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Business Profile

Attorneys & Lawyers

Okazaki Law Offices

This business is NOT BBB Accredited.

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Complaints

Customer Complaints Summary

  • 1 complaint in the last 3 years.
  • 1 complaint closed in the last 12 months.

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The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

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  • Initial Complaint

    Date:11/12/2024

    Type:Billing Issues
    Status:
    AnsweredMore info

    Complaint statuses

    Resolved:
    The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
    Unresolved:
    The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
    Answered:
    The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
    Unanswered:
    The business failed to respond to the dispute.
    Unpursuable:
    BBB is unable to locate the business.
    I hired ***** Okazaki at the end of August 2024 to represent me in a probate case. I told him that I was a full-time student with no income, and I needed to keep costs down. ***** spent an entire month writing the same Objections document - he wrote 5 DRAFTS WITH CARELESS ERRORS. He created new facts that would have been perjury. He charged time for all his mistakes - which I spent countless hours correcting. With a court filing deadline of Nov. 1, ***** sent me his 5th draft October 28th - it was still wrong! I emailed him that I could no longer trust him to produce a correct document and I would file my own Objections. I stated that I did not want him to represent me any longer. Please note on ******* invoice - he prepared a Substitution of Attorney form that same day - 10/28/24.***** also sent an email saying that he was not my attorney of record so I could file my document under my own name. Without consulting me first, ***** contacted opposing counsel on 10/28/24. See the invoice - he did this after preparing the Substitution of Attorney form. I did not even know he was contacting them - he just went ahead and did it on his own - and charged me for it!I notified ***** and opposing counsel on 10/29/24 at 1 pm via email that he was no longer my attorney. I attached to that email my signed Substitution of Attorney form.***** billed me for more time on 10/30/24 when he was no longer my attorney!I requested in writing a statement of charges for August and September. ***** refused to send any statement of charges until November 5 - two invoices totalling $5400. In conclusion,***** charged my entire $5000 retainer plus $400 for writing 5 error-ridden drafts of Objections. Additionally, ***** charged for calls and email to opposing counsel to request an extension deadline without my authorization. Then he charged for more time after he was no longer my attorney.I have all 5 error-ridden Drafts and all emails for all of the facts stated above.

    Business Response

    Date: 12/05/2024

    To whom it may concern, 


    Okazaki Law Offices is a multigenerational, decades old, law firm. *****, the current head of the firm, took over from his father *****, who was a US Attorney under ****** ******* and City Attorney for San **** Capistrano. This firm has, in all that time, not had any substantiated reportable actions or negative reviews. In fact, the majority of the firms clients are of families who have retained the ********************s for *****, trusts, real estate matters, and related civil litigation for generations. 


    Subsequent to a consultation call, Mr. ******************** relayed to Ms. **** that a simplified reply to the voluminous petition would suffice, given the clients seemingly limited role in the disputed matter; it being primarily focused on her step-mother. Mr. ******************** was aware that client had limited funds and was a full-time student, in which case he advised her that the best she could hope for was to prepare a response that would get her to the hearing on Dec. 17th. Thereafter, she could only hope that she was not the object of petitioners discovery which would likely require further expenditures in excess in $5,000. Ms. **** signed a client agreement which laid out her duties as a client, as well as his as her attorney on Aug 29. Ms. **** did not pay her agreed upon fee, and lied about having paid it until I relayed to her that I could see activity on her side from my side of our accounting system. She proceeded to attempt to micromanage her matter as though she were the attorney and Mr. ******************** was merely her puppet. 
    Mr. ******************** prepared a simplified response advising the client that she would have an opportunity to amend should the need arise. Client objected to the proposed response deeming it deficient and not inclusive of facts she believed were necessary. This became a pattern involving clients repeated rejections of numerous revisions she demanded abusively and vociferously were completely incorrect, perjurious or just not to her satisfaction. The alleged mistakes in the numerous revisions she demanded were contained in drafts which she at all times had ample opportunity to review and discuss with Mr. ********************. Ranging from simple punctuation to misspellings. Again, these were drafts to which she repeatedly replied with spurious and dramatic allegations that they amounted to perjury. Over a month passed and she refused to approve any draft Mr. ******************** produced. All the while the deadline to file was drawing close. He urged her repeatedly, up until the day before the deadline. She was convinced that his failing to file on her behalf of was unimportant. All the while, he was in contact with opposing counsel, at one point to request their declaration agreeing to extend the filing deadline, which they did. Ultimately, as it was a court-imposed deadline, it would not have any impact. So, he had no alternative but to set an ex parte hearing on the day before deadline seeking the courts continuance to avoid expiration of deadline to file, which could have been disastrous. While she did express that she did not want him to do any more work, it was not an option to allow the deadline to pass without subbing out, appearing ex parte, or filing a response to avoid a potential dismissal with prejudice. Ultimately, she did not agree to any document he prepared in good faith. Mr. ******************** repeatedly pleaded with her to let him sub out but she ignored his requests despite knowing the consequences of not filing. Oddly, it was clients stated goal to do the minimum required to fly under the radar and preserve her extremely limited war chest and fly under the radar which could easily have been accomplished, but she did the opposite by continuously refusing to approve a response to the petition that would have accomplished just that without compromising her standing and objections in this case. Had Mr. ******************** been able to carry out his intended course of action, his initial task would have been completed well in advance of the hearing, and there likely would have been sufficient funds to last through the year, if not longer. This client was initially benevolent, but quickly became extremely abusive and not amenable to rational discussion. I can honestly say without hesitation that in Mr. ********************s 36 years of private practice, hes never encountered a client quite like this.


    Mr ******************** asked me to remove, under my protest, hours of billable time; this included a lot of abusive emails and text messages from ******* and the expected $465 filing fee from the court which I have yet to receive. She was so obsessed with minor grammatical errors, which have NEVER impeded court filings (I just found several in the *** manual, FROM THE BAR, while I was working from on another matter), and harangued Mr. ******************** incessantly about those, without regard for the substance and court deadlines. Mr. ******************** repeatedly reminded her of court filing deadlines. We received MULTIPLE calls from opposing counsel about her attempting direct contact with them. She was reminded several times that Mr. ******************** was her POC and obligated to protect her interests until she signed the substitution of attorney.
    ******* then threatened to yelp and contact the BBB. In fact, she also had a friend (or created a false identity on yelp), post a false review to pair with her lone review. When asked for the case file #, this person retracted their review.


    Ms. **** has been invited to participate in mandatory fee arbitration with the state bar. And, as Ive relayed to her, we relish any inquiry from the bar initiated by her. I have all of those un-billed time entries, emails, phone logs, texts, her first "yelp" and her second false "yelp," to serve up to the bar should she decide to further this absurd and frivolous campaign. 

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