William Henry Naumann Jr

William Naumann,principal of the NaumannLawFirm located in San Diego, California, took over our complex construction defect claim after a previous law firm had severely damaged it. Our home was broken and the cost to repair the defective conditions was more than we could afford. The previous f...irm had done virtually nothing for nearly a year, so initially we were ecstatic that after reviewing our claims and evidence,MrNaumann expressed confidence and accepted our matter on contingency. He represented he would pursue it through trial which was extremely important to us as we knew we would have difficulty finding another attorney if Naumann breached his agreement. We saw the Naumann firm as a white knight coming to our recue. He even committed to resolving outstanding issues with previous counsel. It wasn’t long before we saw the Naumann firm doing exactly what the previous firm had done, virtually nothing. Naumann immediately put his junior attorney, Philip M. Kunka,who only had a few years of experience and followed his employer’s example by also doing virtually nothing.Then, within just a few short months of taking our case, no discovery and little more than a few discussions with experts who were already a part of the case, Naumann recommended (against our better judgment) and eventually convinced us to settle with a few of the parties for only a small part of our total damages, promising that he understood the case and assuring us that the liabilities of the remaining parties would allow us to fix our home.He promised to aggressively pursue those parties. We had no idea of the serious damage this settlement would cause to the remainder of the case until much, much later. Unfortunately, we trusted Naumann. But after settling those few parties and collecting his fee, Naumann returned to doing nothing, for the next several months, and running the clock on a looming court date. Naumann did not conduct any discovery,did not listen to experts in the matter, did not take a single deposition in nearly one year of stepping into the case. Then, with just a few months before trial, he informed us that we had a very weak case and should settle with all remaining parties for whatever they were willing to offer. We believe this was contrived solely because Naumann did not want to take the case to trial,the remaining work would be substantial and he knew the damage he had done by settling. When we refused and demanded Naumann do the work he promised to do and get ready for trial, Naumann and Philip Kunka filed a motion with the court making what we believed to be false representations to convince the court to grant a continuance. We were never informed they had asked for a continuance until after it was granted. Then, immediately after the Court granted the continuance Naumann informed us he was quitting our case. This was nothing more than a betrayal and resulted in complete devastation to the case. They had so thoroughly finished damaging our case that no other law firm would accept the matter. The Naumann Law firm did nothing proactive in our case for over a year in that they conducted no discovery, took no depositions and refused to listen to us and their own experts. They failed to keep us properly informed as required by their own ethical standards and even misrepresented facts and our wishes to the court for their own ends. After a five-year, nightmarish journey, our family not getting fairness from contractors and design professionals, and then our own attorneys making a terrible situation so much worse, we feel compelled to share our horrific experience with the Naumann Law Firm in the hope it may help others. We feel betrayed by these men who essentially usedus by settling with themost culpable defendants for a fraction ofwhat the damages were,basically grabbing the low hanging fruit and then abandoned our case. It is our opinion that Naumann never intended to do the work or properly prosecute our claims