“He was always available for us and everything was executed when it needed to be done.”
LK: It was a case with my brothers. We had inherited a building from my grandparents to my parents, and then to us. And the three siblings were not able to work together … unfortunately. Business and family don’t always mesh well.
RK: The main… the first thing was that the older brother didn’t want to… like …there were things to be done. There was work that had to be done to the building, renovations, and he pretty much didn’t want to part take in it. Which was fine, because they offered to be like: listen, if want nothing to do with it we’ll just sign an agreement where we’ll just mail you checks.
LK: And it all started with wanting to have an operating agreement since we are tenants in common. We were wanting to get an LLC formed but we wanted it the three of us and he – you couldn’t get any answers from him whatsoever. No matter whether it was on an email, phone call. My one brother would actually go to the other brother’s house and wait for him to get home to just talk to him, and he would avoid us. Even with wanting to keep the building, we offered him to be a silent partner. All it took was for him was to sign the operating agreement.
RK: And it finally got to the point where they offered him to buy him out, where it’s like – here is a certain amount of money –- which was above market value, where even after the closing, you know, he ended up with a lot less. And he could’ve, you know, avoided all this nonsense.
LK: So, unfortunately, we had to do all the communication through the lawyers.
RK: Pretty much it had gotten to the point where it was a number of years the case was going on already, and there was no progress. It seemed that previous attorneys were just kind of like bouncing back and forth, and like we said, there was no progress whatsoever. So between your brother and yourself, you decided that it was time to seek other counsel.
LK: We had worked with Adam Leitman Bailey before regarding the tenants eviction cases. So, we had worked with them and we knew what they were like so we came back.
RK: There wasn’t much feedback on the previous attorneys point. It was kind of – anything that was brought from the other side, the opposing attorneys, it was kind of them just passing it along, with no like “this is what we are gonna do” as supposed to when we came here and they were like “this is what they want, but this is what we’re gonna do”. So there was a plan.
LK: He constantly asked what we were looking for, what did we want and instead of just telling us what it was, they would do the pros and cons with us through everything.
LK: Christopher.
RK: Adam had come in one time, and Adam had come in and I was listening to the point where Adam, I mean that just re-enforced everything because Adam was like “oh yeah, yeah” you know. So it was that kind of sense like “wow, these guys know what they are talking about” because it was a lot of like “we’ll do this, we’ll do this, we’ll do that”.
RK: They really kind of laid it down as far as what we wanted.
LK: And certainly has been through the years, as like I said, it has been years that we’ve been doing this. He was assertive when he needed to be assertive and stepped back when he needed to. It was always reasons behind it, his strategy. So he always kept us in the loop which was perfect because we always knew what was going on.
RK: And he would catch all these little things that it was like the minute numbers “no it’s point this, point that”. I was like “are you kidding me?” You could see that he was like “Are you kidding me. I had this all set up, you know you guys are professionals”. And you could see that he walked out the room he had our best interest in hand.
LK: He had our back. Yes, that’s one thing he understood that a lot of other attorneys didn’t, and I understand it was well. This was a business, it wasn’t personal. Well, unfortunately, it was personal, because it was a family owned building and we all grew up there, we all lived there. And as much as you try not to make it personal, it was. It is personal. So.. And he got that, he understood it, and was able to work with me and calm me down when I needed calming.
RK: You’re lucky if you get just the service you pay for. With him, it was just like “wow, you know, if I need someone to represent me legally, he’s the first phone call I make”.
LK: Yes… yes.
RK: Absolutely.
RK: He was 24/7 on the phone…
LK: He was always available.
RK: “Listen, we are gonna get through this. Don’t worry about the fact that I am on vacation. Just call me 24/7.”
LK: And he always kept on top of me too. Always, always everything was executed when it needed to be done.
RK: Well like I said, just being as responsive as they were. Because … I mean, there is a professionalism but there is also, a lot of people can come in and criticize on the fact if you see someone getting along friendly. Whereas it’s not the professionalism but you can relate to someone as a human being. Just keep it to where you are comfortable.
LK: Absolutely, no doubt about it.
RK: I stand behind it where it’s like these are the people you want.