By: Ray Wendolowski

As a follow up to my post from earlier this month, the Bike MS event was quite the success. The members of our firm who participated did so as part of “The Big El” Team.

As of today, The Big El raised $48,838.20 for the National MS Society, and you can still donate until the end of July.

I encourage anyone who reads this blog to make a donation to The Big El, and you can make a donation and see the members of the team here: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=18172&team_id=267727

By: Ray Wendolowski

As you may know by now, I haven’t been practicing law very long. However, in that short time I have sent numerous commercial demand letters directly to businesses, and only this week did I have someone respond to strictly my demand letter.

This makes me question the general effectiveness of a demand letter on a purely practical level. Has anyone else had a higher rate of success from sending demand letters?

By: Ray Wendolowski

I recently had a chance to work on a case that made me very happy to be in this profession. Last week I presented a motion regarding a foreclosure on a property which the owner purportedly had relinquished and was no longer interested in.

To my surprise, the owner attended the motion after receiving my notice of presentment, and expressed his desire to keep his property. The foreclosure was only a few days away at this point, but I was able to work with my client to get an agreement together that met the client’s needs and desires and eliminated the need to foreclose.

The part that made me happy to be in this business was the property owner’s attitude after the agreement was reached. I was truly touched because the property owner expressed such heartfelt gratitude, and he actually thanked me when I was merely working to get the best deal for my client.

This post probably doesn’t come off as something an attorney should typically say, but it was very nice to know that this job can make you feel good when both sides of a dispute can walk away satisfied.

I had an interesting interaction at motions court a few weeks back. I had planned to present preliminary objections to an answer filed by a corporation which was entered pro se by one of the principal’s of the corporation. However, a few days before the argument the defendant hired an attorney and an appearance was entered, likely in response to my PO’s.

I wanted to notify the clerk that the argument would no longer be needed, and he told me that the argument would be canceled, but that as a matter of course, a corporation can file pro se in cases valued at less than $10,000 (I may be wrong on the exact threshold he mentioned by a bit, but my $9,000 and change case was under it.

This was a bit of a shock to me, and I have not actually heard about this happening in practice. I also checked the case law to see if there was an opinion somewhere that backed this up, but I have found nothing that establishes a threshold for when a corporation must hire representation.

If someone has had this happen in a collection action, please let me know in the comments, as I would really like to know.

I have it on good authority that this week could spell big changes at the CLLA.  For several years, it has wandered in the land of creditors’ rights and bankruptcy, struggling to decide how relevant it still was in the 21st century.  For those us who have grown up in the CLLA, raised our own families supported by the collection and bankruptcy practice facilitated by the League, it has been a trying decade or more.  The League has to do something different or it will continue to slide into obscurity.  It has a strong core of supporting members, but the world of collections and bankruptcy have morphed into something that the League no longer recognizes.  The League has to change to keep up with the times.  The cosmetic changes and lip-service of the last decade have not done enough to keep it relevant, keep it providing value.  I owe the League a great deal and I will continue to support it.  I hope it makes it easier to do.

Bob Bernstein

Our firm has reached plenty of milestones over the years, but one has always slipped through our grasp. All the years of hard work paid off recently when we received notice about something truly monumental in this firm’s history: We have been cordially invited to appear on “The People’s Court.” It’s about time!

That’s right, Judge Marilyn Milian is willing to hear our dispute on the oldest reality court show on television. Not only did we receive notice that, for the first time in our firm’s history, “The People’s Court” is interested in hearing a dispute for a client we represent, but we also found out that the show is interested in a second case that we have been retained to handle!

Having a chance to appear on “The People’s Court” is pretty amazing, but two chances? That is almost too much to bear.

As much as our clients would love to appear on the show and get the chance to be berated by Judge Milian for all sorts of facts that are tangentially related to the claim (at best) and wildly off topic (at worst), our clients have decided to pass on this opportunity.

But all kidding aside, have any of our readers had the same experience? If you’ve been contacted by “The People’s Court” please let us know. It would be interesting to see just how often the show contacts parties who are represented by counsel, because it always seemed like they dealt mainly with people who call in and want to appear on the show.

Our last day started with breakfast at the Westin hotel on Wednesday with a new friend, from PriceWaterhouse Coopers.  Then some quick shopping for gifts for the families.  We went to YuYuan Garden area.  Just past the Pizza Hut, Starbucks and the McDonalds, there are several (dozens maybe?) small shops.  Kirk did some excellent haggling and got great souvenir clothing for his family.

Unfortunately, our flight was leaving from the wrong Shanghai airport for us to ride the Maglev train.  It would have been nice.  We took a taxi to the Airport (instead of the Metro) just to be on the safe side.  Got the 12:15 Hainan Airways flight to Beijing.  Best economy seats that we could get were middle seats.  Just two hours, so not terrible.  We did get a full meal on this flight, however.  I chose the “duck rice.”

Continue reading “Shanghai-Beijing-Toronto-Pittsburgh”

On Tuesday morning, Kirk and I took the high speed train from Beijing to Shanghai.  After a harrowing experience at the train station (when NONE of our credit or debit cards seemed to work), we were able to get sufficient RMB from an ATM and buy our tickets.  In the flurry, we didn’t notice that the 9:33 a.m. train trip would take 5:30 (still pretty fast), but the 10:00 trip would take 4:30 and get us in 30 minutes sooner for leaving 30 minutes later.   Here’s a shot of the monitor (in the Executive car!) showing the speed (only 264 Kp/h) at one point.  It was very smooth.

Continue reading “Bernstein Law Firm in Shanghai”

Kirk Burkley and I are in Beijing for client and new contact visits.  We arrived on Saturday evening and made our way through the horrible traffic from the airport.  The taxi ride was almost 90 minutes, tedious after a 14-hour plane flight.  Only later did we learn that the express train (15 minutes) from the airport, stops just a few blocks from our hotel!  Oh well, next time we’ll know.

We had dinner Saturday with my son’s friend (and mine) Mike Marquis, of Perella Weinberg Partners.  Mike is a high school chum of Alex’s, from Allderdice, now resident in Beijing.  It was great to catch up.  See photo attached with Mike and Kirk.

Continue reading “Bernstein Law Firm in Beijing”