In my opinion, Mike Goodman is a liar, and a cheat. After discussing my situation with him at his office, he told me that what happened to me was an obvious violation of my 4th amendment rights, and then asked what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to fight the case, at which time he based his fee of $2500 on that course of action. I paid him, then the very day before I was due to be in court, he called at (and this is no BS) 8:30pm in the evening, said that he spoke to the DA and that he got a "great deal" for me. He said that if I plead guilty, the DA would knock my sentence down to five days in jail, and would not violate me out of the ARD program, which meant that I would get a one year license suspension, instead of two. First of all, I have to complain here and now that calling me the evening before I had to go to court was completely unacceptable, and then to spring this deal on me last minute like that was also wrong, because hey, I paid this guy to FIGHT my case... Not to spend time making deals. So what did he do? He did his best to talk me into taking the deal, I spent five days in jail... Which by the way was the first time I've ever been incarcerated... And guess what? The DA violated me out of the ARD program anyway, and I got TWO YEARS of license suspension! This is also not to mention the fact that this man based his price on FIGHTING my case MY way, but instead bartered a deal behind my back without my permission, and then later KEPT all the extra money I paid him to fight the case, even though he was able to exit himself out earlier by having me plead guilty. Thanks to this guy, I now realize how the scumbag-type unscrupulous attorneys work. They hear you out, tell you you're in the right, charge you more money to fight your case, then last minute they call you up and tell you they made a deal and it's better if you plead guilty. Then after that, even though by you're pleading guilty they get to spend less time on your case, they don't give you your money back; that being the additional funds they charged you to fight the case in the first place. This guy is a thief, and I highly suggest that you don't hire him. I guess I should also mention here that after all this occurred, I filed complaints against him with various organizations, and I have to tell you now... Don't bother filing complaints when those who are going to hear the case are other attorneys, because they're jaded and they all look out for one another. I completely wasted my time doing so, because even though I was right, they found for him and I never did get the additional money back. This is also not to mention that in his reply to my complaints, he completely lied like a rug about various things, claiming I said certain things when I most certainly did not, and in essence did his best to make himself look justified when in fact he ripped me off. I am writing this review now, because he has refused to take my calls or answer my emails about the deal with the DA, and speaking of which, he also directly lied to my face and in front of my step father in court. He came over to us and said, "You should definitely plead guilty now because I just read the DA's discovery, and she's going to claim that you nearly ran the officer off the road." This was a complete lie, not only in factual circumstance regarding the actual event, but also in him saying that, because after I filed my complaint against him, he could not produce the supposed discovery information which proved his claim. To this day, I firmly believe that he deliberately lied to me that day in court, just to further insure that I plead guilty so that he could blow out of my case and go onto the next one. I hope he reads this one day, because if he does, I say, "Mike, if you screw someone over, in the end you wind up paying for it." And if someone out there is reading all this, and you choose not to hire him because of what I've said here, well then, that's what he deserves.
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