Family Says Pacific Law Center Took Fees and Didn't Do Work
Defense faults previous lawyers
By Greg Moran
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 29, 2008
A judge declined to lower the bail yesterday for Seth Cravens, one of five La Jolla residents charged in the death of surfer Emery Kaunaui Jr. in May.
Cravens, 21, is accused of throwing the punch that killed Kaunaui and is the only one of the five defendants still in jail. His bail is set at $1.5 million.
His new lawyer, Deputy Alternate Public Defender Mary Ellen Attridge, said Cravens' bail should be lowered to a level his family could afford. Attridge said the family paid Pacific Law Center, which employs his previous lawyers, $175,000 to represent him, but Attridge said in court that the firm had done little work that was “usable.”
She said the money the family used to pay for the law firm could have been used toward bail. Her office was appointed to represent Cravens this month after the family fired Pacific Law Center.
The firm has been subject of complaints from lawyers and former clients, most alleging it has huge caseloads, charges large fees and gives poor service.
Superior Court Judge John Einhorn said Cravens' problems with previous lawyers are not the basis for a bail reduction. Bail was reduced once already, Einhorn said.
After the hearing, Robert Arentz, the supervising attorney for Pacific Law Center, defended the firm's work in an e-mail. Arentz said the firm spent more than 1,000 hours on the case, hired experts and met numerous times with the family.
“The work we performed exceeded the amount we were paid to handle the case,” he said.
COMMENT: Bail is to be set at an amount that secures the person will return to court, not at an amount so high that it ensures they will not be able to get out. Let's note that judge here, John Einhorn, was the judge who tried to suppress evidence to help his friend, Peter Longanbach, escape prosecution. Click HERE for link.
And even more recently than the Longanbach debacle, Einhorn was reversed by the Court of Appeal just a few months ago when he failed to protect a defendant's rights. Click Here for link.
And now he is set to sit as trial judge during the re-trial of Cynthia Sommer, whose case was reversed because of ineffective assistance of counsel. Click HERE for link. Ms. Sommer's lawyer was accused of failing to protect his client. However, responibility rests equally with the trial judge, Pete Deddeh, who has one of the highest reversal rates in the California Court of Appeals. Now Sommer will have to deal with another regularly reversed, prosecution oriented jurist.
Oh, I forgot, this started out as a blast to San Diego's mill firm, Pacific Law Center. Click HERE for the San Diego Trinune article outlining the many complaints against the "firm."
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