Attorney Phillip Seaver-Hall
Phillip Seaver-Hall took my civil rights case pro bono. He amended my pleading and in so doing removed a key defendant and a key claim. He actually tried to remove SEVERAL claims, but acquiesced after I essentially wrote them myself. He dropped my claim of improper medical treatment against the jail's medical provider. Then, he gave me the option of even settling my case for $6,000 or withdrawing as counsel. People fall down and get more than $6,000. His job was to do discovery and conduct depositions, and all he did was basically send over a questionnaire and then accepted the defendant's non-answers. I literally told him, I would rather lose the case than take $6,000, at which point he withdrew as counsel, leaving his screwups for me to deal with. I waited one and a half years to receive pro bono counsel, but courts don't have the power to compel lawyers to take cases. This asymmetry makes the constitution almost worthless in practice - if you punch a jail guard, it's a crime, and the state will gladly pay a prosecutor to fine and convict you. If a jail guard punches you, it's a "civil matter", and you don't get a lawyer. But that doesn't mean that there aren't good pro bono lawyers, and those lawyers do get paid. Unfortunately, Phillip Seaver-Hall was worse than me doing it myself, and worse than nothing, since by accepting my case and then abandoning it (after screwing it up), he kept me from actually getting a decent attorney. I was offered more than $6,000 even after he withdrew from the case, and I still wouldn't settle, not only because I was still offered a miniscule amount of money, but because it was the wrong thing to do. You can't torture a human being and get off by paying $6,000. He didn't conduct ONE deposition. I have no idea why he would even take the case. Public defenders at least get paid to lose. I don't know what would motivate someone to even become a lawyer if they weren't going to fight for their clients. I guess he figured he could do no work and make $2,000. After all, my case had already survived dismissal, anyone could settle it dirt cheap at that point. But it still baffles me why he would remove claims and defendants that the Court even ruled should not be dismissed. Those claims had survived a dismissal motion, and he removed them BEFORE trying to negotiate a settlement offer! He didn't even have to plead them, they were already in the complaint, he just had to copy them over. The JUDGE already ruled they had merit. If you can read and write English, you are probably better off representing yourself than letting this firm represent you. Maybe if its not a "real case", like you slip on something a don't get hurt and just want a $1,000 and can't be bothered to learn how courts work, but for anything that matters... I wouldn't trust him to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, he'd probably remove some of the creditors. When he withdrew, I should have just asked the court to reamend his Complaint, but I was just so disgusted with everything at that point I let it go. But I certainly wouldn't hiring him. I imagine he'll end up as a public defender, telling guys how good the 60-to-life plea offer he got them is, and how they should "definitely take the deal", because they'll lose at trial; and with him as their lawyer they probably will! It's one thing to be a bad lawyer, it's another thing to be a bad person. He didn't have to win the case, but he wouldn't even try. He let horrible people do horrible things and get away with it, and whether it was because of greedy self-interest or laziness or stupidity or a dislike of jail inmates or me personally, it was the wrong thing to do. I was so happy to have a lawyer - I sent him over cases and fixed his legal mistakes, and he actually did incorporate a lot of what I sent him over. But I hadn't had a single claim dismissed. The object of the plaintiffs lawyer is to argue for the Plaintiff, it's not to toss out their claims and let defendants off the hook. So far, he did more to hurt my suit than the defendant's lawyers have. Plus, the case was SUPPOSED to go to a mediator to try to settle the case. They would have heard both sides of the case and made a decision on how much the case was worth, and we could have acceted or rejected what they come up. He cancelled that, because the defenant's made an offer of $6,000, and he thought that was "very fair". I said, lets go ahead with the mediation. But he wouldn't. He withdrew as counsel, against my objection, and the court gave me no chance to explain the situation or get new counsel. Why not do the mediation that was already planned? Why not let a neutral third party assess the cases's value? It literally seems like he was trying to help the defendant's. Plus I would have been far more open to settling if a neutral party said the case was worth X. It was already scheduled.
By Trenton T.