My wife hired this lawyer to file bankruptcy for her in early October. She paid all her fees up front upon meeting this individual (at an IHOP). She had to meet him for a consultation at his office in Little Rock before her first appearance in Federal Bankruptcy Court. When we arrived, there were about 20 people waiting for their 'consultation'. We realized that a pre-court appearance consultation was not going to happen at that point. A distraught secretary was fumbling around trying to get everybody's paperwork to them. When our's wasn't ready, I asked her what the problem was and she said 'the printer is backed up' to which I replied 'you knew we were coming for 2 weeks now'. She just acted frustrated and walked off. Once we got to court, my wife did, 't have her social security card so she couldn't appear in front of the judge. She was never told to bring one by this idiot so we wasted a 75 mile trip each way. He stated it will be fine, i will take care of it.
WHile thinking evrything was proceeding as planned, we got notified by mail that the cas was dismissed because of improper paperwork. She contacted him and he said evertyhing would be fine. Two dismissals later (for various reasons) we thought she was in the clear. We received notice from the Federal Bankruptcy Court that he has been accused of incompetence. He was ordered by the court to refund all fees except for the filing fee. It turns out that he had passed his bar but had taken on too many cases to meet the October 17 deadline before the laws changed.
One last thing. When you file bankruptcy, you can file for what is called an affirmation. This allows you to keep certain items as long as you agree to continue paying for them. My wife filed an affirmation to keep a 2006 Nissan Quest van that she bought the previous year. We found out the hard way that this was done incorrectly as well. 2 weeks ago the repo man came calling and my wife let him take the van. She didn't know what to do. She was a month behind on the payment but we couldn't figure out why they repo'd cause most finance companies don't repo until 90 days late. Come to find out, the idiot lawyer, Norm Angelieri didn't complete this paperwork either. He filed an intent to pay, but didn't finish it off with the affirmation. This is the third car we have purchased with Nissan and when we called them, there was no compromise possible. Because they saw it as a simple bankruptcy and to them we were just keeping the car. And by the way, my wife's mom put a 600 dollar dvd player in the van for Christmas that is now the property of Nissan because it is attached to the vehicle.
I am not upset with Nissan, I understand their point of view. Norm is in the process of getting his ability to practice bankruptcy law taken away as we speak. I warn anybody who may hire him to represent you in the future, certainly in a criminal case.
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