George R. Landrum

I hired Mr. Landrum to represent me in a case involving a septic installer. This installer damaged my property during the installation, wouldn't repair the damages, and sued me for the amount of the contract I had with him, plus additional charges I did not authorize, wasn't licensed when he actually... did the work on my property, and charged a usurious amount of interest. Mr. Landrum never filed my counter claim, and the case went to mandatory arbitration. Mr. Landrum was required, by law, to file a pre-hearing statement with the arbitrator 14 days prior to the arbitration. Unbeknownst to me, he failed to do this. When we went to the arbitration, the arbitrator refused to let me present the evidence of the damages to my property because of Mr. Landrum's arrogance in no believing he had to file the pre-hearing statement. Because of this, the contractor was awarded over $14,000. The original amount of the final invoice was a little over $8,000. This obvious conceited act on Mr. Landrum's part started a downhill slide for my case. I fired him and hired another lawyer to do a trial de novo. The other lawyer ( without my approval) negotiated for another arbitration instead of the trial. This type of things continued to happen to me. I eventually filed an appeal. I lost that appeal, too. I did file with the Bar Association against Mr. Landrum, but they didn't think he had done anything wrong. I eventually hired my present lawyer and we filed a lawsuit against Mr. Landrum for malpractice. He filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. The judge in this hearing ruled for him, even though she admitted that what he did was legally wrong. Now he has filed a counter suit against me for $794 that he says I owe him. Most of this amount is for work that he claims to have done for the arbitration and almost half of it is for the arbitration itself, even though he did absolutely nothing for me at the arbitration because he wasn't allowed to present my case. Mr. Landrum is arrogant because he believes he can bend the rules to suit himself. He also refused for several months to provide my new lawyer with the complete file of my case that he was required, again by law, to do so. My lawyer had to file a Motion to Compel before he finally complied. He has lied in court (during the Motion for Summary Judgment) and has now tried to say that my lawsuit against him was "frivolous". Mr. Landrum commited breach of contract because he failed to represent me diligently. He never even tried to do any discovery for this case. I had proof of all of my damages (totalling almost $8,000) but Mr. Landrum never found the other things, like the usury, because I don't believe he ever read the contract. I read it but, because I am just a home owner and don't know the laws, I didn't know that a contractor can only charge a home owner 12% interest. He charged my 18%. Mr. Landrum should have reallized that fact. There are numerous omissions such as these that he commited, but they are too long to list. I would suggest anyone who is thinking about a lawyer to steer clear of him.

One of the worst sins a lawyer can do that won't put them in jail is to miss a statutory limit and file a lawsuit too late. George did that. And I lost my chance at justice. Another is to draft a divorce agreement, ignoring his wife's advice (she was a law student at the time) in such a way that the ...payments terms survived bankrupcy. Very bad form! A nice guy, a good family man and maybe he has improved. Let's hope so for his failures to protect my enterest have cost me dearly in terms of both time and money.