Lawyers May Never Share Fees With a Non-Lawyer
The decision, In re Oheb, No. 99-C-11161 (Cal. Bar Rev. 07/16/2004) a hearing judge’s recommended that respondent Tamir Oheb be placed on four years’ stayed suspension and on four years’ probation with conditions, including two years’ actual suspension. Oheb admitted that “[t]he detailed findings of the Hearing Department are amply supported by the record” and that “[t]he degree of discipline recommended by the Hearing Department is well-supported and should be adopted” by the review department. Oheb, after pleading nolo contendere, he was convicted in the Los Angeles Superior Court on two felony counts of violating Penal Code section 549 for accepting referrals of personal injury clients with reckless disregard for whether the referring party or the referred clients intended to make false or fraudulent insurance claims. Given that either reckless disregard or knowledge of intent of another to commit insurance fraud is an element of the offense – since Oheb pled to the “reckless disregard” element the Bar concluded it was unable to conclude that Penal Code section 549 inherently involves moral turpitude. Oheb was told, and believed, that Gottlieb had been a very successful “attorney for 25 years plus, that [Gottlieb] was a litigator, [that Gottlieb] had worked for a number of famous attorneys,” that Gottlieb had a “huge book of business” that he was willing to refer to respondent, and that he was willing to teach respondent how to litigate. As silly and patently illegal was the offer, Oheb in financial difficulty, agreed with Gottlieb to split the attorney’s fees on each case Gottlieb referred to Oheb: 25 percent to Oheb and 75 percent to Gottlieb whenever Gottlieb had to buy the case or otherwise had to pay money to someone in connection with the case, and 50 percent each whenever Gottlieb did not have to buy the case or otherwise have to pay for some expense related to the case or whenever Gottlieb bought the case from a specific individual who did not charge much for cases. © 2021 – Barry Zalma Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE, now limits his practice to service as an insurance consultant specializing in insurance coverage, insurance claims handling, insurance bad faith and insurance fraud almost equally for insurers and policyholders. He also serves as an arbitrator or mediator for insurance related disputes. He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 52 years in the insurance business. He is available at http://www.zalma.com and zalma@zalma.com. Mr. Zalma is the first recipient of the first annual Claims Magazine/ACE Legend Award. Over the last 53 years Barry Zalma has dedicated his life to insurance, insurance claims and the need to defeat insurance fraud. He has created the following library of books and other materials to make it possible for insurers and their claims staff to become insurance claims professionals. Go to the podcast Zalma On Insurance at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma; Follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bzalma; Go to Barry Zalma videos at Rumble.com at https://rumble.com/c/c-262921; Go to Barry Zalma on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg; Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims-library/ Read posts from Barry Zalma at https://parler.com/profile/Zalma/posts; and Read last two issues of ZIFL here.