Law Offices of Gary Berkovich

My whole family has been clients of this firm. They handled my lemon law case and helped after my car accident. Thank you to the law offices of Gary Berkovich

In life, you will probably once or twice — hopefully less (but probably more) — come across a crappy person. Some people like to take advantage of accidents, regardless of how accidental they are, or how much you profusely apologize or offer them compensation in the first place. Well, I came across my jerk last summer and long story short, I had to correspond with this law office to settle things.
Awful, awful customer service.
I was unsatisfied with the customer service from this Law Office because:
1) Of the 7 months that I dealt with this office, only ONCE did I ever receive a document when they said I would receive it.
2) I came across a few different staff members and was advised to call someone, Person X, regarding my file. I was told to call her at a certain time; I did, and she was late to work that day and despite the 5 messages I left, day after day, she never returned my call. When I finally got a hold of her about a week later, she sounded wasted. Needless to say despite that she told me: «Alright, I get that to you right away», I never received the documents I requested. Nor did I ever hear from her again, as…
3) … My file was then transferred to another staff member. This person seemed to have different speaking mannerisms and personalities every time we spoke. I thought it was weird & unprofessional, but (shrug). During my correspondence with him, he left a message on my phone. He spoke much too quickly during the phone message — this told me he didn’t care whether or not I understood what he said. There was also loud laughing in the background which made it even more difficult to understand.
4) I wrote several letters to the Law office, addressing this staff member, asking for back up documents to elaborate what exactly I was paying for. You may know that when it comes to a law suit, it’s preferable & safer if all agreements are written. Elusive as they were, this same person would only return my letters with phone calls, saying «I’m calling you to expedite this process over the phone. I already sent the papers to you — the numbers are there».
*Just FYI, the document was a piece of blank paper, with a small 2×2 table, containing the name of a 3^rd party, & a $ amt next to it. No letter head, nothing else to verify that it was indeed an official receipt. Anyone could have created this document. Thus, I never received any of the documents I requested; I was only told over and over again «I already sent that to you» as an explanation.
5) In the 8 months I corresponded with this Law Office, never ONCE did they spell my name right. When they finally agreed to send the release (after months of saying «no, you pay first, and then we’ll send the release), they spelled my name wrong again. I sent plenty of mail to them with my name spelled out, and nonetheless, they made no change. Obviously, when you get a release of liability, you would want your name spelled correctly on it, else what’s the point? It’s not your identity that has been released of liability.
Naturally, i called again to request that a revised release, for the error in name and also in release. I understand that Law Offices use templates when it comes to releases like this, but the release did not even specify my case; It regarded airplanes. I also mentioned for him to make this correction. He reluctantly agreed and a few days later, I received the revised release and letter.
Well, it was STILL wrong. He spelled it back to me fine on the phone, but for some reason, he did not type it. So I called him back to mention this little detail to him and he sighed in exasperation. He was annoyed that i requested my name to be written correctly and replied: «you know, you can just cross out your name and then write it in yourself; I mean — it’s the same thing and we can still take that».
I mentioned that I didn’t see why it was so difficult to make the change, and that I would prefer that my name be typed out correctly. He then mentioned that I was the one who wanted to settle this ASAP so I could just make the adjustment myself. Well, I was annoyed, too — why is it so difficult to have my name written accurately on a legal doc after more than 6 months? Obviously strained, we were both silent for a long awkward moment. Finally, he reluctantly agreed «ok, if that’s what you want, we’ll send you another letter». YES, that was exactly what I wanted.
In the end, I paid the «victim» way too much for an accident, but I guess you can’t put a price on peace of mind.
End notes: if you’re going to take advantage of some accident and try to milk the «offender» for all you can get, make sure you go to a Law Office that actually has credibility. Perhaps Mr. Berkovich himself is not unprofessional, but his staff certainly counters that. With all the moodiness and flakiness, how is one supposed to feel that the Law Office is even legit?