated; things were recorded which simply hadn't happened. This was very disappointing; all the research I had done was simply ignored.