Benjamin Rosenthal

We had a horrible situation with Benjamin Rosenthal. Upon our original consult, he told us we had a very strong case based off a complicated termination that involved being fired after threatening legal counsel. He said that was illegal and if there was a slam dunk, this would be it (although he did say there was no such thing as a slam dunk). Based on this legal advice, we opted to pay hourly and not go contingent which was offered. For the demand letter, we suggested he include some other angles as this was an egregious employment situation and there were other angles that could have helped gain momentum but he insisted this was the best angle and proceeded to send us a draft of the demand letter on only this angle. The demand letter felt more like a copy and paste letter and he had very basic mistakes, such as addressing the parties involved incorrectly. He had to look it up which blew us away that he didn't know how to formally address men in the plural given his profession. He did include our minor revisions and the demand letter was now ready to be sent. JUST BEFORE SENDING IT (AFTER ALREADY RACKING UP CLOSE TO 2K IN LAWYER FEES)... he called in the very late afternoon to say that, oh btw, the statute he had originally referred to was worded quite differently from how he remembered and it pretty much completely invalidated our case. Basically, firing someone for THREATENING counsel IS NOT illegal, firing someone for actually OBTAINING counsel IS illegal. He even admitted it was now an entirely different potential for a favorable outcome as it was now a much weaker case. Instead of the tough slam we thought (and were told) we would be sending, we sent a slow lob that we got absolutely burned with. It was embarrassing. We felt stupid and looked petty in front of our former employers. It felt like a total bait and switch. When you pay someone $350/hr, you expect them to know there stuff. After that bombshell in which we were truly shell shocked, he then says, "I want to get this out today". We had stomach aches knowing how badly things had all the sudden turned and how our former employers would manhandle the situation. It felt like he cared more about getting it done than doing it right or what was in our best interest. He gets paid either way, and that was obvious by how he handled it. The response from our employer's paralegal (yes, they are so cheap, they used a paralegal) absolutely nailed the problem with the wording. This paralegal's response seemed top notch compared to what we sent (although dishonest which was par for the course with this employer). He was detailed, specific, and the tone was effective. I honestly couldn't help but think, so this is what it should have looked like instead of the copy and paste lets-gather-for-tea tone that we sent. There were other things having to do with unemployment that he admitted he didn't know much about so quite honestly, I am not sure what his expertise is but we certainly didn't experience it. I would stay far away and wish we would have. It made an already bad experience, so, so much worse. And, btw, we did free consultations with another lawyer and a 30 year HR professional turned paralegal afterwards and they said that angle was terrible. After receiving the response, Ben kept trying to come up with cases that justified him sending the demand letter, but no one else, including a couple of lawyers, and a 30 year HR professional turned paralegal, believed we had a case on this angle. Lessons learned.... the hard way. Now we get to pay $2k for being humiliated and we have to let all the other valid points go.

Ben Rosenthal was obtained as my legal counsel. It became clear to me he was capable of handling my case, which was a very simple matter. He was non-responsive and acted in an unprofessional manner on more than one occasion. I was forced to fire him and he was paid thousands of dollars even though his lack of efforts and interest cost me my case.