New Client Info

Information for anyone considering California Justice Alliance, APC, to provide legal assistance with any matter

California Justice Alliance, APC (A Professional Corporation), is not open to the public and takes cases, if at all, by invitation only. Because you will usually only have very limited time to choose an attorney to represent you after becoming aware of a lawsuit, if you have reason to believe that some claim may be pending against you, you should not delay in contacting another qualified attorney to get appropriate advice and assistance. Many other lawfirms do not have requirements like the following, which have applied to the vast majority of cases our firm has handled:

We must receive a copy of the complaint and all documents which have been received in a given matter before the case can be discussed, at the very least to make sure our office would not have a conflict in discussing it with you. This information is required so that if we are ever contacted in another lawsuit in which relates in any way to you, your business or property, we will have your case flagged as a potential conflict. If you fax it to us at (855) 232-0200 please write your name, phone and email address on a separate cover sheet sent with the fax; or call us at (855) 232-0100 for our email address.
Before any discussion of a case with an attorney or staff, we would need original digital pictures by email of all public areas of the property in question (i.e., not just the areas mentioned in the complaint), including the restrooms, even if “no public restrooms” signs are posted. PDF copies of pictures (or pictures sent by fax) will not be sufficient, as we often need to magnify them. It is important to take pictures at the earliest possible opportunity after you first become aware that a claim might be pending , and particularly before any changes are made (the people who filed the lawsuits will almost certainly already have pictures of the conditions, so it is imperative to review the sort of images they would likely have). A dozen or so simple cameraphone pictures are usually enough for a preliminary discussion.
We will need to be able to communicate with you effectively by email and you will need to be able to open attachments we send. We mention this because there is often very little time to take appropriate action in an ADA/accessibility lawsuit, so if this is something you are not comfortable with and don’t have a friend, family member or employee who will regularly assist you with this, you should not delay in contacting other lawyers to assist you with your case. A partial list of attorneys known to have handled a significant number of these cases can be accessed by clicking the “Find a Lawyer” link at ADAlawsuits.com.
You should be aware that our firm will normally only provide assistance to defendants in ADA/access lawsuits who are willing to make all appropriate improvements for disabled accessibility within a very small number of days. While this does not mean that you will necessarily need to bring your location up to the “new construction” standard, undertake highly complex, costly or burdensome improvements, or make changes which are the legal responsibility of someone else, if you are not willing to make all appropriate improvements very quickly, you would be better advised to consult other qualified attorneys asap.
Unlike other lawfirms, we require nearly every client to have a Certified Access Specialist (“CASp Inspector”– see http://www.CASpInspections.com) inspect nearly all areas of the property which is the subject to the lawsuit to which a member of the public might be given access, and this may potentially include restrooms even if they are marked as not being open to the public. There are considerable risks to hiring a CASp Inspector by anyone other than an attorney, though many attorneys will provide assistance in retaining a CASp at little or not cost for existing clients. If you hire a CASp directly (i.e., not hired through an attorney who represents you), CJA may not be inclined to provide assistance with your matters, as CASp reports have become a very common discovery request.
If you have filed any documents in your case or communicated with the Plaintiff’s attorney there is a very good chance that our firm will not provide assistance in your case, though we would normally make that decision only after all information has been received.
We do not make a final decision about whether to provide assistance in a case, or not, until we have received and reviewed all information we feel is necessary to make an informed decision. Often, we can make that decision or have an initial discussion within a few hours of receiving the needed pictures and documents. However, because we must, with considerable regret, decline to provide assistance in over 100 cases each year (largely due to availability and workload), you should not assume that we will be available to provide assistance (or even a response) in your case on any terms, and should actively consult with other qualified attorneys unless/until we jointly sign a detailed written agreement for providing assistance in your matter, and an agreed deposit has been provided.
You should be aware that if you take too long to send us documents, pictures or information we request to evaluate your case we may not be willing to provide assistance with it. This stems from the concern that if we were to represent you in litigation we might need to receive documents or information quickly in the future, and if we could not do so, there could be harm to your case.

Thank you for considering our firm to provide assistance in this matter. Regardless of your decision, or ours, about how your case would best be handled, we wish you the very best of success with it.