Christopher L. Mass - Losangeles, CA

First, I would like to say that I met Chris at lunch upon engaging him and I did like him and trusted what he presented to me. But as things with my case became more entangled, the representation became more ineffective and the bills more inflated. I spoke with Chris on the phone and really liked his personality and apparent tenacity. So I trusted what he represented to me. We filed an initial quiet title case for a real estate deed transferred within my family and all seemed well. When I first spoke to him before engaging his service he offered me a $1000 retainer. I read his contract and his fees and given my status as a student paying tuition out of pocket for graduate school, I asked him bluntly and up front to please try to contain the costs and if we go over 10 hours in any given month to please communicate with me so I can manage the legal costs. He enthusiastically agreed and said he would communicate transparently and help to budget costs. Then after we filed the initial quiet title paperwork, my family responded with a probate case to contest the lawsuit. This was wholly outside Chris' area of service and expertise, so i hired a colleague of mine who is a probate and estate attorney. Next thing I know Chris comes back from a 3 week trip and presents a bill to me that is almost 3 times the amount we discussed before signing his agreement. Almost 10,000 dollars....for a quiet title filing and a letter presented to the property transferor/giftor. At no time did I ever receive any communication from him, as he promised, about how much time he claimed to have been spending on this initially simple case. He was NOT engaged to handle the probate portion of the case, only the simple civil quiet title case. Upon reviewing the bill, I saw that he had charged me for time before I even engaged his services and had actually used up my entire retainer before I ever signed his agreement and paid him this retainer. He never informed me of this and this inflated bill came out of nowhere. Everything we had agreed to and talked about went out the window. Then it got worse. After I hired a probate attorney due to the change in circumstances of my case, I asked him in writing to hold off on doing anything until we see what the probate court decides on the civil case. He did not. He kept working and sending me emails, which I found charged to his next bill, which ended up being an additional $3200 AFTER I had asked him to hold off on doing anything because of the change in venue and his inexperience in dealing with probate issues. I had by then already engaged a former colleague who specializes in probate and who also talked to Chris advising him of the process and likely outcome of his civil case. All in all, I spent roughly $13,000 over two months for a simple civil case that went nowhere....all because of excessive billing for emails, bad advice, charges before engagement, and frivolous documents filed or prepared and not filed after Chris was told to hold off on doing any work due to the probate response. I asked him numerous times to review his bills and take off charges I thought were egregious and deceptive, basically a total of about $3000 out of the $13,000. He did nothing of the sort. Even $10,000 for a simple quiet title case, which was all he was engaged to handle, is outrageous but I was willing to eat that cost due to the complexity of the response. But after realizing that he's a solo practitioner running out of a collective executive suite rather than a firm, and his relentless pursuit of his bills after refusing to even consider my objections and what we had agreed to in writing, I realized that my efforts were going nowhere. So all I have now is the opportunity to share my experience with other people looking for lawyers. I have to say I am really disappointed because I really liked Chris and trusted his word. I hope that this can be a learning experience for us both.