Bernard Mitchell Alter, represented me in a "validation" trial involving my petitions to gain ballot access to run for elected office.
He appeared with me on an April 27 virtual court hearing committing that he would represent me in a trial the next day on the 28th. All that was necessary was that we were to sign the retainer agreement and for me to pay him the retainer deposit which did happen later that day on the 27th.
However I was surprised as the day and evening concluded after I left his office that I had not received any communication from him that he had transmitted any paperwork to the court electronic filing system.
The next day on the 28th, as we started the trial, Bernard or "Mitch" as he likes to be called, asked for the case to be postponed because he had not presented to the court "a bill of particulars" meaning the evidence that we will present for our case and the judge chastised him for not being ready to proceed but meanwhile the opposing side interjected and called for a dismissal based on the fact that Mitch had not submitted a "notice of appearance" and an "affidavit of service" to the filing system as a prerequisite to the whole case being heard. As it turns out, the affidavit of service had been submitted by a previous attorney of mine who was too busy to continue with the case but according to the opposition, (later in the case to be disclosed) that it was misfiled. However Mitch had not, for that first day, checked the submissions to the court and was not able to object to say that it was there. Therefore the judge felt free to proceed with the assertion from opposition that it wasn't there.
As a result of the lack of paperwork from Mitch, my case was dismissed without prejudice. So we refiled the case the very next
day on the 29th. Mitch then did file the notice of appearance and affidavit of service and submitted a bill of particulars timely.
Surprisingly the next judge to hear the case dismissed it, erroneously, on the theory that a counter claim of "invalidation" of my petitions from my opposition was granted to them by the previous judge thereby creating a res judicata application. However this 2nd judge was corrected by an appellate judge panel to whom we later appealed, to say that our case was dismissed only procedurally. The appellate judges however went on to say that our bill of particulars (the evidence to be submitted on the filing system) was not specific enough or particularized properly and went on to uphold the dismissal of our case on that basis. On a zoom meeting that I hosted for a community group, Mitch admitted that his preparation for the bill of particulars on my validation case was lacking because he had "only one day to prepare it". This admission can be seen on this youtube video:
https://youtu.be/urLCI9T5xVE
My grievance about this step of the process, is that on the day that we spent preparing the case, even though we were together in his office for multiple hours, most of the time spent and much of what he was actually doing was taking calls from other clients who would keep him on the phone as they griped about their situation albeit without stated urgency and he just listened without even needing to take any concrete actions on what they were saying. This disorganization ensued despite Mitch having 2 assistants in the office who should have been triaging the calls focusing only on those that had urgency so that he could give proper attention to preparing my case appropriately.
When the appellate judge panel came back with a ruling that our evidence presentation on the rebuttal form was not sufficiently particularized and therefore dismissed (which I felt was a draconian measure), Mitch did not ask whether the dismissal was with prejudice. If it was without prejudice then Mitch should have given me the option to refile the case. I was not knowledgable enough to ask this question at the time but many months later when it did occur to me to ask Mitch the question of whether the case could have been refiled, Mitch wrote back to me "It is over. Election is done almost a year ago." Since he would not answer my question I presume that he either doesn't know the answer or knows that the answer is that we indeed had the option of refiling the case.
To conclude: Even though I feel the court did not deal fairly with me, it is evident that Bernard Mitch Alter failed me 3 times:
1) Not to submit the paperwork for the first day of trial 2) Not to properly describe the evidence that we were going to submit with
specificity or particularity and 3) Not to find out if we had the option or apprise me if there was an option to refile the case when the
appellate judge panel dismissed our case again for insufficient paperwork.
So despite Mr. Alter having come highly recommended to me I feel that his work to represent me was substandard. For the $17k
that it cost me for this case with this lawyer, I feel I should have gotten legitimate representation. read more
