Business ProfileforThe Law Offices of Ronald P. Slates

Contacted Ronald Slates in July 2021 for a consultation on collecting a judgement. He billed me over $4,800.00 for his evaluation which included himself and his assistant named Gerald Zack. I was surprised me that his fees were so high, but I paid him in good faith in August 2021. I did not have a written fee agreement, nor a retainer agreement with him, which I inquired about. He said he could not move forward with collection steps until the final documents were received, which was 3 months later, and at that time he requested an additional fee of $5,000.00 to "get started". I asked again about a retainer agreement before proceeding forward with payment. He said he would forward an "evergreen agreement" which I did not receive. About 3 days later I received a billing statement for the prior 3 months in an amount of over $8,000.00. The billing statement was not itemized and centered around email activities with his internal staff of 4 to 6 people and consisted of repetitive discussions regarding an "action plan" that nobody could decide on. The "action plan" was previously discussed with me during my consultation with him in July, which I had already paid for. It was supposed to be cost effective for my budget as a school teacher and the best approach for time efficiency purposes. When I researched his reviews I found many "beware" postings of outrageous charges. I then realized he might not be implementing "best practices", because by December 2021, I still did not have a retainer agreement, I contacted his office, as I did not agree with the excessively high charges and felt that no collection work was performed during the 3 month time period that had lapsed, as the judgement documents were not ready until the latter half of November 2021. He has disregarded my concerns and has continued to bill me for an additional $3,000.00 between December 2021 - June 2022. Today, he is threatening to sue me for over $11,000.00.