Bar Unplugs Net-based Defense Firm

Working for Robert Nudelman must have been a really bad experience — because some of the fellow lawyers in his Woodland Hills firm decided to take him down.

State Bar officials announced Monday that they shut down Nudelman’s Criminal Defense Associates Inc. last week because the firm had become “incapable” of properly representing its 150 clients who face criminal charges.

Nudelman resigned from practicing law immediately, officials said in a press statement, after the State Bar seized about 700 files, froze the firm’s bank accounts and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

State Bar Deputy Trial Counsel Kimberly Anderson said Monday that some of the lawyers employed by Nudelman are largely responsible for stopping Nudelman before things got worse.

“They were concerned,” she said. “Some of them are pretty competent criminal defense attorneys.

“Many of these attorneys,” Anderson added, “have been concerned about their clients and have come forward to help us.”

Nudelman was managing partner and sole shareholder of Criminal Defense Associates, which was created in 2003 and marketed itself mostly on the Internet as a nationwide law firm specializing in sexual and drug offenses. The firm employed about 10 criminal defense lawyers and accepted cases from all over the country.

State Bar Chief Trial Counsel Scott Drexel said the firm’s business model was “fraught with problems.” He said the firm appeared to violate multiple provisions of the Bar’s professional conduct rules, including engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, failing to refund unearned fees and not maintaining client funds in a trust account.

In some cases, Drexel noted, the firm’s lawyers were giving legal advice to clients in states in which they didn’t have the right to practice law. “We’re finding that more and more in the day of Internet advertising and the like,” he said.

In fact, Nudelman blamed the Internet on his problems. In a declaration filed with the State Bar’s action in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Nudelman claimed his firm became insolvent because the cost of Internet advertising began exceeding the amount the firm was receiving in fees. Nonetheless, the State Bar noted, Nudelman kept accepting fees of about $50,000 per case while going bankrupt.

“The problems created by Criminal Defense Associates Inc.,” Drexel said in a prepared statement, “graphically demonstrate the inherent danger to potential clients and the public in the operation of a nationwide law firm based largely upon Internet advertising and without adequate administrative controls or supervision.”

In a telephone interview on Monday, Drexel said the State Bar shut down about 30 firms last year.

“A number of them, it may be because the attorney has died or become incapacitated or just left the practice. Or sometimes they abandoned the practice,” he said. “But there have been a dozen cases or so in the last year where we felt the attorney was incapable of practicing competently and was endangering the clients’ money.”

Neither Drexel nor Anderson would say whether any of the firm’s other attorneys are being investigated.

Telephone calls to Criminal Defense Associates Inc. were redirected Monday to the State Bar, where a recorded voice advised clients that the firm’s files are being inventoried and that letters will be mailed soon telling how to retrieve them. It also advises clients to contact the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s lawyer referral service.

Anderson said clients might need to secure new counsel and that Nudelman is required to return unearned fees. “But the problem is he says he doesn’t have them,” she said. “[Clients] may have a civil action against him.”

Two of the firm’s lawyers — Kristine Burk of Sebastopol and Evan Zelig of Woodland Hills — asked the State Bar to place their contact information on the Bar’s recorded message so clients could reach them.

—  Mike McKee

Comments

[Defensefirm]

Looks like they did a great job of shutting him down...finestdefense.net

[Evan E. Zelig, Esq.]

While I am choosing not to comment too much about the financial situation at Criminal Defense Associates and what happened in regards to the firm shutting down and the State Bar taking over, I would like to comment about the beginning of your Blog entry.

Simply put, working for Robert Nudelman was not a bad experience, as you indicated it might have been in the opening sentence of your blog. Quite to the contrary, it was a pleasure working as an attorney at Criminal Defense Associates and under Robert Nudelman as the managing partner. Mr. Nudelman always worked hard to do the best for all of the CDA clients and staff, and it is unfortunate that the financial situation experienced by Criminal Defense Associates ultimately resulted in his resignation from the State Bar.

Evan E. Zelig, Esq.

[Caitlyn Beacham]

I'm posting here as a victim of the financial situation at Criminal Defense Associates, my husband desperately needed competent representation after being falsely accused by a woman he had dated and broken up with prior to our meeting each other. We had other counsel who was far from aggressive and my husband's family took loans against all that they had to come up with the 50,000 dollars Mr. Nudelman required, my husband serves his country in the Air Force, we certainly didnt have that kind of money ourselves. Kristine Burke was the lead counsel on the case though we never spoke to her. When the judge here refused to allow our former council to withdraw and for CDA lawyers to help us, it was agreed that they would refund our money. Money that I desperately need to help my husband. My husband has already been assaulted once while inside and was nearly killed, I honestly wonder some nights when I will receive the call to come and claim his body. An innocent man, stuck in a nightmare in the system and there sits Mr. Nudelman and CDA, with the money I need to help my husband. I've appealed to the Client Security Fund and so far there has been no result whatsoever. Its bad enough that it's now about "all the justice you can afford", now even when you scrape and dig to afford it, your cheated all the same.

[Kristine Burk]

My name is Kristine Burk and I am one of the former attorneys with CDA. After reading Ms. Beacham's comment, I felt the need to personally address her allegation that I represented her husband, but didn't speak to him or her and then abandoned him. First of all, although Ms. Beacham does not identify her husband by name, the facts she describes are not familiar to me. When I handled a case, I always spoke with my clients and their family members. Additionally, I did not abandon any clients where I was the counsel of record but rather represented them all, to the conclusion of their case, pro bono. Given these three things, it is not possible that I was the "lead attorney" for Ms. Beacham's husband and her conclusion that I was the "lead counsel" is not accurate. Rather, I was a trial lawyer at CDA, with a caseload of my own, and a supervisor of other trial lawyers. I can say with confidence that Ms. Beacham's husband was never my personal client, but I do not doubt that he was a client of the firm. Certainly, I am sorry for the difficulties caused to Ms. Beacham and her husband by the closure of CDA. I hope that their current situation can be corrected somehow, including possible recovery from the Client Security Fund.

[Caitlyn Beacham]

Please accept my apologies, Ms. Burk. I regret that you were misrepresented to my husband and myself by CDA. I used the terminology that was used when the firm spoke with us on several occasions. I am sure you are no more surprised than I am, or anyone who has been a victim of CDA would be, that there was rampant misrepresentation. I appreciate your well wishes and I do hope that the damage caused by this entire situation will be put behind us both very soon. Good luck in your current practice. I will continue fighting for my husband's exoneration and will continue to pray that the means, whatever they may be, to free him and clear his name will be provided.

Again, please accept my apologies for the confusion, we both seem to be suffering from the lies told by others.

Caitlyn Beacham