* * *MY THOUGHTS ON FRAUDULENT BILLING* * *

I litigated a case where Cynthia Tracy was opposing counsel. Although I prevailed for the most part, there are resounding issues which the public should be notified of:

* Cynthia Tracy encourages litigation by refusing to entertain viable avenues to litigation. In short, in stead of simply returning a call to resolve minor issues, Cynthia Tracy forces the opposing party to go to court, which in turn forces her to bill her client to go to court for something simple which could have been handled with a phone call. In one instance, 4-5 letters were sent to Cynthia Tracy to resolve very simple issues to avoid court and keep costs down--but this doesn't feed the hours Cynthia Tracy needs to bill due to the fact there's no money if there's no litigation.

* Cynthia Tracy was offended I attached letters demonstrating I made efforts to resolve issues with her prior to filing a motion. Cynthia Tracy wrote a letter threatening sanctions due to lodging the letters as part of the court record, but forgets---an opposing party has no obligation to keep his or her own letters confidential which are written to opposing counsel, especially those making efforts to avoid litigation!! In my opinion, I believe Cynthia Tracy does not want her client or the court to know she simply ignores issue after issue to force her to go to court, which in turn forces her client to pay for her to go to court.

*Cynthia Tracy appears to bill her client for 'professional services' but simply uses family to do much of her work, where you would think, in theory, if you pay for a paralegal's time, that paralegal went to school to learn how to research and draft law---but Cynthia Tracy appears to use her own kids but bills her client for the use of a legally educated staff. Due to the low quality and excessive errors made, there's no doubt in my mind the kids did not attend paralegal school or any form of higher education.

For example, I am aware she uses family "Sabrina Tracy" aka (Bina T on MySpace) and "Darryll Tracy" are assigned the title of "Legal Assistant" when they are simply her kids likely billing at $125 an hour. Personally, I believe having the kids do work for mom is cool, but billing your client for a "Legal Assistant" is ridiculous especially when the legal assistant perpetuates error after error.

* Considering the above, now consider this---billing for work which Cynthia Tracy doesn't even review. For example, I am personally aware Cynthia Tracy had submitted paper work for a case where she asked the court to divorce the parties, but in reality the parties were never married, but simply dealing with visitation issues. Cynthia Tracy appears to use ProDoc or similar software for attorneys where you simply plug in basic information (case number, names of parties, etc) and the software prints out the form pleadings. It appears Cynthia Tracy is either grossly incompetent and forgets who is married and who is isn't as she fails to review what she files, or simply has the kids spit out and file paper work but bills the client for her time. In some places, this is called 'over-billing' and in others it's called 'fraud' since you bill for work but don't actually do the work!

* Cynthia Tracy went so far as to bill her client to pursue records retained by MySpace and FaceBook even though those records cannot be produced under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act ("ECPA"). The ECPA is a federal statute that prohibits Facebook from producing any "content" without notarized user consent or a Search Warrant. Further, the consent form she wanted signed did not appear to have a location for a notary as required, therefore even IF the form was signed to give consent, Facebook and MySpace would have sent it back. No doubt, her cutting edge legal assistants could have figured this out by billing the client to learn the bare bones basics of the law and how to propound discovery properly.

The list goes on and on. In sum, my opinion about Cynthia Tracy is based on first hand knowledge of dealing with her office, or should I just say 'the Tracy family'. She certainly makes the TV Show 'Texas Justice' appear very sophisticated when compared to the backwoods law office she runs with her kids.