Keith L Altman

The firm is unethical and unprofessional. The attorneys should be investigated for violating the Michigan Code of Professional Conduct. I lost $15,000, received no meaningful representation, and was left to defend myself in a workplace investigation. Furthermore, despite appalling and nearly non-exi...stent representation, they repeatedly refused to refund my money and, only after numerous requests, produced inaccurate and misleading billing records. By way of background, I have been an attorney for over twenty years. I am also a college professor. A student made false allegations against me in retaliation for a complaint I filed against the student for egregious misconduct. To be clear, the allegations against me were false. I contacted this firm and paid $150.00 for an initial consultation, where I spoke to an attorney from Boston for about five or ten minutes (the firm is based in Michigan). He quickly requested a fee of $15,000 to represent me. After that, I never heard from him again. Also, I had one meeting with Mr. Altman to discuss my case, which lasted no longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. Over the next three months, I never heard from him again. Instead, I was given a non-attorney assistant, whose responsibility was essentially to answer my questions, even though he was not qualified to provide legal advice. In fact, over the investigation's three-month period, this firm spoke to the university once and drafted two poorly written letters to the university in which they misstated the facts. Quite frankly, they were embarrassing. When human resources released their report, I was forced to spend hours drafting not one, but two written responses and ultimately resolved this situation myself. I contacted the "assistant" to complain about their conduct. He admitted that he "dropped the ball" and apologized. After that, I never heard from him again. Instead, out of the blue, I received a call from an attorney in another state -- recall, the firm is based in Michigan -- who was suddenly assigned to my case. I had never spoken to this attorney before, and the attorney asked me what I would like the firm to do for me. At this point, I was so appalled because it was obvious that retaining this firm was a terrible mistake. The attorney ultimately wrote one more letter, and I was left to fend for myself until the investigation was officially concluded. After many hours of drafting responses and meeting with university officials, the investigation was resolved favorably. But I did all the work. Ultimately, I lost $15,000. I demanded a refund repeatedly. Indeed, in a good-faith effort to resolve the matter, I compromised and said I would accept a refund of $7,500. They refused. What's worse, I repeatedly requested their billing records; when I received them, they were inaccurate and misleading with, among other things, duplicate entries for the same conversations or tasks, and no indication of how much time was spent on them. It was shocking. For the past year, I have hesitated to file a complaint against this firm because I feared that the firm would respond with falsehoods. After speaking with my attorney colleagues, however, and showing them the billing records, they were adamant that I should file a complaint with the Michigan State Board of Ethics. I intend to do so, and caution everyone to not, under any circumstances, retain this firm.

Hired them for a school dismissal, as another person previously said in their review Mr. Altman claims he knows the schools attorney and has a good rapport. The initial letter written by their advocate was very elementarily written and the lack of communication after the letter is sent left much to ...be desired. When I wanted to speak directly with the attorney I was treated as though I was being a bother, after spending thousands of dollars I believe I am warranted at least one conversation. In the end the answer remained the same but the effort behind it was not worth what it cost. When getting dismissed from the school you are truly at the school's mercy do not pay an attorney unless you have an actual legal matter that has some sort of precedent behind it; do not use for academic dismissal otherwise you are truly wasting your time and money.

First off, during the initial consultation with Attorney Altman, he told me he knew my school’s attorney and made it seem like I had a strong case. If he tells you he is familiar with the other party’s attorney, don’t believe him. His office did the bare minimum work in my case. If they had put in mo...re effort and we still lost the case, I wouldn’t be as upset. Except for the general counsel meeting, they did nothing differently that I myself hadn’t already tried to do (write an appeals, send a few emails.) They charged me $13,000 and I got absolutely nothing out of this case. During talks with my case advisor, she would forget details and had to consult her notes. Sometimes I had to send multiple emails to get a response. They put me through 5 months of anxiety and stress with very slow progress and I ended up losing the case for reinstatement to medical school. After losing the case, they tried to just get rid of it and didn’t even try to genuinely explore other ways to help. I hired them after reading positive reviews on here but I am starting to think those reviews are fake. Do NOT hire this firm unless you want to lose thousands of dollars and have no outcome in your case.

I originally hired the K Altman law team to help with problems at my son’s school. They were the only ones to respond in the time I needed and seamed knowledgeable. But as things continued, they seemed to constantly forget the details of my case. At one point they even started to close out my case fo...rgetting a meeting still scheduled with the school. There efforts seamed to help the school trying to remove my child instead of advocating for him. When I started to insist, they take action to help they told me they could not guarantee outcomes. Finally, just days before the final hearing they told me they would no longer help and dropped my case. Turns out this was the best thing they could have done. Once I could no longer rely on the advocates help, I took the actions I had been asking her to do. I was able to keep my son in place for the rest of the school year and even got the district to write special accommodations I had asked for. If I had never hired K Altman law it would have gone so much better and saved me thousands of dollars. I don’t think anyone should ever rely on K Altman law team for help.

Mr. Altman and co., during our consultation felt so genuine and ready as if he had a call to action. He had made large statements such as how likely we were to turn around my situation and that it was a done deal. He also commented repeatedly how likely we’d be able to have the school pay for my atto...rney fees and the like. No promise was made, but being that I was in a time of crisis I feel and felt preyed on. I felt disregarded throughout the entire process, out of the loop on everything, and I was led to believe things that were not factual, such as an agreement supposedly between Mr. Altman and my school’s counsel which would allow me to make up the semester I lost time-wise. I was told my suspension could get overturned with ease—then it began to take weeks to hear anything back from Mr. Altman and co. This is where my concerns began to grow. I’d send email after email waiting to hear back, and scheduling a phone conversation was near impossible without at least a single reschedule on their end. I was told in an email that there was a conversation between Mr. Altman and my school’s counsel that there should be no issue in a class overload, and that Mr. Altman and my school’s counsel had worked together previously/had a good relationship. I was also told by my school’s administration that somebody associated with Mr. Altman (not entirely sure who) simply agreed with my school’s counsel that I was at fault after I had been told otherwise by them. They failed me at every single step of my crisis and over a year later I’ve yet to see even a minuscule positive result. I feel betrayed, lied to, and would never in good conscious recommend this group to even my worst enemy. $10,000 for roughly 6 or so meetings between Mr. Altman and my school’s counsel (as far as I’m aware)—appalling.