Isn’t it funny how often lawyers – seemingly highly educated and well-remunerated professionals – turn out simply to be overpaid prima donnas? So it is with schwalblegal.com.
My partner initially called David Schwalb at schwalblegal.com seeking legal advice about a property issue. He took notes and said he could not talk to us again until we agreed an initial half-hour-long consultation that would cost us $431. My partner agreed a date, cleared our schedule, and then we sat in front of a screen awaiting our video conferencing call. It never came. Why not? Because we were meant to pay in advance, apparently. Why I say apparently was because their payment email did not specify this. Nor did it ask us to reconfirm the date and time of the call – which my partner had already done. It did, however, ask us to confirm by email that the payment had been made. We thought it would be fine to make the payment after the consultation, as it had not been made clear that there would be radio silence if we did not do this. But this is exactly what happened.
There was no phone call to check payment had been made, no follow-up email to warn us of this, nothing. So we waited in front of the screen for 15 minutes and then my partner called them to find out why our consultation was not taking place. Voicemail. So she emailed them. Their reply was that they cancelled because they had not received the payment or reconfirmation of the time and date. Because none of this was specified, my partner called their behaviour “unprofessional”.
This is where I wonder if the bar exam is actually some sort of finishing school, where graduates are taught to how to be precious, thin-skinned and easily offended. I say this because David Schwalb then phoned my partner and balled her out for a straight 30 minutes (I guess we won’t be charged $431 for that, as we hadn’t pre-paid), vehemently explaining that she had been confrontational and that schwalblegal.com would never represent us. The call left my partner pretty shaken up.
I guess the “unprofessional” comment must have really hit the mark – but when you look at the schwalblegal.com website and note the soft focus photos and gmail contact details, maybe you’ll come to the same conclusion. However, It’s simplest just to avoid them in the first place.