Brendan Robert Appel

Unfortunately over 6 years later and I have ongoing disputes with this lawyer. As for his response on yelp on 11/4/17 he is questioning my honesty and his explanation is totally false on everything. He is completely lying by stating that we actually were awarded anything in the court of appeals. The ...real truth is because of his negligence by not using an expert’s testimony at the trial to determine my damages we were awarded nothing. The trial court disregarded the damages claimed in our case because it was me who prepared the damages and they deemed it unreliable because I am not an accountant. The court of appeals agreed that we are entitled to collect damages and sent it back to the trial court to recalculate the damages. The trial judge awarded us $45,000. This was again appealed. And the bottom line is we were awarded absolutely nothing because of Mr. Appel’s massive blunder in the first place to not include an expert testimony to solidify our damages. Everything boiled down to we were damaged and entitled to fees for our damages but no one could verify how much our damages were. And if you re-read how much Mr. Appel charged us in the first place, he had absolutely no excuse to not use an expert witness. He is also being dishonest about his claim this he was awarded a summary judgement. He was awarded a partial summary judgement which is not final and therefore not appealable pending our counterclaim disputing his fee and malpractice. Finally in order to judge Mr. Appel’s billing practice and moral compass, on April 24, 2018 Mr. Appel emailed my lawyer Mr. Bellas the following, “When we were last in court, you had asked for the amount for our attorney’s fee claim remaining on out complaint. Our total fees and expense is, to date, $20,101.21.” Just to make in abundantly clear to everyone. After Mr. Appel collected over $40,000 for a claim that started with an offer to settle for a little over $4,000, he is now asking $20,101.21 for the 3 page motion of a summary judgement for his fee to collect the $24,725.56 in the partial summary judgement. I would love to see Mr. Appel stand before a jury and explain that as a lawyer, he wants $20,101.21 in lawyer fees to collect on an unpaid fee of $19,373.12 (plus 5% monthly compound interest which totaled $24,725.56) with a straight face. These fees that are stated in Mr. Appel’s engagement letter as, “in the event of litigation to enforce this agreement you agree to pay our reasonable attorney’s fees and cost.” It is my understanding that most of lawyer’s engagement letters do not include such language and Illinois courts very seldom if ever award such damages. The irony of all of this is that I went to Mr. Appel in the first place to defend myself against being sued even though I was the one being damaged in the first place. Throughout the trial courts and appellate courts they all agreed that I was the victim and damaged but because of Mr. Appel and only Mr. Appel I have been awarded nothing and have spent several thousand dollars in lawyer fees. Lastly as for Mr. Appel’s request for you to visit avvo.com to see “many positive reviews from our clients” please note that when I wrote my bad review on May 29, 2014 he only had one previous review from 2007. One day after my review he miraculously had two 5 star reviews, 4 within one week and enough within a month (all 5 starts eh?) to place my bad review to the bottom of the site. Goes to show how fully honest he is. Other than one review in 2018 his last reviews were in 2016. I wonder how many new ones he'll get to cover this up?

I have worked with Brendan and his team three times over the past two years and I highly recommend their services. Brendan helped us close on a home sale and a home purchase last month and he also helped us draft rental agreements and consulted with us on another property. Brendan and his team are ...tremendously diligent and responsive and their fees are very reasonable - especially considering the high quality work that they do. I will work with Brendan again and I highly recommend his services.

Brendan helped me and my husband through 2 long cases (a foreclosure and a fraud case against our lender). He handled things with genuine care and knowledge spending endless hours preparing our cases and after every court date coming to see me or texting me to let me know everything was going smoothl...y. He's always prepared for what ever his opposition presents to him. I truly believe in him and would highly recommend him to anyone.