Client Review on Robert S. Schriebman A Progessional Law Corp

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My law firm was targeted by the EDD with a completely bogus investigation. But, my potential exposure to these vultures was hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the time and energy I and my employees would have to expend to fight it.. Bottom line -- Bob Schriebman saved the day, charged me a reasonable flat fee and engineered a very inexpensive settlement. I can't recommend him highly enough, even if, like me, you are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Ironically, my firm specializes in employment law, and in misclassification of workers as independent contractors ("IC's) and we have been the lawyers in several influential court of appeal cases. We understand fully the difference between IC's and employees and would never misclassify any workers. That didn't stop the EDD though. In our case, a lawyer who had worked for us on an IC basis made a claim for unemployment benefits for her work at a different firm where she had been a W2 employee. As required, she told the EDD that she had worked for my firm as an IC. The EDD investigated, and granted her claim for benefits -- but decided that she was not an employee of the firm where she worked as a W2 employee, but was an employee of my firm, where she had been an IC - even though she maintained her own separate office, worked whatever hours she wanted, and received no supervision. (Bob told me this is common: the EDD grants a worker's questionable even untenable, claim for benefits, then targets the firm that hired them.) When the EDD told me they were auditing me I thought it was a mistake. And, because I'm a lawyer, I thought I could probably handle it myself. But, I checked the web looking for information and in doing so I found Bob's website which contains tons of valuable information about EDD issues. I was so impressed that I called him up and asked if it was something I could handle myself. I think he said it was as good an idea as doctor performing surgery on himself. When I thought it through, I could see that fighting the EDD in a proceeding that I knew nothing about was going to be a huge time suck for me and my employees. Bob charged a flat fee to handle the entire audit and, while it was more than I wanted to pay at the time (hel1, I didn't want to pay anything ...) it turned out to be a tremendous bargain. Bob handled everything, my firm didn't have to do anything except send some documents. Bob's knowledge of the nuances of how the EDD worked was absolutely fantastic. He knows the hearing officers, knows the procedures, knows the time deadlines, knows what you can be required to do and what you can refuse to do, and that knowledge is invaluable. The EDD spent about a year investigating my firm and called into question every dollar I had ever paid any worker. Every 1099 I sent out for the past five years including to entities like court reporters, got checked. In the end, they sent some kind of audit statement and -- keeping in mind that I'm a lawyer and know how to read stuff like this -- it was all voodoo to me: I couldn't understand it at all. The EDD decided that I owed them about $15,000 -- keeping in mind that this was a huge reduction in what they started out with. Still, Bob was outraged and told me he was going to get it reduced for a bunch of reasons that even I couldn't follow. In the end, it got settled for my payment of less than a quarter of the already-reduced $15,000 the EDD said I owed. I know that was a hell of a lot less than I would have paid if I had handled it myself, and it was way, way less aggravation and work for me and my employees. If you've got an EDD problem, the only smart thing to do is to hire Bob Schriebman. He's smart, ethical, knows the EDD backwards and forwards, you'll get a better result than you ever could on your own, and whatever you pay him is a lot less than the value of your own time, energy, and lost peace of mind.