Sanford J Asman

We had Mr Asman file our trademarks some years ago. Out of the clear blue, he calls us up to tell us there was an infringement and that we should file suit to protect our marks. He took a ten thousand dollar retainer to start the suit. We could not reach an agreement so decided to go to court. Mr... Asman advised us we would have to cough up more money as we go along since he already used up the retainer. The defendant filed a response to the judge in the case and apparently, we were supposed to respond to that (found this out though a consult with another intellectual property attorney). The judge ruled against us and threw the case out of court and Mr Asman accepted the ruling but said we would have to cough up even more money if we wanted to contest the decision. He felt at this point, we had no case though. We did consult with our business attorney who put us in touch with an intellectual property attorney in her firm. The opinion was that there were balls dropped and that I would have to talk to a malpractice attorney who would also file against other attorneys. This was not an easy task. When we finally found one, we were told that we had to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that had the errors not been made, we would have won the suit and that we would have to have a trademark attorney testify to that. Catch 22! Our reputable malpractice attorney advised us we would be throwing good money after bad. We decided to try to file an omissions and errors claim against Mr Asman's insurance company. I'll give you three guesses as to the response to our discovery letter. That's right! NO INSURANCE! To add insult to injury, after carefully reviewing Mr Asman's charges, he billed a few thousand over our agreed upon rate. When we questioned it, he said he had sent out an email a year earlier that he raised his rate. We have no record of the email nor could Mr Asman produce the email that was sent. Good luck going after an attorney in small claims court for money! it would be postponement after postponement if you did not spend significant money on an attorney to represent you. Valuable lesson learned. Next time you hire an attorney, get a declaration page from his insurance policy. By the way, we refused to pay the last few hundred dollars he billed us and when we refused because he owed us a lot more, he threatened to send us to collections. We never paid it and obviously, he never went after us.