Laurence S Donahue

Laurence Donahue

We help a lot of biz clients with bad reviews. People are entitled to their opinions. What people aren’t entitled to do, is make expressly false statements of fact. False statements of fact include friends, who didn’t actually do business with you, but give bad review. Are half-truths - that don’t fully identify the issues as expressed by Mr. Robertson here - actionable? It’s not cut-and-dry. Instead of a lawsuit, it’s better to add the missing detail, explain the issues, and let folks come to their own conclusions. I'll do that here. I am limited by attorney-client confidentiality with how much I can disclose, although I am permitted address those issues directly raised in a public forum by Mr. Robertson. I’ll go in reverse order. No delays in paperwork. Mr. Robertson told us to cancel all services for all his companies (incl. resigning as a Registered Agent (RA) from a few of his companies). Turns out, he wanted to use one of those companies to purchase a house, but couldn’t because the company was no longer in good standing after we resigned as RA. He called us on a Thursday evening (during Christmas rush) frantic about reinstating the RA for his company. We agreed, generated paperwork on Friday, and submitted first thing Monday morning. All during year-end rush, even though Mr. Robertson refused to pay our rush fee, that would move him to the front of the queue. He hired someone else while working with us, who sent in the same paperwork (with different names) on that same Monday. The Secretary of State received 2 sets of paperwork, and rejected both because they said it looked fishy. We had no idea Mr. Robertson did this, otherwise we would have warned him. No errors in trademark filing. I work hard to identify the proper class codes and descriptions for a trademark (TM), before we submit a trademark application (TA). If a client pays us for it, we’ll do a trademark assessment (TAS) to study the possibility of similar TM's, and figure out how to thread the needle to avoid a rejection or opposition. We charge clients extra for TAS's, because it’s a lot of work and it’s an inaccurate science at best (i.e. Will the USPTO see a problem or not? Will other TM owners object? It’s hard to predict what third-parties might do). In Mr. Robertson’s case, he didn’t want to pay for a TAS. We submitted a TA based on what he told me, without that extra information. The TM was opposed by a global brand that really has no products or services in Mr. Robertson’s space. When this happens, if an opposing party (OP) is willing to negotiate to revise your TA, it’s something you do. It’s standard practice and beneficial, when it comes up. Mr. Robertson clearly believes I should be responsible for predicting this global brand would oppose his TA, even though he refused the TAS. Honestly, even if I did the TAS, I don’t think I would have predicted this specific opposition. It is an inaccurate science. If there are more prescient attorneys than me, I’d love to hire them – this is a great source of frustration for many clients. No errors in purchase agreement. One of my associate attorneys (AA) drafted a purchase agreement (PA) for Mr. Robertson. This PA was heavily negotiated with opposing counsel, and my AA spent a lot of time with Mr. Robertson discussing the issues, making numerous revisions to the PA. Every word, comma and period in that PA was discussed and heavily negotiated, and we were not successful in negotiating everything that Mr. Robertson wanted. Ultimately, Mr. Robertson approved everything, after we explained the implications to him. Unfortunately, Mr. Robertson was hoping to take advantage of a non-material mistake the other party made, and asked us to do something that we felt would violate the contract and create a conflict of interest. We had to recuse ourselves from the matter, which forced Mr. Robertson to hire other counsel.