So. Cal. Realty Law - San Diego, CA

Shanna Welsh is very nice attorney that gives her clients complete understanding with there rights to the law, along with fast solutions to major problems for renters rights and realty laws. I consider myself lucky to find the right representative being I researched for over 6 months its a pleasure to deal with such quality law firm and best by far attorney like Shanna. I will highly recommend Shanna Welsh for all realty needs in San Diego county. 1-2-2020

We had some questions about a sell of a condo that did not go through. We were able to ask some questions and get an understanding of what the laws are for the seller. The information shared was precise, complete and very easy to understand. It was great to get such fast service too. We reached out via her site to book a consultation and got it scheduled the next day. Very professional and fast service. Highly recommend.

I recently interviewed a few attorneys in town who represent landlords . I walked away from their mean , aloof , agonized against landlords short cut demeanor instantly . By pure strike of luck we were referred to Shanna Welsh-Levin. My message was returned shortly and promptly by the scheduler . I waited only a week to have a phone appointment with Shanna. I am blown away by the quality , depth , superb knowledge reflected in 1 hr of 1st consultation with Shanna. She is the only lawyer I find who is not against landlords, but very much for , and I spoke to many many very well known in town who represent landlords. Shanna is a gem for us . When I deviated to a personal emotional topic during the hour , Shanna very politely gently brought me back into reality of our consultation. I can’t be more grateful and blessed to be working with Shanna and her outstanding staff. The billing is laser prompt, honest , the confirmations and appointments are right on time . Jessica , Shanna’s assistant , couldn’t be more pleasant, professional , kind and responsible , sending messages after hours even on Fridays . We do not have a case , but we hired Shanna and her firm to prevent losses and cases as our philosophy is pro activity . Shanna is the most brilliant , most knowledgable , confident , kind , and up to date sharp lawyer , so well versed in all latest confusing law changes , pro landlord , most careful , most caring , most proactive attorney we have met in 32 years . Her manner is superbly calm , focused , approachable and healing for emotionally overcharged stressed self managing landlords like we are . She gave us priceless advises and we are working to implement all of it moving forward in a lawful confident structured way only because Shanna is our lawyer . We are truly blessed and couldn’t be more satisfied . This law firm is unique and simply the best in town for landlords !.

SoCal Realty has the expertise I wasn’t successful in finding elsewhere. Their knowledge and compassion made transformed a situation in which I had been feeling powerless into one in which I not only became empowered but prevailed without any need for combativeness or protracted difficulty. Everyone I dealt with here exuded kindness and warmheartedness, which truly acted as a tonic for me while in stressful circumstances. I am SO grateful I found this firm and that they had the availability to take me on as a client. I highly recommend them.

Avoid retaining Shanna Welsh-Levin and So Cal Realty Law if you are involved in a real estate dispute if any of the following apply to you: 1. You expect your attorney to begin working on your dispute soon after your introductory meeting; 2. You expect your issue to be addressed efficiently; 3. You expect to have input into the strategic approach to addressing your dispute; 4. You expect your attorney to read and respond to emails you send to him or her; 5. You expect your attorney to review relevant documents before your scheduled follow-up call, rather than waiting to do so during your scheduled call; 6. You expect your attorney to know the purpose of a meeting when he/she was the one who proposed the meeting; 7. You expect your attorney to communicate with you in a timely manner with regard to postponing or rescheduling appointments; 8. You expect your attorney to aggressively defend your rights, rather than passively allowing opposing counsel to set timelines and expectations; 9. You expect your attorney to display the same level of urgency in addressing your issue that you express, and if not, explain why not, rather than you having to figure that out a month later after having spent several thousand dollars in legal fees; and/or 10. You expect to be able to speak with your attorney directly regarding billing concerns you have, provided the bookkeeper is not able to address them, and to resolve those disputes respectfully and amicably. I recently retained Shanna Welsh-Levin to represent me in a complex real estate dispute, and I had to fire her shortly thereafter as she failed to meet every single one of the expectations listed above. Furthermore, despite representing me for only 5 weeks, during which she had one, brief conversation with the opposing attorney, and never prepared or filed a single legal document with the court on my behalf, I was charged $3,390 for her “services”! I made 4 calls to her office to request a reduction in her charges and/or to speak to Shanna directly to renegotiate her bill. No accommodation was made, nor did Shanna return my calls. I then sent Shanna an email proposing my bill for her services be reduced to $2,000 so we could amicably go our separate ways. In response, I received a curtly worded email from her office which stated I owed the full amount, and suggested I file a dispute with the San Diego County Bar Association Fee Arbitration Program, which I am in the process of doing.

I wish I’d had a better experience with Shanna and SoCal Realty Law. To give credit where credit is due, Shanna does incredible webinar presentations that are organized and informative and which were a tremendous resource to me. I also got her name from friend who highly recommended her, so obviously other people’s outcomes have been different from mine. She seems kind and smart with a desire to do a good job and I don’t think there’s anything dishonest reflected in my experience, despite disagreeing with what I was charged. I had occasion to work with Shanna in probably the most complex, difficult time period for landlords in San Diego. Plus, she was hiring new staff. Despite these factors, she did get notices delivered on the timelines we agreed to my tenant who was breaking the lease agreement in a couple of serious ways. However, some of the problems I had seemed excessive, even in this context. The first challenge I had was that Shanna was a bit scattered from one conversation to the next and she forgot details. Given the hourly rate I was paying for the conversation, it would have been nice if she’d had a way to remember what we’d talked about. For example, at one point she started to tell me the steps for getting a retainer on file with her even though I’d already set that up over a month previously. A more serious issue occurred when I’d received as much help as I felt she could provide and wanted to receive my invoice and a refund on the retainer balance. The last services she provided were in August 2021. I requested accounting in late September and again in mid-November. In late November, I requested a refund on the balance of my retainer. As of writing this, it’s January 8, 2022, and that still hasn’t happened. I did finally receive an invoice in December 2021. Unfortunately, the accountant forgot to update the number for the retainer balance field, so it was inaccurate by around $700. I confess, I’m guessing at that number since I still don’t have an accurate, complete, written accounting. The biggest issue was that a new lawyer on staff handled two standard 3-day notices to cure lease breaches or quit. I was billed 4.6 hours for these. After creating the draft, I requested two small changes in a short email. He and I had a brief phone call when he reached out due to not seeing that my reply to his email that had gone to his spam folder. The notices were less than 500 words and most of those words were a standard, boilerplate letter. I reached out to Shanna with my concerns, and she agreed to look into it on December 21, but I haven’t had any further response thus far. Shanna did discount his hourly rate by 40% because he was new, but by my estimation, he took more than four times as long to do the work, so I still came out far behind. Shanna generated an entire letter from scratch with edits following my feedback in half an hour, with a slightly higher word count than either of the notices, so if she’s doing the work, it’s worth noting she worked efficiently and the quality was excellent. At this point, having followed up multiple times, I feel that spending more time and energy on trying to get Shanna to work with me to address these issues isn’t a good use of my time. Perhaps she will eventually circle around and address these things with me. In the meantime, I hope this is useful to others in making a good choice, for or against, hiring SoCal Realty Law.