Joshua David Gruenberg

I reached out to Josh Gruenberg for a consultation and was promptly asked to call him on his personal cell phone, without any upfront explanation of fees or how the consultation would be billed. The entire call lasted only 9 minutes, during which I felt rushed and unable to properly explain my situat...ion as he kept interrupting with questions. Toward the end of the call, he informed me that he would have to bill me because, in his words, I ‘couldn’t answer a simple question.’ When I expressed concerns about not being informed of billing practices upfront, he abruptly hung up on me. This experience left me feeling disrespected. Transparency and professionalism are essential in legal consultations, and I did not feel that was upheld in this interaction.

I hired Josh to defend me in an employment case. I already had a severance offer from the company because they knew they had screwed up and clearly retaliated against me for a discrimination complaint. He told me that I had a strong case and promised he could get me more. I told him I could not affor...d to pay him and he agreed to take the case on contingency. I should have seen the signs early on that he was never fully engaged in my case because he never seemed to grasp the details or the timeline. He kept asking me the same questions over and over again and would forget the answers I gave him. He assigned a junior attorney to the case right after I signed the agreement who was overwhelmed and intimidated by opposing counsel. He started my complaint with an astronomical demand that would have obviously been rejected. He spent the first few weeks doing absolutely nothing. No depositions were scheduled, no subpoenas and very little discovery. Then I started hearing that my deposition was to be scheduled before any others. When I asked why opposing counsel seemed to be in the driver's seat I was told "that's usually the way it is". So 6 months went by and no progress. I was deposed in February and the other side had still not been deposed. Finally with my constant urging, depositions of my former employer were scheduled for May. But in March, Josh started calling me and telling me that because an innocent and innocuous error was discovered on my resume (that had no relevance to my being hired or not at the time), he could not continue my case until I deposited $10,000 in his trust account. I explained to him that their depositions were key to my case and the other side was clearly grasping at straws but he kept insisting that suddenly a case that was worth millions in his initial assessment was now "not winnable" and needed to be immediately settled. Even before a single deposition had been done to establish the facts of my case, he was telling me that he needed me to start paying him or settle for very little. He left me no choice but to allow him to settle my case for nothing as I couldn't afford to give him the money he was demanding in order to do his job and depose the defendant. In the end, I had to agree to let him settle for nothing. He then failed to even protect my interests and prevent the employer from taxing my settlement check at 50% tax rate. I received my final settlement with his cut taken out of it but also he charged me for every court filing and Uber transportation charge he incurred. When I look back at it, he took the case and promised me I had a strong case to jump in and see if he could get part of a quick settlement. When it looked like he would be spending more time that he bargained for actually defending and deposing, he backed away, put a financial gun to my head and did what was best for him ultimately, not what was best for me. He is in it for himself. I wouldn't recommend him to anyone and wish I had gone to a large reputable firm instead. Hind sight is 20/20 but I wrote this review to prevent someone else from making the same mistake of hiring Josh Gruenberg...