2. young atty allen Caught in Big Lie
Multiple Bar Complaints Filed Against New
Admittee.
By Joel Bander and
the PinoyWatchDog.com investigative team
3. “Horribly misleading.”Those were the words used by Attorney Matthew
Spielberg of Castro Valley, CA upon learning that Attorney Paul Allen was
misrepresenting to the public that he was a certified specialist in bankruptcy
law. Allen has been admitted to the bar for just nine months. “Allen is
pretending to be a certified specialist,” Spielberg continued. “People who
read the ad will assume he’s a specialist. I think this is awful.” Attorney
Allen’s Twitter and Tumbler advertising stated that he was a “California State
Bar Certified bankruptcy lawyer.”
4. This false advertising was taken down
by Allen after PinoyWatchDog.com’s
investigative team starting contacting
v
other bankruptcy lawyers for
comment.
A California State Bar Board of Legal
Specialization Certified Bankruptcy Law
Specialist, a distinction held by about
only 100 lawyers in California, a truly
preeminent group. This highly elite
legal class is required to pass an
extensive written examination and
demonstrate a high level of
experience in bankruptcy law, and
be favorably evaluated by bankruptcy
trustees, the U.S. Trustee’s office, other
bankruptcy attorneys and bankruptcy
judges familiar with their work.
5. No one denies this certification process is quite rigorous and only
the ‘true’ experts have a chance at
succeeding. Additionally, these pre-eminent highly skilled
lawyers carrying this certified specialist distinction must practice
law for at least five (5) years. Attorney Paul Allen is more than
four years short of that requirement, being admitted as a lawyer
only in June 2011, even though, as reported in the last edition of
PinoyWatchDog.com, he was exposed representing in other
advertising as having over ten (10) years of bankruptcy
experience, or since his late teens.
6. Attorney Louis J. Esbin of Stevenson Ranch, CA, is also a Certified
Bankruptcy Specialist and very involved at the State Bar level with
attorneys who falsely advertise. He told the PinoyWatchDog.com’s
investigative team in guarded language that Attorney Allen’s
advertising was “already being considered by the proper
administrative authority”, understood to be the State Bar of
California.
Attorneys may advertise or identify themselves as a
certified bankruptcy specialists in California only if they are certified
either by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization as
a bankruptcy specialist, or by an organization whose bankruptcy
specialist certification program has been accredited by the California
State Bar. Attorney Allen has no such certification
7. PinoyWatchDog.com has been provided multiple California State Bar
Complaints filed against Attorney Paul Allen independent of the action
taking by leading Attorney Esbin’s personal involvement with the State Bar
of California in the misrepresentation in legal advertising. One bar
complaint against Attorney Allen states that he had a web advertisement
stating that “‘We are a federally designated debt relief agency.’
However, the advertising did not have the federal mandated advertising
language that ‘We are a debt relief agency. We help people file for
bankruptcy relief under the Bankruptcy Code’ or substantially similar
language, as required by federal law. The filed bar complaint continues
that by stating ‘we are a federal designated debt relief agency’ it is
deceptive as it implies that Allen has applied for and received some type
of special ‘designation’ from the federal government when in fact the
terminology is nothing more than an advertising requirement under
federal law, an act of deception, and implies relationship with the federal
government of being ‘designated’.”
8. The concerns of that filed State Bar Complaint were similar to
Attorney Bruce Fink, also a State Bar Certified in Bankruptcy Law,
practicing in Orange, CA, in reference to the false claim of
certification, that the “word Certified is the issue because it
somehow implies some authorization and approval by someone
who certifies.”
This is the same type of misrepresentation as the ‘federally
designated debt relief agency’” said one attorney consulting with
PWD said. “It is made to sound as if government approval has
been obtained when in fact it has not, and hence is misleading.”
Attorney Spielberg said “the State Bar of California will not be
happy” with Allen.
