Nathaniel Burney

I have approached Mr. Burney on two occasions as a potential client, and received legal advice from him on these two occasions. As it happens, I am a practicing attorney and have also been a client in the sense of hiring him to assist me on cases on three other occasions. These matters are more... appropriate for a Peer Review so I will refer to these cases as little as possible in this review. However, I did meet Mr. Burney initially in regard to the most serious criminal defense matter that I have ever handled so I do wish to mention how we met. In this matter, a man that I knew to be a very good guy, and who had hurt no one was facing the potential of going to jail for the rest of his productive life. I had gone in to help him for his arraignment, and when I got the defense packet I nearly had a heart attack. It seemed from my limited understanding of that area of the law that my client had no defense at all. Shortly afterwards while reading the Wall Street Journal online I saw a mention that the Supreme Court had overruled a constitutional doctrine that had held for 17 years, and the facts of my case were so close to this case that it appeared my client had a serious potential defense. I posted online to try to find an attorney who was familiar with this new case. Mr. Burney responded almost immediately stating that he had already written a blog posting about the case (the Supreme Court had made its decision perhaps less than 48 hours prior to this first email from Mr. Burney). From the receipt of this email, I was in his office within a couple of hours and he proved most helpful to this matter which after many month eventually resulted in my client getting a disposition in which he never did a night in jail. My next experience with Mr. Burney was in the midst of one of the most shocking crises of my life. He was not the only attorney who assisted me in this matter, but there was one complexity of the matter I brought to Mr. Burney who gave an excellent road map of how to diffuse the crisis. As it happens, I did not hire him on this occasion but rather utilized his advice to handle it on my own. The matter was dismissed on account of the governments failure to do anything within a procedural time limit. Regardless, his assistance in this matter is something I could never forget. More recently, I was handed a summons by an undercover police office as part of an end of the month dragnet on the platform of the Union Square subway station at rush hour for the crime of having been smushed against a metal railing by my fellow passengers on the express train. Mr. Burney gave me some advice as to how to deal with that matter as well -- it was rapidly dismissed. Mr. Burney is wickedly smart, cheerful, gentlemanly, profound in his philosophical observations about the law, up to date in his use of technology and easy to reach. Until recently I didn't know that he was an author and only after I started reading his book did I realize that he had illustrated it himself, and there are a lot of illustrations. I see Mr. Burney as a profoundly ethical attorney in the sense that he doesn't so much act ethically because there are ethical rules mandated by the profession but because he really understands how much society benefits by people acting ethically. His understanding of the areas of law that he practices in are nothing short of profound. He has great knowledge of the workings of the courts. There is one incident that tremendously stands out in my mind about Mr. Burney's abilities. I brought a matter to him where I thought my client had technically committed a crime by violating a provision of the NYC admin hoursing code. Mr. Burney looked up the statute on his cellphone and showed me in less than 2 mins that my client was probably innocent -- the case was soon dismissed.

I got arrested for possession with intent to sell. This was and is my only offense. My girlfriend found Mr.Burney online and he met with me right away. He was really patient with me and answered any questions that I had. I wanted this to be over as quickly and painlessly as possible, and that's what ...Mr.Burney did for me. He was able to get me into an outpatient program and no jail time, which was the best thing that could of happen for me. I've been clean ever since and I wouldn't have done it any other way, or with any other representation.

Nathan Burney comes off as a very weird character. Which tricked me as he tries to make that pass that as "genius" and "too smart to be understood". I made a poor decision in hiring him, based on the fact that he didn't appear to "hardcore" sell his services as some do, and that he had worked w...ith the DA's office which according to him, made him the best choice and justified him "being very expensive". I regret that my distressed state of mind led me to hire him versus a more "traditional" and aggressive lawyer. He is very ill at ease and shy when you meet him, strangely his name is unknown at the registration desk, nor does it appear anywhere in the office he shares. He pretended to not know I was coming from Avvo, or that he was well rated here and comes on top of searches. This white lie was a red flag. Nathan Burney gets ALL of his clients through Avvo. By the way I have asked Avvo to look into his reviews which I find very surprising. The main issues I faced with him : - he only responds per email, often after a week or two. He will never, ever pick up the phone, so don't expect reactivity. He failed to respond to other attorneys I then hired to make sure my case was going in the right direction. - while I didn't particularly expect sympathy, he became plain rude and unresponsive the minute he received the retainer. - he hardly took any attention to my case, as he "was busy writing a book". The only reason he took me on was to finance his lifestyle but he could not show more disinterest in what was happening to me, and the blatant and obvious fact I was wrongly accused by my spiteful ex. - his lack of attention and available time resulted in his total failure to negotiate anything (which takes time and understanding of the case). In fact, he was indeed the DA's best friend and besides sending rude and contemptuous remarks, he never lifted a finger to close the case in my favor. - he never read all the material I sent him to give strong arguments against my ex's ludicrous claims. - he took the opposing counsel's first offer and left it at that, and did the same thing with the DA. Of course, because that required no effort. I would strongly recommend you think twice before hiring him.

In my experience with Nathaniel Burney as my criminal defense attorney, he was an incredibly charming, and witty gentlemen. Unfortunately, that is where much of appreciation for his service ends. In my experience with Mr. Burney, he has continued to maneuver around granting me the services that he cl...aimed he would provide. Some of my issues with Mr. Burney are as small as providing copies of paper work that has been submitted to him and being able to communicate thoroughly about the issues of my case. Some issues are much bigger because they stem from his decisions to reject, redirect and flat out avoid my questions and the services that I reasonably asked him to implore. Other issues stem from a fundamental disagreement about the direction of my case going forward. After paying a HEFTY retainer fee for his legal services, Mr. Burney had said that his services would require much more money and he would be less than zealous in my defense if those fees were not received. It is abundantly reasonable for a professional to charge a significant fee for a significant matter. What is not reasonable is paying such a fee when you are not comfortable with that professional's level of service and/or efficacy in the case up to date. I would have been much more able to invest my trust in Mr. Burney's abilities if his continued assurances were not hollow and repetitive. According to Mr. Burney, he is a busy man. In his own words, he stated that he had not had a trial "in ages and was aching for one". At the time, he indicated he had no expectation to become occupied within the near future. After receiving his retainer fee, Mr. Burney immediately told me he became a representative in two other criminal court trials. This inconvenience is furthered by the week that he formally requested to handle prior responsibilities. Mr. Burney fairly informed me he would need three specific days out of the week to invest in other responsibilities. As we proceeded closer to these dates, his need for time grew into that entire week. This issue of availability is furthered by the fact that he is unavailable over the weekends. Nathaniel Burney is an incredibly intelligent and charming professional. It is unfortunate that his choice not to serve my best interest in my case ultimately led to his dismissal.

When my son got into trouble, it was the first time. I looked at the possible penalties he was facing. I considered letting him go with a court-appointed attorney, But the stakes were too high. I called Nathan and he answered his phone even though it was almost midnight. He met with my son the ...next morning, and I waited nervously, thinking of ways to post bail. When Nathan called, my son was with him and his charges had been reduced to something inconsequential. I truly feel God led me to the avvo website and to Nathan's name.