In television ads and on the internet, Ostling and Associates boasts that it is Illinois' largest…read morebankruptcy law firm."When you need help, call Ostling and Associates," the announcer on a television commercial urges viewers. "With 20 Illinois offices to serve you. Call Ostling and Associates now and stop the collection calls."The ads apparently work. The Bloomington-based firm boasts that it has handled more than 50,000 cases. But bigger isn't necessarily better, judging by a series of harsh rebukes aimed at the firm and its lawyers by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Mary Gorman.From the bench in Springfield, Gorman has repeatedly called out Ostling attorneys for fibbing in court, performing shoddy work and assigning legal tasks to employees who aren't lawyers. Clerical workers who help prepare bankruptcy filings are untrained and unsupervised, and debtors have suffered, according to the judge who has handed out penalties that include at least one fine, reductions in legal fees and prohibitions on two Ostling attorneys from filing court documents.
"I think the most heartbreaking thing of the six years I've spent on the bench, for me, has been the quality of work that I've seen come from the Ostling firm and the number of debtors who have suffered dramatically due to the pitiful, pitiful quality of that," Gorman said during a 2012 hearing. "It is heartbreaking to see debtors go to the Ostling firm, pay good money and get representation that does not meet ethical standards or any level of quality standards."Judge Gorman isn't alone in her alarm. Last year, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission suspended one of the firm's lawyers for five offenses that included making false pleadings in Gorman's court. The same lawyer also had a problem with alcohol that had resulted in convictions for driving under the influence, battery and disorderly conduct, the ARDC determined. The lawyer is back on the job at Ostling, but still on probation.Problems with the firm date to at least 2009, when an attorney scheduled to appear on behalf of three Ostling clients could not be reached. Gorman's staff tried several times to reach a lawyer. On the final attempt, the person who answered the phone at Ostling and Associates hung up on the judge's staff."Clerical staff at the Ostling firm is apparently trained not to allow calls to be put through to attorneys in the office and further instructed that, if callers become too pesky by repeatedly calling, the remedy is to hang up the phone," Gorman subsequently wrote in a ruling that did not go well for an Ostling client who had filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy in an attempt to save her home.The bankruptcy trustee had moved to dismiss the case on the grounds that the debtor was $5,515 behind on payments to address delinquent mortgage debt. She had also fallen behind on real-estate taxes. Unable to reach a lawyer at Ostling and Associates, the judge dismissed the case, opening the door for foreclosure. Ten days later, Robert Follmer, an Ostling lawyer, asked Gorman to reinstate the case, saying that he would deliver a $5,000 certified check to the trustee. He also repeated an earlier promise to file a request to amend the payment plan. But it was too late."Perhaps, if an attorney had appeared, details of the promised motion to modify (the payment plan) could have been provided and, if the debtor had the $5,000 that she now proposed to tender, the trustee might well have been persuaded to seek continuance of his (dismissal) motion," Gorman wrote in rejecting Ostling's efforts to revive the case. "But, the debtor's attorney failed to appear and, unfortunately for the debtor, she is bound by both the acts and omissions of her attorneys."It was not an isolated instance, the judge observed.
"This court has heard numerous complaints over the years from clients of the Ostling firm and from creditor attorneys that calls placed to the Ostling firm are never put through to attorneys and are never returned," Gorman wrote in her dismissal order. "Such a policy is unprofessional at best and, as was made painfully obvious here, extremely detrimental to the clients of the Ostling firm."Illinois Times left telephone messages for several Ostling lawyers, including managing partner Lars Eric Ostling, to get responses to Gorman's criticisms. The messages were not returned.
Lawyers behaving badly In television ads, Ostling and Associates boasts that it is the state's largest bankruptcy law firm. Somewhat of a joke"
According to her testimony in Gorman's court, Monica Lynn Moffett of Lincoln would not have declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy if she'd known that her creditors could take more than $55,000 that she was due to receive in three payments as part of a lawsuit settlement. Accused by a bankruptcy trustee of concealing the money from creditors, Moffett during a 2011 hearing testified that she'd told Denise Knoles about the settlement when she first went to Ostlin
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