William E. Grigo, Attorney Incompetent Bankruptcy Attorney/Paralegal cost homeowner home, car and over 65K!! Southampton NY

Attorney William E. Grigo, aka: Bill Grigo, aka: The Law Office of William E. Grigo and his incompetent paralegal, Paula Mauro and office asst/paralegal, Marissa Glass have cost my family my home, my car, almost 10K so far in legal fees, my brother's home and 65k in debt repayment. He is presumably operating without malpractice insurance.  Do not deal with this lawyer for your bankruptcy or for any legal matter! He is currently operating now doing immigration law after screwing up a simple bankruptcy for my husband and I. After going through 3 years of stressful legal issues, I have come to find out that he may have been practicing law with no malpractice insurance.

He has moved, changed his field of law, and has been dodging my current lawyers attempts to sue him for his blatant malpractice which we are still paying out money for due to the incompetence of not only him but his incompetent staff, mainly Paralegal Paula Mauro and office assistant/paralegal Marissa Glass. He has a Facebook page, he is on LinkedIn and apparently he also has been working for the firm Goodkind, Rudoff & Sucharow, LLP probably using their malpractice insurance. In short we a were referred to him by the person handling our loan modification.

We had just lost our business in 2009/2010 due to bad economic times. We had little money for an attorney and he came recommended as a bankruptcy atty who would not over-charge us and would take installment payments. My husband had over 80k in business debts that he had personal guarantees on. Therefore he had to file bankruptcy. I had about 8,000 personal credit card debts that I had begun working out lesser balances with the credit card companies. I also had my name on a deed of a home that my brother has lived in for 15 years. I was under the impression that my name was on as an owner only in the event of his death.

Grigo assigned the task of researching the deed and handling the entire bankruptcy to his paralegal Paula Mauro. In short, she told me she researched the deed, my name didn't show up as an owner so we should do a joint bankruptcy this way I didn't have to pay my debts either (Which were about 8k as mentioned). We had no income coming in, my husband was still dealing with tax debts owed from the business and we were both trying to get unemployment. I trusted that Paula did her research and Bill was overseeing everything and we went ahead with the joint bankruptcy. I had no copy of the deed in my possession and had no idea where to obtain one at the time and I was too busy dealing with all the unpaid taxes that had to be paid so I put my trust in my attorney.

The day of our 341 meeting with the trustee, Grigo announces that it was an oversight by Paula and my name was indeed on the deed of my brother's home as a "co-owner" and this would now be considered an asset that had to be disclosed. He could've at that point had me pull out of the bankruptcy before walking into the 341 meeting and advised that I no longer wished to file. However, he and Paula both said to go through with it anyway because there was case-law against the ability to take the house away from my brother since I never lived there nor did I ever put money into the house. We again trusted him and went forward.

He disclosed to the trustee that my name was on an asset and I found out later on that he could've postponed the 341 meeting and pulled me off the bankruptcy. Due to his incompetence, laziness and lack of care for his clients, I ended up in a court battle against my own brother which led me to have to settle paying $65k over 4.5years so my brother wouldn't lose his home. In hiring a new lawyer to represent me, I now had to lay out more money. Then I found out that his incompetent paralegal never re-affirmed my car in the bankruptcy so my car is currently in the process of being reposessed. He told us to settle and put a claim into his malpractice insurance and that we woukd be ok.

My new lawyer advised same assumimg he had malpractice ins. My new lawyer now tells me he may not have any malpractice insurance. Considering the fact that he is now practicing immigration law, and has moved and has not replied to my new lawyer to provide her with his insurance info, I'm pretty sure he didn't have malpractice ins. at that time. So when the 4.5 years are up, if we don't come up with about 40k (balloon payment..we are paying a few hundred a month till then in the hopes that the malpractice claim would've paid the balloon payment), my brother's home will be forced to be sold to pay my husbands and my debts. So both of us have a bankruptcy on our record and still have to pay out 65k. Where's the justice?

A simple bankruptcy for two desperate people who lost their business turned into our worst nightmare due to incompetence. He should've advised me from the beginning not to file a joint bankruptcy because my husbands debts are now attached to anything that my name is on. Had his paralegal done her homework, she would've found my namd was on as a co-owner. At very worst, I would've been paying out my $8,000 in credit card debts which I'm sure payment plans could've been worked out for. Now my disabled, sick brother could lose his home if I don't come up with the balloon payment by then. In addition, We've exhausted all the money we had put aside for the loan mod to save our own home and my car is getting repossessed and I don't have money for that either because I needed to pay for another attorney to sue Grigo. Whatever you do...do not deal with any of these people for any legal matter! 

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