Law Offices of James M. Hallett

"Unfortunately I did not have a good experience with two consultations I had with Jim in 2021. The first consultation was $400 and reviewed a complicated legal case which involved two branches of law he supposedly is expert in. I had been speaking with another attorney and in discussions to hire them but something told me they were a bad fit so I reached out to Jim. When I spoke with Jim he questioned why I wouldn’t hire the first attorney and seemed annoyed I would say anything negative about them. When I brought this up to his assistant, she said “Jim hates it when anyone says anything bad about attorneys” which is absurd because there are many incompetent attorneys out there. As I felt desperate for help, I thanked Jim for the consult and hired this other attorney despite my gut saying they were corrupt and of course they did a terrible job on my case. Later that year I had a second consultation for $400 with Jim to discuss my case where we reviewed the work of the other attorney who had stolen my money without putting it into a trust and then substituted out of the case. As the other attorney did not do the work I paid them for, Jim advised me that I could open a case for arbitration by the LA County Bar Association and would likely get all of my money back, as this other attorney clearly violated ethics and “the Bar Association does a really great job of being fair and neutral in these cases”. WRONG! I did open a case in Dec of 2021 and had arbitration in March of 2022, the arbitrator was murderous and out to get me the entire time. She ended up ruling for the other attorney and I owed $7000. I was in shock. This was so clearly a slam-dunk to Jim, what happened? And because it was binding, I could not appeal it. When I reached out to Jim he did not respond to three emails and one phone call, then sent me a one-liner response that he suddenly lacks the “expertise or experience” to advise me in taking lawyers to the bar, despite doing so and being the past president of bar associations. Essentially, Jim took $800, gave me bad advice and has left me out to dry so I now owe $7000, so he has cost me $7800 and I still need to hire a third attorney to fix the work of the other attorney. So, Jim is board certified in family law and criminal law but not in legal malpractice and never should have advised me as to the actions of the other attorney. The worst part is that I tried to hire a legal malpractice attorney and they said that the way the other attorney lacks legal malpractice insurance and structured their contract it makes it impossible to sue them, which Jim missed, and now is costing me big time. I wish this story has a positive outcome but I lack the expertise and experience in hiring attorneys who advise me correctly and wish I never hired Jim. Just like all attorneys, all they stand to do is protect each other and line their pockets."

"A well versed lawyer, very polite and conciencius...recomended to all my friends"