this law firm flat out quits on their clients! i had a case where i was fired wrongfully by smile…read morebrands in san diego! i worked as a medical, coder, and biller! their manager amgela tomas hired me knowing i was fresh out of school without experience. she told me if her bosses ask me how many years of experience i have, just say 2 years tony! this manager was on salary, she only showed up to work 2-3 days per week, only working 12-14 hours per week, while collecting a 40 hour per week paycheck! anyways, they trained me to be a patient care coordinator, which is a total separate position as medical, billing, and coder! she neglected training me for the position they hired be for on 06/27/2024 as a biller for the front office! mgr. angela tomas tells me i was working this biller position for 10 years, they want me to go back to this position, so no worries i will be liable for ensuring the ar ledger gets paid down and these claims get paid up! all i want you to do for now is schedule appts, check in patients, greet them, and cancel appts upon request! so this is what i was doing from my hire date of 06/27/2004 until 11/27/2024, and out of no where, mgr. angela tomas fires me for having an excessive accounts receivable, claiming none of these claims are getting paid up tony! the audacity and gall to terminate me, when she told me she is going back to being the billing specialist for smile brands!
i then hire this pathetic law firm to represent me, they inform me we are going to send a 30 day demand letter in pre-litigation to them requesting on the minimum side $40,000 dollars and on the maximum side $180,000 dollars regarding this wrongful termination case! in addition if they dont respond within 30 days,, we will escalate this case to the discovery stages up to and including scheduling for a trial date! after our 1st 30 days, smile brands asked for another 30 days extension which would carry us up until september 1st 2026! the first 30 day demand letter was sent out july 1st 2026, to august 1st 2026! make a long story short, smile brands never replied back to jlg lawyers when the deadline elapsed on september 1st 2026! i kept calling their offices, leaving messages for my assigned paralegal and even reached out to my attorney beth christopher, to find out what is going on here! i am leaving messages for both my assigned paralegal over a month span, and nobody from that office got back to me in a timely manner until friday october 23, 2026! i happen to speak to attorney novick who i never spoke to ever regarding this case, and they had my case for over 18 months at this particular law firm! he calls me with a cocky attitude and tells me, the following, "this is going to be short and brief, we will no longer be taking your case since they didn't respond to our 2nd request sent out regarding our demand letter!! so they basically quit on their clients! i told him why you quitting on my case? why not fight smile brands and take this case to trial? i won my edd case and the judge allowed me to collect unemployment benefits, while claiming this case fell under a wrongful termination!" he says again anthony i wont be answering anymore questions, our law firm won't be representing you anymore, a letter will be sent out to you!"
one of two things happened here: this was a conflict of interest case in which a phone call was made to this law firm by a higher up from smile brands, and jlg might had done some work in the past for smile brands, or the attorneys working on my case, came to the conclusion, the verdict amount of money awarded to mr. carreira wont be enough to align and pad our checking accounts for the several attorneys representing mr carreira, so lets just not touch this case any further, and our law firm will send him a letter in the mail, ending our representation on his behalf, and this will be the end of his case! atty novick told me i had a very good case, so his own admissions tell me its a very strong case, if this is the case why arent you representing me anymore?!! silence he just says the same thing over and over again!
i would think twice before calling this law firm for representing! they have no integrity, dont return timely calls back, and don't have the best interest for their client's! they're too busy playing "pocket politics with their opposition!" i am happy to share my facts in the horrendous experience i dealt with regarding this law firm!! buyer beware, have another law firm handle your case, they lack professionalism, and won't fight back for their clients rights!!
