The Further Adventures of “Lawyer” Andy Nolen
Following on from this post...
"Jerry k." left 31 reviews for Houston lawyers on July 23, 2009: 30 one-star reviews and one five-star review.
Guess who got five stars.
Yep, James A. "Andy" Nolen.
Among the lawyers panned by "jerry k.": Don Becker (again, twice on this day), Todd Leffler, Dan Corrigan, Doug Durham, Dane and Leslie Johnson, Dennis Slate, Larry Douglas, Dan Gerson, Jeff Purvis, Mekisha Murray, David Breston, Paul B. Kennedy, Joe Salhab, Cynthia Henley, and John Floyd (again). Every one of them is at least ten times the lawyer Andy Nolen is.
We knew already that Andy Nolen was a lousy unethical lawyer; the true tale is told by the most recent real review on Andy Nolen's Yahoo Local page:
Did not show to court on first day. this is not good.
That's the Andy Nolen that the bar association knows so well!
Andy Nolen was successfully grieved by two clients in 2006 (thanks to Avvo.com for making that tidbit so easy to find). He got a two-year probated suspension from the state bar because:
In one matter, Andy Nolen was retained to represent his client on criminal charges. Andy Nolen failed to attend scheduled hearings. Andy Nolen's client attempted to contact him on numerous occasions but was unsuccessful.In a second matter, Andy Nolen was retained to represent his client on criminal charges but failed to reasonably communicate with his client. Andy Nolen also failed to timely file a written response to the allegations or assert any grounds for his failure to do so.
Andy Nolen got punished by the State Bar for doing the very things that his two commenters complain of other lawyers doing? What an amazing coincidence! I am shocked. Shocked!
On July 10, 2008, "madmom" wrote (h/t Brian Tannebaum):
Would not recommend this attorney. Retained him for criminal case, paid him and after several resets, he stood us up in court. Never showed. Called, emailed, etc several times to find out why and where he was, and he has yet to return anything, including my money! I will be reporting him to the bar assoc and any other so called assoc he claims to be a member of. Leaving us stranded without any representation should not be tolerated and taking our money is theft.
In other words, the same conduct for which Andy Nolen had, four months earlier, gotten off of probation for committing.
I hope that "madmom" followed through on her threat to grieve Andy Nolen. If she reads this, I'll be happy to help her do so. In fact, if any actual client would like my help in filing a grievance against Andy Nolen, I'll be happy to help. It's highly unlikely that the State Bar will let him off so lightly next time.
(After I wrote the above, I googled Mekisha Murray to send her a link to Andy Nolen's fraudulent reviews. See my next post for what I found.)