John Michael Harmata

As a person, John Harmata is a relatively nice guy. He is quite bright and well spoken. His knowledge in the area of business law appears to be good. However, as a lawyer, I have found him to be profoundly unreliable, irresponsible and completely disingenuous. John will give you a great sense of ...comfort and competence when you speak with him. But, once that meeting ends he is just as likely to completely forget what he just committed to. He might promise to call you on Monday and you won’t speak to him until you call and track him down. My experience with John Harmata was so bad that it was bewildering. John represented me on a case regarding Real Estate non-disclosure. He prepared a written complaint, had me send him the money for filing fees in San Diego County and started negotiations with the opposing lawyer. Although I had paid him roughly $3,000 to date, things quickly fell apart as he started settlement negotiations. He was impossible to reach, but when I finally hunted him down, he would tell me that he was waiting for the courts to assign us a date for a Mandatory Settlement Conference. Months passed between communications with me insisting “John, every negotiation has a life. This thing has gone on way too long”. He would then insist that he was waiting to hear from a mysterious “Attorney Stevens”. Ultimately, I hopped to get his attention by withholding payment on new invoices, but it seemed to make no difference. In 2013 I filed a complaint with the San Diego chapter of the California Bar association. John called me, apologized profusely, promising to complete the $30,000 settlement. I never heard from him again. In May of 2014 I decided to research the status of my case and found that no case was ever filed. John had inexplicably made up the entire thing. In closing, if you’re looking for a nice guy to chat with regarding a problematic transaction, you should give John a call. However, if you actually need to get something done, I would suggest that you call a real lawyer.