Xinying Valerian

Case number RG19002294, Alameda County Superior Court, California. I'm turning 40 TODAY as I celebrate my birthday on 4/25. My "birthday gift" is the order of discharge letter in my bankruptcy case. My life is ruined. I hired Xinying in 2018 for an employment case. Most of the hours I worked for a... company were not compensated. e.g. if I worked at the company for 9 hours,but I only taught 1 class (1 hour). The company would only record my working hour as 1. When I sent an email to the company asking for unpaid wages etc, they fired me ON THE SAME DAY! Even before the written discovery was done, Xinying wanted me to do a mediation and she promised me that if I agree to do mediation I get to pick the mediator. After I said yes she went ahead and picked a mediator without even a phone call with me. That mediation turned out to be a nightmare for me. I signed a "termsheet" ( a short draft with a few terms). I should not have signed it. I believe I was pressured and given the wrong information about that termsheet. I was told if I don't sign the termsheet, she would consider withdrawing and the money she advanced for me is not free money, if anything happens I may owe her a lot of money etc and the termsheet is something to show progress made that day, the full and complete settlement agreement will be sent to me a few weeks later, if I don't like that one, I can walk away from it and there would be NO settlement. I felt pressure and I trust her 100%, so I signed. I found out that was huge blow to my case. Even if I didn't like the "full and complete" settlement agreement that was sent to me later, I couldn't get out of that "termsheet". Xinying just wanted me to follow through that termsheet and settle. I'm not a lawyer and my thought was simple, you "pressured" me and gave me the wrong information. So you got me into that thing, now you get me out of it. We argued. She in the end made a compromise by lowering her fees. I said no. She eventually left my case. The prebills she sent me had an hourly rate of 850. The fee agreement she drafted didn't mention hourly fee, it was contingency based. She told me in person her fee was 400/h when we met to talk about my case. I trust her 100% so I never asked anything about that until i saw 850/h. She said my case was a "complex" case, but it was not. And she also mentioned fair market value and in the past a judge granted her 850/h in another case etc. After my employment case was done, she threatened to sue me if i didn't give her the 190K attorney's fee at first. Then lowered her number at least twice as I remember and at 1 point, she also wanted a non-disparagement agreement. After receiving the last offer she gave me before the fee arbitration she filed, I countered and she didn't say no or raise the number or anything, she went straight to fee arbitration. A big surprise to me. And she won the arbitration. A loss of about 440K to me. i really couldn't prove what i was told that led to the signing of the termsheet. We are from the same country, we sometimes speak in our language and we and her assistant went to a restaurant for lunch by the water. She was like a family to me. I trust her 100% before the termsheet incident. I worked like a slave for about 3 years, fought my employment case and Xinying's lien for about 4 years, I saved about 30k by eating MacChicken( 1 dollar a piece back then) and ramen noodles etc. In the end, I lost everything. What hurt the most is the betrayal of your own lawyer who you trust 100% at first, who you see as a family. I have new views on trusting someone, morality, lawyer as a profession etc. After she filed for arbitration, I agreed to her last offer with the non-disclosure(non-disparagement) agreement etc. But she said no. In the end, I filed for bankruptcy. Now my life is ruined.