The founder of a DTLA law firm is facing charges at the California State Bar
The California State Bar has charged the founding partner of the Downtown LA Law Group, the law firm at the center of a Los Angeles County sexual harassment scandal, for enrolling dozens of clients in states where none of the firm’s attorneys are licensed to practice.
The bar charged Salar Hendizadeh, who left the firm this fall, on March 5 with helping one of Southern California’s largest personal injury law firms sign up accident victims across the country, even though they didn’t have lawyers to litigate cases in other states. Hendizadeh has been charged with eleven counts, including deceptive advertising and charging illegal fees.
Federal Criminal Court Chief Counsel George Cardona said in a statement that the allegations, if proven, “represent dishonesty and illegality.”
Hendizadeh and a spokeswoman for the Downtown LA Law Group had no comment Monday.
The firm had approximately 40 clients in Texas, where it operated under the name “Lone Star Injury Law Firm” and called itself “The Lone Star Injury Law Firm of Texas,” according to the complaint.
The firm had one LA-based attorney licensed to practice in Texas, Darren McBratney, but he left the firm in early 2022. The bar says the firm refused to remove the attorney’s name from its website for years, ignoring a cease-and-desist letter from McBratney’s new employer.
Generally, attorneys can take cases in states where they are not licensed, but they need to work with a local attorney or get permission from the court. In many cases, the bar said, DTLA made no effort to do so and left its foreign customers in the lurch.
The company told a Maryland car accident victim that his case was worth $1 million and encouraged him to see a California spine surgeon who charged about $300,000 for the surgery, according to the complaint. He fired the company after receiving a settlement offer of $160,000 — insufficient, he believed, to cover his medical bills, the complaint said.
Attorneys signed on for a Tennessee customer who was injured at a Nashville rental car business, but the one-year statute of limitations ran out before they could file a lawsuit, the complaint says. The company offered to pay all of his medical bills and one year of physical therapy as “restitution,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuits come as DTLA faces another pending investigation from the State Bar into thousands of sexual harassment lawsuits the company filed in Los Angeles County, as well as an investigation from the district attorney’s office. Both said they were looking into allegations made by the Times last fall that DTLA paid clients to file claims, some of which were allegedly false, as part of a $4-billion settlement, the largest in U.S. history. The company has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing.
The company was founded by three long-time friends: Daniel Azizi and Farid Yaghoubtil, who are cousins, and Hendizadeh, his friend from elementary school. They began working together in August 2013, the month Hendizadeh received his California bar license, according to the complaint.
The bar complaint charges only Hendizadeh, although it also mentions Yaghoubtil, who shared responsibility for marketing and taking on clients, according to the complaint.
The bar says Yaghoubtil repeatedly asked for referral money from a woman who was injured at a Michigan drug store after he dumped the company for allegedly taking too long to file a lawsuit. The client had to find his own lawyer, the bar said, eliminating the need for a referral fee.
“Why would you tell lawyers not to pay us referral fees? That makes no sense.” Yaghoubtil wrote a message to this woman on Aug. 16, 2022. “But why don’t you let us get the transfer money? It’s so sad. Have a good night.”
