Friday, May 23, 2014
Investigations launched into billing by lawyers appointed as guardians
When a woman in his care fell and was injured, an attorney-guardian billed her $135 to talk to her family about what happened and give her father directions to the hospital.
An attorney-guardian charged seniors with dementia legal fees to buy them Christmas presents with their own money.
And another charged an elderly woman $300 for time the lawyer spent eating cookies with her.
When attorneys are appointed as guardians by the Franklin County Probate Court, they are supposed to look out for the best interests of the vulnerable adults, known as wards.
But a yearlong Dispatch investigation shows otherwise and has prompted criminal investigations and court audits. Among those targeted by the court is Columbus lawyer Paul S. Kormanik, who says he has more wards than any other guardian in the country.
A Dispatch examination of thousands of court records found numerous questionable bills that Kormanik submitted to the court, including more than $1,600 in legal fees to clean out a ward’s house so he could sell it. He hired his own family members to do that job, using the ward’s money to pay them.
He also billed the wards thousands of dollars for opening their mail and taking their telephone calls.
Every bill from Kormanik included this message to the court: “The services required by this ward required substantial legal skills and experience.”
Franklin County Probate Court rules specifically state that guardians cannot submit bills at legal rates for non-legal activities. Even so, court magistrates approved them. After The Dispatch raised questions about Kormanik’s billing practices, Probate Court officials began auditing some of his cases last month.
Full Article & Source:
Investigations launched into billing by lawyers appointed as guardians
Report: Legal System Fails Many Ohioans
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10 comments:
Remember in the LA Times Series, it cost one ward well over $100 for an ice cream cone?
Disgraceful! The only difference between these theives and the ones in prison, they are free to commit their crimes.
The guardian ad litem "for" Jenny Hatch billed $41,359.34 for her "services" for her "client." (Please google Jenny Hatch.)
Those "services" included objecting to her OWN CLIENT testifying, and speaking to the couple who eventually wound up with guardianship of Jenny only twice in the year long saga this GAL created by NOT DOING HER JOB AND SELLING HER CLIENT DOWN THE RIVER.
Colleen T. Dickerson, the ubiquitous hand-picked guardian ad litem "for" incapacitated people in each and every Jewish Family Service of Tidewater case, charged $7537.50 in fees for her "services" to a "client" who was forced into a Scott Schuett adult home IN VIOLATION OF A COURT ORDER. (Google Scott Schuett for the appalling details.)
Dickerson's "services" included attempting to cheat this lady, ironically a retired Adult Protective Services worker, out of a lawyer, flat out lies repeated over the course of two full years, and even blowing off a court hearing scheduled to rescue this poor woman from the dysfunctional Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia guardianship program and from seven illegal months in one of Scott Schuett's notorious hellholes.
Funny thing, lawyers who ACTUALLY represent their clients, who ACTUALLY tell the court the truth, and who ACTUALLY make sure the elderly and disabled are in safe, sanitary living situations CHARGE FAR LESS IN FEES.
But those lawyers DON'T GET HAND-PICKED AS GUARDIAN AD LITEM "FOR" THE INCAPACITATED PERSON, do they now, hmmm?
Great reporting from the Columbus Dispatch!
I didn't know that about Jenny Hatch's gal.
Who paid the $41K? Taxpayers or Jenny Hatch?
Thank you I have been following these articles and read every word.
Billing billing billing it's all about the money money money the protection industry is a business for profit or job security so beware citizens of the USA.
The billing is on auto approve those billing know it and are always trolling for more cases.
This is our future so get ready if you are against what you are reading and learning then do something about it or we will be reading your story published at NASGA blog for the next generation to say oh isn't this terrible then do nothing about it.
At a recent CLE, two of our lights of the Virginia State Bar and the Virginia Association of Elder Law Attorneys bragged that they billed $500,000 in one single contested guardianship case. Doubtless, those funds came from the estate of the incapacitated person.
The video of this portion of the CLE should be shown to each and every member of the Virginia General Assembly, vivid proof of the need for a $500 fee cap, in each and every case, and for immediately firing the two Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services attorneys who preside over our dysfunctional, scofflaw public guardianship programs.
I'm talking to you, Janet James and Amy Marschean.
"Colleen T. Dickerson, the ubiquitous hand-picked guardian ad litem "for" incapacitated people in each and every Jewish Family Service of Tidewater case", and is the reason my husband and I have such a different life than we had planned. SHE LIED HER ASS OFF IN A REPORT THEN CHARGED MY HUSBAND FOR THE REPORT BUT COST HIM HIS FREEDOM AND HIS LIFE AS HE KNEW IT.
If there are any other victims of Colleen T. Dickerson in Virginia out there please contact Victoria and Frank Ragland at 816-804-0874.
Have you been a victim of guardianship by Colleen Dickerson in Virginia Beach or Jewish Family Services of Tidewater attorney Robert (Bob)Lang??
Please call 816 316 5181 ,Victoria
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