Richard Burt Professional Law Corporation
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In communicating through a website with a lawyer you are thinking of hiring, you should not provide any confidential information concerning your legal matter until an attorney-client relationship has been formed.
Sending an email to Richard Burt or leaving a voice mail for him or his assistant (and a reply from either) does not create an attorney-client relationship.
No attorney-client relationship will be formed until you and Mr. Burt have agreed that he should represent you, he has determined that there is no conflict with an existing client, you have signed an engagement letter that sets forth the terms of the representation, and, when requested, you have made a fee deposit.
Please note that the initial consultation is solely to determine the nature of your legal matter and to discuss fees. Mr. Burt does not offer free legal advice.
After an attorney-client relationship has been formed, email (and voice mail) may of course be freely used for confidential attorney-client communications.
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NOTE: Mr. Burt does not handle litigation of any kind. If you wish to sue someone, are being sued, or need to make a court filing of any kind, Mr. Burt cannot help you. You should not contact him for those services.
Is the CA Certificate Status company a scam?
Lately, my clients have been receiving a solicitation from a company calling itself CA Certificate Status, which offers to obtain from the California Secretary of State a certificate of status for a company. The solicitation preaches the possible benefits of a certificate of status and offers to obtain one for a fee of $87.25.
For those who might think that the form looks like a government form (in part because of a “Please Respond By” date in a very large font—perhaps the largest on the page), the form says in a very small font—perhaps the smallest on the page: “This is not a government agency.”
The question has arisen whether this is a scam.
I don’t know the company, and I have no basis to call this a scam. I assume the company will in fact obtain and deliver a certificate of status.
But the better question is whether one needs this service. In general, the answer is no.
First, for a $5 fee, anyone can obtain a certificate of status for a company by going to the California Secretary of State’s website and using the online BizFile service.
Second, a certificate of status is useful for only a short period of time because it speaks of the good standing of the company as of the date it’s issued. Anyone asking for a certificate of status will want one that is reasonably current, say, only a week or two old.
The only reason to order a certificate of status is if a lender or other third party requires one for a transaction or for some other reason. And in my practice of more than 40 years in California, I’ve had to order a certificate of status for a client only on a handful of occasions. Because the Secretary of State shows the status of companies online via the BizFile service, there is typically little need for a certificate of status.
certificate of status By the time a need arises for one, it will undoubtedly be out of date and useless.
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