Law Offices of Gerald E Smith

Review: I hired Attorney Gerald Smith for a criminal matter concerning my fiance. The charges were Dui with boidly Injury. DUi was for high level of ANTIBIOTICS and untraceable doses of codeine, from a week ago given at a hospital by a DR. for an infection. Apparently its illegal to drive on antibiotics? We werent aware " Antibiotics could get you high?" Also the bodily injury was whiplash and my fiance was re-ended by the other vehicle and he had suffered head wounds and a concussion he was forced to be administered DUI test not looked at by ER. He had a deep head gash, could barely stand .He wasnt in the position to preform those exercises. Anyways we went with A Public defender at first who was awful and even gave us a wrong court date on the like the fourth court date we had to appear at and that ended my fiance, who had no priors and no record a failure to appear with a 250k bail. after spending all our savings. We hired Mr, Smith because he said he was confident we would win and he wouldn't take the case into trial if he wasn't. He also said that we were past plea bargains since the bargain was 3 years anyways and we would go to trial. the contract was made up for trial only, it would go to trial regardless. He set fees at 12k for trial with an additional 5k for expert witness of 2500k each. We paid 6 k at the beginning plus 2500 for the first expert witness , a toxicologist plus some other payments. Well Mr. smith then comes at us saying that we got a better plea bargains after the DA actually looked at his case and his record and is now offering only a 6 month term at most. So we agreed. He said that he never hired the expert witness even though we made a payment to one. One that never existed. His non trial fees are 6k. Which we paid initially. he has refused to pay us back anything else we paid over. Even those for an expert that he never hired??? Also I referred two additional clients to him and never recieved a "bonus" as stated. He has ignored me when I ask for the $ we overpaid.Desired Settlement: I would like Mr. Smith,to pay me at least the 2500 for the expert witness that he admitted he never hired cuz he never found one and we settled before trial. Why have we paid more if no trial happened? He did not do much work and the 2 extra clients I referred he never even thanked me for. He should stop avoiding me and explain to me where in the contract it says that we need to pay for non exist-ant experts in a non exit-ant trail and pay fees for that too. Before I go to arbitration.

Business

Response:

Mr. [redacted],

I have attached my response that was sent to you on May 28, 2013, the date I received the complaint. Further, I had spoken to another individual at Revdex.com (female) wherein I explained that [redacted] was never a client but a girlfriend of my present client. I have never represented her, nor have I ever entered into a legal agreement with her. Due to Attorney client privileged information, I can not discuss the present case or terms of the agreement that she is complaining about. Shouuld you wish to further discuss this matter, I can talk to you on the phone and explain that I have not only represented Mr. [redacted] on the original serious felony charges, but I have represented him on the Restitution hearing as a result of the plea, and on another misdemeanor matter that is still presently before the court. (Essentially, this means that I have represented Mr. [redacted] on three matters for the price of one case (which I agreed that I would not ask for the balance owed on the first case).

Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact this office. I am a little surprised that you did not receive my original response on May 28, 2013.

Gerald

E.

Smith