Video Technology Services Inc. v. E4C Technologies LLC - According to the Los Angeles County online case summary the plaintiff is represented by attorney Daniel M. Shapiro.

From the tentative ruling this is what happened:

Attorney Daniel M. Shapiro represents the plaintiff in this case.

The defendants served discovery upon Mr. Shapiro's clients. This involved written questions to be answered and a request to produce documents. Responses and the documents were due in about thirty days. If discovery is improper an attorney also has the thirty days to interpose objections, or else the objections are waived.

For whatever reason attorney Dan Shapiro did not make objections and serve his client's responses until about 45 days later.

Since the responses were untimely, whatever objections attorney Dan Shapiro made (and likely billed his client for making) were untimely and waived.

That was problem #1 for Mr. Shapiro.

Since the responses were so late defendants had already filed motions to compel.

In opposition Dan Shapiro, Esq., asked for relief from his waiving objections to the discovery. The judge noted attorney Shapiro had failed to file a motion seeking relief and thus was not entitled to.

That was problem #2 for Mr. Shapiro.

Then the judge evaluated the situation and who was at fault.

The court said attorney Daniel M. Shapiro was to be personally sanctioned a whopping $3500. If it is any consolation, defendants sought over $15,000 in sanctions. Still, $3500 is a huge amount of sanctions. Dan Shapiro's client was also sanctioned.

This is problem #3 for Mr. Shapiro.

Would you hire David Shapiro to be your attorney?

The numerous errors described by the judge would not be acceptable for a first year attorney, let alone someone practicing more than forty years.

This basic incompetence over simple discovery is a big red-flag for us. If David Shapiro is so bad at the easy stuff - discovery rules - how incompetent is he for truly important and difficult legal issues or procedures?

It is a scary thought.

The huge $3500 in sanctions proposed in the tentative ruling speaks for itself.

How would you like to be the client and getting sanctioned $3500 too - on top of waiving your objections to discovery - because your attorney was late making objections, failed to file the right motion, and repeatedly was shown to be incompetent by a judge?

was admitted to the California Bar in 1975. Bar Number 67499.

Daniel M. Shapiro, Attorney at Law
1366 East Palm Street
Altadena, California 91001

Law School: Harvard