Michael Walsh Armstrong

I hired Mr Armstrong to represent a family member in a domestic dispute case. The case took well over a year to work through the system and ultimately concluded w. a plea deal. I am not going into all the gory details but here are my brief takeaways: - his communication skills are not very good. h...e tends to either over state or under state the significance of certain things. - he would only give us straight answers after being pushed. it seemed to me that he likes to hedge his comments / answers rather then being straight forward. - there were a number of times that he didnt know the procedural rules for a particular filing or event. at one point, he told us to just figure it ourselves. - the most important thing to be aware of, he likes to take on high profile cases - such as the Brock Turner Rape Case - and he will push his other clients to the side for it. he took this on while he was represented us and it immediately consumed all of his time, we were basically a forgotten client. we could not get a hold of him, took him days to call us back (prior it was the same day). when we were in court he only talked about that case and his TV appearances. He was rather self consumed with the whole thing. - the final piece that was most disappointing, he misrepresented the plea deal on a number of items. based on his repeated assurance that no jail time would be served, my family member signed the deal and was in jail shortly thereafter. turns out the plea deal referenced a very specific penal code violation that is ineligible for the alternative work program. He obviously didnt do his homework on it or bother to look it up. when we confronted him w. this information he simply said "i dont know, I havent heard of that before". My personal option on the matter is that he know but just didnt care. he was wrapped up on his high profile case and was looking for the fastest way to conclude our case. We then received a letter from him within the week stating that he non longer represented us and not to call or contact him.

I hired Michael Armstrong to represent me in a frivolous lawsuit brought against me. Armstrong handled my case with a level of indifference and incompetence that is scarcely believable for a high-fee Palo Alto attorney. Armstrong's efforts on my behalf included the following: 1) He told me I would pr...obably lose because he most likely never bothered to understand my case; 2) He disclosed potentially damaging personal information to the opposing attorney; 3) He failed to send me information I requested in a timely manner; 4) He disobeyed a direct instruction from me; following which he was rude and petulant when I demanded an explanation, leaving me no choice but to fire him; 5) His final bill included some pretty spurious itemizations that somehow conveniently rounded up to a multiple of $500. When I hired a competent attorney instead, who did as I instructed after only one meeting, the case against me was dismissed before it ever went to court, but by then Armstrong's incompetence cost me time, money and undue stress in addition to the burden of the lawsuit itself.