Cynthia Ribas

Our small company hired Ms. Ribas for a simple Breach of Contract lawsuit. From the minute the engagement letter was signed, all that Ms. Ribas did was talk about her invoices and getting paid. She would send her invoice every 3 to 4 weeks and demanded payment immediately. One time she billed us for ...2 months and demanded payment within 2 days. She threatened to stop working if the payment was not received. We looked back and these threats came from her each and every month. We would pay her within 2 days of receiving her invoices. We had never experienced this behavior from an attorney before. It made us conclude that she probably didn't have any other clients. She kept reminding us that her $350 rate was discounted, but in our opinion, she is not worth $350. She would write long and repetitive emails that contained information we already knew and would bill us over and over for it. The opposing party purposely sent an 800-page document that was unrelated to our case, and she insisted on reading it. She billed us for that time too. She doesn't like being asked questions or challenged. She wanted us to settle the case by paying the opposing party an amount which was unacceptable to us since the opposing party basically hijacked our patented product. When we refused to accept this, Ms. Ribas waited until we were out of town and she filed a Motion to Withdraw from the case. She filed this Motion smack in the middle of an important Settlement period. She knew the other party would never settle with us, if we didn't have a lawyer to represent us and they didn't. What she did is shameful. In her Motion to Withdraw, she claimed she was not paid. We showed the Judge the date that we received her invoices and the date she was paid, proving her wrong. When she saw that we responded to the judge with the truth, that she was paid, she changed her story and said we talked to other lawyers and tried to change the legal strategy. All of this is untrue of course. We just disagreed that we should pay the company after they played a role in committing fraud and obtaining US patents with forged documents. I do not think that is unreasonable. Ms. Ribas however did. The Judge allowed her to withdraw and now we are seeking new representation. It will be difficult for us because she made public disparaging comments about us for all other lawyers to see.

Ms. Ribas is not a good or ethical lawyer. She mostly only talked about being paid and not the strategy of the case. Her invoices are really messy with paragraphs of unrelated tasks combined with a total number of hours instead line items of each task and how long the task took to complete. She doub...led billed us for an entire month and when we asked her to correct it so it didn’t look like we owed her more than we actually did, she became angry with us . Every time we questioned anything about the case, strategy or the law, she became angry. She writes long repetitive emails repeating the exact same information over and over again. She charged us for all of these email too. When it came time to have depositions, we told her that one person would be best to get him on the stand and not bother deposing him. She didn’t listen to us and she got nothing from the deposition just like we had warned her. She just wanted to run up our bill. In another deposition, she failed to subpoena the witness and then couldn’t ask him any questions during the deposition. We had to pay for that major mistake too. She doesn’t seem to event know the simple process of a deposition must less complicated law. Do not hire this lawyer unless you want to be sure to lose your case.

I went to Ms.Ribas to assist with a landlord tenant issue she always made conversations long, did unnecessary research and her emails were too lengthy. I requested on several occasions for her to shorten her responses however that never happened. I was charged $5,000 and received nothing in return.... Her invoicing is non specific and when I requested itemized breakdowns my requests were ignored. She became extremely emotional at various times, I as the client was emotional I felt it was the job of the attorney to reassure me the client not be emotional along with me. Be cautious when working with her and definitely demand itemized billing.