I had high hopes about this law firm based on the reviews I found online. We originally contacted this law firm back in February 2015 and quickly got a response from a Mr. J. Kyle Brooks. He wanted to speak with us further which we were extremely happy about. We immediately contacted him back and go...t NO response. Left several voice mails and sent several emails over the following month. On March 26, 2015, I actually called and spoke with the secretary there, who informed me that Mr. J. Kyle Brooks no longer worked there and that they were sorry that no one contacted us back. I sent her a follow up email right after that phone conversation just to have something in writing. We then received a phone call from Mr. Mark Bullman and he seemed highly interested in our case. Requested more information which we gladly sent to them and even asked that we contact our criminal defense attorney to grant them permission to speak with them. Which we gladly did. A month went by, NO response or communication. On May 18, I emailed again asking for a status update and to PLEASE let us know if they were going to take the case or not and that we just needed to know one way or the other so we could look elsewhere. The secretary apologized for the delay and said she would have the lawyer call us back that day. We did NOT get a phone call. On May 26th, I emailed again for a status update. I immediately got a response from the secretary. It was the generic email that gets copied/pasted into emails stating that "due to caseload, we have decided not to take your case." Keep in mind that we had been going back and forth for over 3 months, sending information, sending emails, leaving voice mails, requesting permissions from attorneys, etc. So to get the generic non-personal automated email response, was a slap in the face and it was extremely unprofessional. To waste people's precious time was unbelievable. That generic email could have been sent to me 3 months prior BEFORE wasting my time. When I responded to that email, the response I got was, "I am very sorry that you feel that way. Please understand that we currently have a very large caseload volume with several deadlines quickly approaching, that has required a large amount of time and attention. This is in addition to our firm being short staffed. We did not feel it would be right to take your case and not be able to give it the time and attention it deserves. I sincerely apologize. Thank you." If the caseload was SO large and you didn't have time, then why string me along for 3 months requesting information from me and my husband, which we provided every time? Makes no sense at all. The best part about all of this, is that the 3 months that we spent sending information to this law firm, was the last 3 months available out of a 6 month time frame window to file charges against the city police department that we were trying to get held responsible for their horrible behavior. So when I was begging to get an answer on our case status, that time frame came and went. I would have thought that since Mark Bullman was a former police officer, that his law firm would be handled differently than other law firms and would not leave his potential clients in limbo for months when there was a deadline to file charges against city police departments. I would have thought that it would be more professional than that. So for those of you who are looking at the good reviews on here, just keep in mind that not everything is handled professionally here. This law firm wasted our time to the point where all of our options flew right out of the window. They should have had the common decency to let us know MONTHS prior that they didn't want our case. You should be ashamed of how you handled this.
Mark Bullman
Replied last June 20, 2016
As you can see from our other reviews, our clients are very happy with our representation. Unfortunately, because this review is very misleading, we felt we needed to clear up some misstatements.
First, we never consulted with anyone by the name Stacy in any way related to a Mr. Hart who called asking for representation. Mr. Hart was never a client, and he did not provide information for us to review until almost three months later than he says that he did. Once we received some information from him, we reviewed it within five days and called and emailed Mr. Hart. He did not reply. We sent additional emails and called again, and he finally responded. We spoke and he provided contact information for his mother. (Mr. Hart admitted that he was not good with technology and apologized for failing to get back to us.) We then tried to contact Mr. Hart’s mother in Alabama to get more information because the information he provided made little, if any, sense. However, she never returned our calls. We tried to reach Mr. Hart again, and we were finally able to tell him that we could not reach his mother. He said he would talk to her but we were never able to reach her.
Based on the information we had, we explained to Mr. Hart that we did not see any liability on the part of the police officer involved, and that, in fact, the officer seemed to do everything correctly. We also explained that we saw no claim against the nursing staff or security at the hospital where Mr. Hart was committed for evaluation. In fact, it was Mr. Hart and his mother who became hostile and assaulted hospital staff when they were following proper procedures for a person involuntarily committed for help. The police officer came to try to defuse the situation and, from what we could tell, was entirely professional.
Mr. Hart’s allegation that his rights were negatively impacted is simply untrue. He speaks about time limits that did not apply and could not even remember who the police officer worked for. Nevertheless, we told him that we could not help in plenty of time to pursue any claim that he felt he might have.
We tried to be kind to Mr. Hart in explaining how we did not see any claim that he could pursue. He told us no one else would represent him, so we looked over the police report and the little other material we were given, to see if there was anything we could do. We did not feel that there was. It is very sad that Mr. Hart had to go through what he did, but we saw no claim for him to pursue, and, in fact, he and his mother were at fault and could have been charged with crimes, but the officer and staff decided not to pursue them. He was told this in a timely manner and had plenty of time and opportunity to try to find someone else who might be willing to provide him with representation.