New Twitter account - Follow us

The Law Office of Jonas M. Grant, P.C. is now on Twitter - which means you can "follow" us by signing up as one of our followers here, and receive occasional updates, including notification of new blog posts here - typically about four per month - and you can of course stop "following" at any time.

Our Twitter page can be found here:

Twitter: Law Office of Jonas M. Grant, P.C.

For those who prefer, there is also a free subscription available for the Atom feed for this blog.

See also:

• LinkedIn: Jonas M. Grant
• Facebook: Law Office of Jonas M. Grant, P.C.

BAN meeting and SBA hope

Getting ready for the Birmingham Angel Network screening meeting on the 26th at Innovation Depot. (www.birminghamangels.com)

Also, noticed that the Treasury Department announced they will purchase up to $15 billion in securities backed by Small Business Administration loans in an effort to unfreeze the secondary market for SBA loans.

Here's hoping that we can get some of our new companies up and running.

Nigerian Email Scam Targets Lawyers & Their Client Trust Accounts

Law.com reports that a new variation of the standard so-called Nigerian, 419, or advance fee email scam has been targeting lawyers. Phony clients allegedly seeking to collect funds from stateside customers contact a U.S. attorney seeking collections assistance. As soon as the attorney has accepted the representation, the customer immediately agrees to pay (how often does that happen!?), often in two partial payments to be timed one right after another. The check then received will usually be a forged cashier's check, payable to the attorney, and from which the attorney is told to deduct his fee (which the client may not be too concerned about the amount of, another red flag).

The author suggests that attorneys avoid becoming victims by:

• Researching clients using Google and other sources before accepting the matter
• Contacting any attorney or other party that has supposedly referred the matter to the lawyer
• Accepting overseas, especially Chinese, clients only if their story makes logical sense and upon the payment of a retainer
• Responding to any initial inquiries not known to be fraudulent, but which are suspected to be, making sure to point out clearly that an advance deposit against fees/costs is always required
• Taking any suspected fraudulent check to the issuing bank for analysis - they will often be able to identify small details that make the forgery obvious
• If a large payment is received upon behalf of a "client", even if by a cashier's check, holding the funds at least two weeks for clearance before disbursing the funds

A typical solicitation looks like this, and may even track this language precisely:

Dear ,

Request for Legal assistance


This is an official request for legal representation on behalf of XXX Co.Ltd.
We are a textile company with principal business in garment manufacturing and trading.
We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers and we request for your services accordingly. We got your contact information from the Online Lawyers Directory as a result of our search for a reliable firm or individual to provide legal services as requested.
After a careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the opinion that you are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as requested.
On behalf of XXX Co.Ltd, Please accept my sincerest appreciation in advance for your willingness to render your services as we look forward to your prompt response to our request.

Thank you.

Another example:

Attention Counsel,
XXX CO., LTD. is a manufacturing company with its head office in Japan, and branches all over Asia continent. The management of XXX CO., LTD. requires your legal representation for our North American delinquent customers. We are looking for a reputable attorney to represent us in North America in order for us to recover monies due to our organization by overseas customers, and as well follow up with these accounts. In order to achieve these objectives a good and reputable law firm will be required to handle this service.
We understand that a proper Attorney client agreement must be entered into by both parties.
Your consideration of our request is highly anticipated, and we look forward to your prompt response.
Yours Truly,

XXX

June 2009 update: The State Bar of California has issued a fraud alert to California attorneys on this topic:

STATE BAR ISSUES FRAUD ALERT TO CALIFORNIA ATTORNEYS

MEDIA CONTACT: Diane Curtis 415-538-2028 diane.curtis@calbar.ca.gov

San Francisco, May 29, 2009 —

The State Bar of California today issued a warning to attorneys to beware of international Internet scams purporting to hire U.S. lawyers to collect large debts.

Despite efforts to publicize the scams over the last year, Bank of America Vice President Blossom Dunng said attorneys continue to be targeted. In four separate cases since the start of the year, Bank of America attorney customers lost hundreds of thousands of dollars from counterfeit checks.

"As bank officials say, 'Know who you're doing business with,'" said State Bar President Holly Fujie. "If you deposit a check for $500,000, you had better have a clear idea where that money is coming from."

The scammers often use the names of real companies to gain credibility and use e-mail addresses that seem to have a connection to the companies. The State Bar itself has received such bogus solicitations:

"This is an official requisition for your legal consultation services on behalf of _________," one e-mail sent to the bar said. "We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers in USA and we request your services accordingly."

"We got your contact information from the state of USA lawyers Directory as a result of our search for a reliable firm or individual to provide legal services as requested. After a careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the opinion that your [sic] are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as requested."

If an attorney responds, the process begins and at some point the attorney receives a legitimate-looking check - sometimes even what appears to be a cashier's check - for the supposed debt. The attorney is asked to subtract his retainer and then send a check for the rest to the client.

In 2006, one attorney had a $2 million loss. This year, Dunng said, checks from the attorneys to the phantom clients range from $75,000 to half a million dollars.

Dunng, treasury services manager who handles all 8,800 Bank of America Client Trust Accounts, said the customer, not the bank, is responsible because it is common practice for the bank to make deposited funds immediately available to good bank customers.

"Attorneys should be the last people to fall for these scams," said Fujie. "Be careful!"

Scott Wilson, FBI special agent in Cleveland, says scams change so quickly that it's very difficult to keep up with them. Still, law firms that have been victimized or contacted as part of what looks like a fraud scheme should report the incidents. If a law firm has lost money in a fraud scheme, contact the local FBI office, says Wilson. If firms or lawyers have not lost money but believe they have been targeted by scammers, they should make a report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

To view a story in the California Bar Journal about attorney victims of Internet scams, go to www.calbar.ca.gov, and check the California Bar Journal archives for July 2008.

Founded in 1927 by the state legislature, the State Bar of California is an administrative arm of the California Supreme Court, serving the public and seeking to improve the justice system for more than 80 years. All lawyers practicing law in California must be members of the State Bar. By May 2009, membership reached more than 222,000.

Obama Moves to Raise Estate Tax

President Barack Obama has announced his intention to increase the estate tax:

President-elect Barack Obama and congressional leaders plan to move soon to block the estate tax from disappearing in 2010, suggesting the levy might outlive the "Death Tax Repeal" movement that has tried mightily to kill it.

The Democratic stance on the estate tax contrasts with Mr. Obama's reluctance to press forward with his campaign pledge to raise income-tax rates on top earners, which he worries could have an adverse economic impact during a recession.

But Democrats are determined to act quickly to prevent the estate tax's scheduled repeal. Elimination of the levy on big inheritances was approved by Congress under President George W. Bush in 2001, with rollbacks phased in slowly and its full elimination slated to take effect next year.

The Senate Finance Committee will move within weeks on legislation to reverse that law, and Mr. Obama is expected to detail his estate-tax preservation proposal in his budget next month, congressional tax writers said.

Under the Obama plan detailed during the campaign, the estate tax would be locked in permanently at the rate and exemption levels that took effect this year. That would exempt estates of $3.5 million -- $7 million for couples -- from any taxation. The value of estates above that would be taxed at 45%. If the tax were returned to Clinton-era levels, it would exclude $1 million from taxation with the rest taxed at 55%....

Obama Plans to Keep Estate Tax, Wall Street Journal Online, January 12, 2009

See also:

Barack Obama, Democrat for President, On Estate Taxes

Hilton Hotels Leaves Beverly Hills, California To Lower Its Cost of Doing Business

Hilton Hotels Corp., which last month announced it was leaving Beverly Hills, said Wednesday it had chosen Fairfax County, [Virginia], as its new corporate home.

Hilton, which wants to lower its cost of doing business .... [intends to] create more than 300 full-time jobs in Fairfax County within the next 36 months.

Hilton Selects D.C. Suburb for New Home, Los Angeles Business Journal, February 4, 2009

See also: California Scheming and Some Californians Flee State for Greener Pastures

Clients: Please complete our Client Satisfaction Survey

Current and former clients - please provide feedback to us via our client satisfaction survey at any time, no invitation needed.

"If you're pleased with our services, please tell a friend, a business colleague, or the world (via Insider Pages, MerchantCircle, Yelp, or LinkedIn); if you're not, please tell us!"

Study Finds Settling Lawsuits Often More Cost Effective Than Litigating Them Through Trial

A 2008 study by the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, as reported last year in a New York Times article, Study Finds Settling Is Better Than Going to Trial, found that -

.... most of the plaintiffs who decided to pass up a settlement offer and went to trial ended up getting less money than if they had taken that offer.

"The lesson for plaintiffs is, in the vast majority of cases, they are perceiving the defendant’s offer to be half a loaf when in fact it is an entire loaf or more," said Randall L. Kiser, a co-author of the study and principal analyst at DecisionSet, a consulting firm that advises clients on litigation decisions.

Defendants made the wrong decision by proceeding to trial far less often, in 24 percent of cases, according to the study; plaintiffs were wrong in 61 percent of cases. In just 15 percent of cases, both sides were right to go to trial — meaning that the defendant paid less than the plaintiff had wanted but the plaintiff got more than the defendant had offered.

The vast majority of cases do settle — from 80 to 92 percent by some estimates, Mr. Kiser said — and there is no way to know whether either side in those cases could have done better at trial. But the findings, based on a study of 2,054 cases that went to trial from 2002 to 2005, raise provocative questions about how lawyers and clients make decisions, the quality of legal advice and lawyers' motives....