Richard N. Gottlieb, Esq Took fees to file bankruptcy case, never told us case was discharged, wanted more money to re-file case when we found out from our creditors not from his law firm!! Boston Massachusetts

As the bottom of the last item "letter" provided by Ms. Stapleton shows, a copy of her complaint was submitted to the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers (the "BBO"). The BBO investigates consumer and business complaints against lawyers for violations of rules concerning legal ethics and charging exorbitant fees and the like. Upon receipt of Ms. Stapleton's letter, the BBO conducted an unbiased investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding her allegations. Substantial documentation was provided to the BBO by my law firm about the Stapletons case and I was interviewed by an investigator from the BBO.

On January 12, 2009, Robert I. Warner, the Assistant Bar Counsel for the BBO sent the following letter to the Stapletons, informing them of the closure of the file:

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Stapleton:

I have reviewed the complaint you submitted to this office, Attorney Gottlieb's response, your comments to Attorney Gottlieb's response, and the relevant pleadings and correspondence. In addition, my investigator has spoken with Attorney Manning. You claim that the Attorney Gottlieb and/or associates in his office failed to keep you aware of the need to provide documentation to the bankruptcy trustee and failed to make you aware [of] a number of hearings in the matter. You also claim that you were not aware that the court had dismissed your bankruptcy petition. According to the docket sheet and the pleadings, you were personally served with pleadings that placed you on notice that your failure to provide updated pay advices and file an amended plan by April 30, 2008, would result in the dismissal of your bankruptcy petition. In addition, on May 27, 2008, you were served with the notice of the dismissal of your petition. Consequently, I do not believe there is credible evidence to support your claims of misconduct. Under the circumstances a decision has been made to close this file."

Normally, I would have let this matter lie. But in light of the fact that Ms. Stapleton chose to take her greivances (now determined to be meritless by the BBO) on line, I felt that the "rest of the story" ought to be told. I have practiced bankruptcy law for more than twenty-two (22) years with many, many satisfied clients. Ms. Stapleton's complaints notwithstanding, I still represent those in financial distress and hope to continue to do so for many more years to come. For more information about me, go to my website: www.bostonbankruptcylaw.net

Dear Ms. Bankowski,

This letter may be falling on deaf ears but I needed to let someone know about the total incompetence of a certain Boston law firm. The law firm of Richard N. Gottlieb esq. 11 Beacon St. Boston, MA It began in September of 2007. I went to the office of Attorney Gottlieb to file at the time what I thought was to be a chapter 7 bankruptcy. My husband and I met with Paul Manning one of Mr. Gottlieb's associates after having communicated with Mr. Gottlieb only by email (enclosed). We arrived to the office prepared with 6 months of check stubs, all of our debt, all of our income information; I even brought my own credit report. Before we sat down to meet with Mr. Manning attorney Gottlieb came in and asked if we had our checkbook ready, after having already reminded me to bring my checkbook during our email conversations. We gave him a check for $2400 that day .Mr. Manning then proceeded to add up our income with our debt and told us we were all set to file a chapter 7 case. We would need to complete a credit counseling over the phone, then schedule a meeting with them after it was completed. After this was completed, I called and emailed the office several times finally receiving a call back late October and made an appointment to see them again in the office in November of 2007 to finalize things before we actually filed..We met again with Mr. Manning the beginning of November went over our paper work a final time before our case was going to go before you,. at that visit, Mr. Manning informed us we made to much money to file a chapter 7, we would need to file a chapter 13 and make payments to a trustee. He miscalculated our income by at least 50,000 a year. We agreed that we would file the chapter 13 our payments were set up for $339 a month we started our payments in November of 2007, numerous times we were told by Mr. Manning that the worse case scenario after meeting with you would be that our payment may go up and we were agreeable to this if this did happen. We were nervous about filing and he repeatedly told us not to worry people do this everyday it will be fine. He told us in two years we would be in good shape; actually making payments would be a better option rather than wiping out our debt totally. We were told to fax in current check stubs which we did, we asked what we should bring to our meeting with you and he said he had everything we needed with him, and we had our appt with you the end of December at which time, Mr. Manning was totally unprepared, had no updated check stubs and could barely answer any of your questions and you in fact called him on that and told him he usually is not prepared when he goes before you. He told us after the meeting with you that we got the bad trustee and he thought this would happen but don't worry about it she hates me he says and does this to all his clients! He was supposed to get you the paper work and we should relax while he took care of it, after all, that is what we had paid him for. We made payments of $339 a month faithfully for months, with no word from Mr. Manning. The creditors started calling in February looking for payments, I spoke to one creditor that told me the case was discharged. After hearing that I called Mr. Manning who returned my call after several days and dozens of unanswered calls and told me that this was not true to continue to make payments to the trustee as scheduled and use the case number we were given when someone calls us which we did. The phone calls did not stop. I called your office sometime in March and was told by someone there that my case was discharged but continue with payments until I speak to my attorney but my attorney never returned my calls!!! we continued to call Mr. Manning to no avail. We began to call Mr. Gottlieb, again phone calls were not returned. We received a letter in the mail about our discharge in late May, again we began calling. Now a woman was answering taking messages, Mr. Manning was in court, he was out, he was on the phone etc.. Finally, Mr. Manning returned our call we were told by him our case was in fact discharged, if we wanted to refile we could do that and to think about it Come in and speak to us againalso during that conversation he neglected to mention that after 6 mos goes by apparently fees need to be paid again to re-file.. My husband again reiterated the fact that we were not told this was a possibility and that the worse thing that could happen was that our payment would go up! We were told our money was coming back to us that we had paid to the trustee. A few weeks passed and we received a $600 check from your office when we had paid at least $2200 by this time. We again began calling the Gottlieb office again no calls returned. They have no secretary, no answering service just and answering machine. I called your office and was told that all I was due was the $600 that the rest of my money was seized by the IRS whom was one of my creditors at the time of filing. We again called Mr. Manning the beginning of June, he was going to call the IRS and get back to us, and he also informed us he was leaving the practice. We never heard from him again after that. We then called and spoke to another associate a new hire who was very helpful on the phone and went over our options with us and told us that there was a good reason why Mr. Manning was no longer there basically because of his incompetence and she would be happy to meet with us and go over our options again no mention of re-filing fees by anyone or anything about a 6 month period going by. We met with the new associate September 23rd. We walked into attorney Gottlieb's office, client charts are all over the place, we had to step over several of them before being able to sit down, while sitting there they received numerous calls from a client who they were repeatedly made fun of, made jokes to us about him, laughed at him with other associates one of them Mr. Gottlieb himself how terribly unprofessional of him!! and they stopped picking up the phone as they new it was him from the caller id. Apparently, this is common practice with this firm to ignore phone calls and ruin people's lives!!! Despite the disarray of the office we had paid this firm $2400 which was difficult to come up with in the first place so we decided to sit and talk with with the new associate and went over our options she was very knowledgeable and helpful and told us several times how incompetent Mr. Manning was and that is why he is gone now, we were ready to proceed to the filing process when once again Mr. Gottlieb comes in and starts talking fees for credit reports etc(apparently that is the only time he appears is when he has to ask for money!) I said we have already paid and this is not our fault he then asked how much we paid I misquoted and told him $2800 and he then told me he could do it for $2500! which was more than I had paid the first time around. I asked why since this was due to his firms incompetence and he told us we were the ones who were not prepared, we didn't fax in our check stubs etc..How are we to know this if we had never had a phone call from Mr. Manning about any of this. He simply told us everything was fine and to relax he was taking care of it. I'm not sure how they would know if anything was missing from our file because there were papers and files thrown all over the office, I was actually sitting on a client's file during this visit to the office, he told us Mr. Manning is gone now we are not going to pick up his mess and was having nothing to do with this unless we paid a second time because it had been more than 6 months. I said if your firm had returned one of my thousands of calls when I wanted to re-file and was told the truth about the case being discharged from his office rather than from the creditors and the trustees office, then it would no longer be six months it would have been only 2-3 months since the first time we heard of the discharge. Pushing us off brought us just past the six month mark where he could again acquire a fee for himself.. We tried to take care of it with both Mr. Manning and Mr. Gottlieb and they failed miserably at returning calls, sending letters, or basically anything that had to do with this case. Mr. Gottlieb should be embarrassed to have such an unprofessional, chaotic, joke of an office in such a prestigious location, he certainly does not deserve it as I'm sure many of his clients would attest to..As far as Mr. Gottlieb treating us the way he did and saying it is not his job to clean up Mr. Manning's mess I disagree it is most certainly his job as this is his practice and whatever happens is a reflection on him. He has ruined the lives of myself, husband and children in the process and who knows how many others. I would like to have my fee returned to me and be referred to a competent attorney. Ms. Bankowski, I know you are extremely busy but if you or someone in your office or anyone you know who could help us and refer us to someone who could take this case to have our fee returned so that we can re-file and try to fix this mess, I would appreciate it greatly!!

Thank you for taking your time to read this. I would greatly appreciate hearing from someone regarding this disaster!!!

Sincerely,



Elizabeth Stapleton
Michael Stapleton
166 Walter St.
Roslindale, MA 02131
617-460-3274

enclosure (copies of emails)

cc: Office of Attorney Gottlieb esq.
11 Beacon St. Suite 625
Boston, MA 02108


Constance Vecchione
Bar Counsel
office of the Bar Counsel
99 High St.
Boston, MA 02110