Jose Isaia Ybanez Utzurrum

Jose Utzurrum

It is interesting that "anonymous" made this post. The facts are these - I was hired by anonymous's company to send out a cease and desist letter to a person who anonymous believed defamed his company (which is a bit ironic considering Anonymous' post herein). That was the extent of the engagement - Nothing more. Anonymous agreed that the terms of the agreement that Anonymous actually hired me was, "1. I am to prepare a cease and desist letter to the person who you believed defamed your company, indicating that I represent the company and that the person defamed your company. 2. I will handle any follow-up conduct, for example, phone calls and follow up letters if there is a response to the letter of representation and that the conduct does not involve significant research. 3. The engagement DOES NOT include any court action, i.e., litigation conduct, for example, preparing and filing a complaint in civil court or filing an application for a restraining order, etc. ..." Anonymous claimed that he didn't want to be "nickled and dimed", so I reduced my fee to send out the letter and represent his company as set forth above by 50%, specifically I prepared and sent the cease and desist letter, i.e., 1 and 2 above with the limitation of 3. It should be noted that I had never met or spoken with Anonymous until this one engagement. After the person who Anonymous claims defamed his company responded to the cease and desist by justifying her review of Anonymous's company on a review website and explaining that what she posted was true, Anonymous wanted to file a civil lawsuit. Since further representation in a lawsuit requires a written agreement (in the state of California representation which is likely going to require a fee of over one thousand dollars requires a written retainer agreement), I emailed my proposed agreement to Anonymous. His attorney insisted on changes. I agreed to some but I held on to one provision which required the Client to dispute a bill statement within ten days after receipt. Anonymous wanted thirty days. I said ten days. Anonymous then wanted ten business days, which is literally a difference of about two to four days. This request made me question Anonymous' intentions on hiring me since the requested change was insignificant or inconsequential to the billing process. We exchanged nineteen emails relating to the retainer agreement. The amount of time that the nineteen emails took concerned me since the emails were really about one provision and dealt with verifying that the client agreed to a billing statement, i.e., that the client did not dispute a billing statement so I can get paid. From my perspective, thirty days to determine if a bill was accurate is a bit long, since it delays payment of the bill (while I am doing other tasks in the case) and usually my bills are max two pages, i.e. few minutes to review. Mostly I did not like the tone of the emails. Bottom line was that I did not want to have Anonymous as a client. As in all relationships, sometimes personalities do not fit. This was not a professional relationship that I wanted to further. Anonymous asked me twice as to where to send the retainer funds. I did not want Anonymous's money until the written agreement was signed, i.e., the terms of our agreement were etched in stone. I NEVER "abandoned" Anonymous, since I NEVER represented Anonymous or his company for anything other than a PRE-LAWSUIT cease and desist letter and followup. I was NEVER hired by Anonymous or his company in litigation (lawsuit conduct). Not sure how Anonymous "wasted" his money. He received exactly what he bargained for. Something was accomplished with sending the cease and desist letter. Anonymous is now aware that the person that he believes defamed Anonymous's company by writing a review of Anonymous's company is not going to remove her review of his company since she believes what she wrote is true. These are the facts.