M. Anthony Brown Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP Anthony Brown, Tony Brown Ripped off my $10,000 and didn't offer services agreed upon Los Angeles California

My family had recently retained Anthony Brown represented by your firm Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP (JMBM).  Anthony was retained specifically per the agreement  to represent my deceased brother In the filing and abatement of an open appeal & restitution so that properties held by the court could be returned to Eric’s estate.  None of these services were rendered, nothing was filed, and Anthony burned through the entire $10,000 retainer doing research and learning how to do abatement appeals.  This was not the original agreement.

Per all the other attorneys I’ve unfortunately now had to engage, they informed me Anthony could never represent the estate without initiating probate and being appointed by the court or work in tandem with the court appointed probate attorney.  Anthony was well aware that probate was not established and never once suggested/recommend this was required.  So Anthony could never have been able to fulfill the basics of the agreement which was to represent my deceased brother.  Sadly, Anthony not suggesting and requiring this is just another fact he was not qualified to represent my deceased brother legally.

Like most attorneys who decide to take on cases, Anthony was informed on all the information he needed to understand and take on the case and file the abatement of the appeal. But only after signing the agreement and collecting the full retainer amount, Anthony then went back and burned through half of it learning how appeals and abatement works on my bill.  He then proceeded to let me know he didn’t want to file the abatement of the appeal which was the basis of him taking on the case.  Meanwhile, the District Attorney filed.  I asked Anthony if he was going to file a response and he said “it would be a waste of money”.  So just watching on the sideline without any dispute or rebuttal, the District Attorney got the appeal court to close out the appeal.  All other appeal attorneys told me this should have been filed and disputed.

The plain fact of the matter is, Anthony was just not skilled enough to take on this case.  One question he should have asked if he was as experienced as he claimed he was in this area would simply be this: 

“What was the circumstances of your brothers conviction?  Was he convicted in a trial or did he reach a plea deal?” 

This would have been the question any experienced attorney in this area would have asked prior to taking the case and agreeing that an abatement could even be filed.  Anthony is now educated on this subject at my family’s expense.

In the end, when it came time to deal with the restitution, Anthony was already checked out due to the fact this was out of his league of expertise.  He then asked for an additional 30K (3x in addition to the original retainer amount!).  How could you be this far off if you were an expert?  Regardless, I called him on his bluff and agreed to pay this and told him to prepare to battle these guys.  So what did Anthony do?  He doubled down on his bluff and then said “Well, my partners at my firm are disagreeing with my amount of $30K and they want me to charge $50K+”  Come on guys, this is just bogus and clearly a guy who is bumping up the price high enough so he can walk away.  I would actually be fine with that, but give me my money back considering Anthony did nothing.

The final response from Anthony before we asked for the paperwork back was 5/17/18.  As Anthony never engaged the court in any manner, I received the appeal filing on that day from the PI/Court runner instead.  If Anthony was actively engaged in the case as he was hired to do, he would have been actively receiving all these filings.  So when I forwarded the copy I received from the court in an e-mail to Anthony, I asked “Hi Tony, So is the appeal closed now?”  His only response was “Yes. The case is back in the superior court for a restitution hearing.”   Then I asked “Ok, so what is the next steps”  I got back nothing.  No e-mail, no phone, zero until 5/31/18 when I asked for the CPA paperwork back. 

Is this the type of communication and behavior that represents JMBM especially when representing a recently deceased family member, my brother?  I would hope this is only a reflection of Anthony and not your firm.

This report on Anthony was sent to all the partners at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP which includes Bruce P. Jeffer, Robert E. Mangels, Jim Butler, and Burton A. Mitchell.  No apologies, not comments, nothing.  So this just goes to show you what type of people your dealing with.  They are perfectly nice and cordial until they take your money, then they burn through it and you never hear back from them again.

Avoid this firm at all costs.  Now with lost time and money, needed to start all over again and get new qualified attorneys.  Lesson in the future, never hire an Attorney nor firm that doesn’t have any reviews let alone several positive reviews.  Now these guys are on the books so you all know now to avoid them.  Feel free to reply if you have been ripped off by them as well