Conti Fenn LLC| Maryland office of ‘lemon law firm’ gets sour marks on discovery

The Daily Record: Maryland office of ‘lemon law firm’ gets sour marks on discovery

Article by By Caryn Tamber, The Daily Record

Consumer law firm Kimmel & Silverman opened a Maryland office a year ago to much fanfare. And there's no question that the self-styled "lemon law firm" has been busy since it set up shop in Owings Mills. But court records, opposing attorneys and a judge reveal that the Pennsylvania-based firm's one Maryland lawyer filed many of those claims in the incorrect venue and repeatedly failed to respond to discovery requests, leading to the dismissal of dozens of cases. And that one Maryland lawyer, Robyn Glassman-Katz, is no longer with the firm: She resigned last Tuesday because of a "serious medical condition," firm spokesman Michael Sacks said in an e-mail. "The partners of Kimmel & Silverman became aware of issues after the sudden resignation of the Maryland associate earlier this week," according to a written statement released by Sacks on Friday. "The firm conducted an immediate investigation of all files at the Owings Mills office, making it the top priority to identify the nature and scope of issues." Sacks said he could not comment on what those issues were but that they had been "remedied" and that the firm has hired two new lawyers for the Maryland office. Glassman-Katz declined to comment. However, according to her own words at a motions hearing just four days before her resignation, her office had been "severely understaffed." Anthony M. Conti, who has represented automakers in dozens of cases filed by Kimmel & Silverman, speculated that the firm wasn't being choosy enough in the cases it agreed to handle. "You don't take every case that comes in the door," he said. According to Conti and another defense attorney, Kimmel & Silverman has filed hundreds of lemon law claims in Maryland over the past year. Sacks would not say how many claims had been filed, nor would he comment on why many of them were filed in the wrong venue. "Some are in Baltimore County when they obviously don't belong there," said Baltimore County Circuit Court Administrative Judge John G. Turnbull II. (The firm's Owings Mills office is in Baltimore County.) "If every single contact is in Washington County, they file in Baltimore County," Conti said. Divining the problem The complaints tend to be boilerplate, said Conti and Jeffrey M. Yeatman, another car company defense lawyer. There is usually insufficient information for the defense attorneys or their clients to divine the problem with the car. "We have information that's available to us from our own warranty records, which may or may not be complete and may or may not be the issue the complaint is about," Yeatman said. The only way to find out what the complaints are about is through discovery requests, which both Yeatman and Conti said were routinely ignored. "We're not trying to be technical about this," Yeatman said. "It's a matter of we're entitled to these answers from the plaintiff." In general, Turnbull said, cases are dismissed every day for failure of discovery -- but not in the numbers he's seen for Kimmel & Silverman. "It probably is unusual for one law firm to have that many dismissed," he said. In at least one instance, a client claims the firm did not notify her when her case was dismissed. Juochi Iweala of Laurel wrote a letter to Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Christian M. Kahl last month, asking him to reopen her case against Nissan North America. Glassman-Katz hadn't even known it was dismissed in May, Iweala wrote. "The above case was dismissed due to my lawyer's inability to provide the requested discovery information on a timely manner which she already had in her possession," she wrote. "My attorney (Robyn Katz) did not know that the above case had been dismissed in court until I brought that to her notice on Tuesday the 28th of June after I called the court to check on the status of my case." Another Kimmel & Silverman client reached by phone last week, Daniel Heyn, declined to comment, saying his claim was still in litigation. According to Queen Anne's County court records and opposing attorney Gregory G. Jackson, Heyn's case against Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. was dismissed May 31 and has not been reopened. Kimmel & Silverman's statement said "it appears at present that one manufacturer's counsel was involved in most of" the problems at the Maryland office, and, though the statement did not name the lawyer, it said the partners "regret" that the person did not contact them directly. According to Kimmel & Silverman's statement, "only a small fraction" of the firm's Maryland cases have been "affected" by the office's problems. "Our entire staff of attorneys and paralegals are working diligently to move forward in the best interests of clients," the statement reads. "We invite any clients who have any questions regarding this issue or their case to contact Bob Silverman or Craig Kimmel via phone or e-mail at any time." Understaffed According to Glassman-Katz's own words in a Baltimore County courtroom earlier this month, she was seriously overworked at Kimmel & Silverman. "We have been very severely understaffed," she told Turnbull during a motions hearing Aug. 5, just four days before she quit. She was trying to convince him not to grant the defense attorney's motion for sanctions arising from discovery failure. Turnbull and other Baltimore County judges had already dismissed several of her cases for the same reason. "We just hired an assistant last week," she told the court, promising that she would file discovery within 15 days. "The situation has finally been rectified. Everything will be submitted promptly." Turnbull dismissed the case.

August 15 2005 at 2:47 PM