STAY CLEAR - VERY UNPROFESSIONAL!
SCAMMERS! STAY CLEAR - VERY UNPROFESSIONAL.
Before writing the review and submitting a complaint to the relevant parties I tried to reach out numerous times as I didn't want to damage a small business however as you will see unsurprisingly no response.
Please do not make the mistake of going with this lawyer you will live to regret it and have a whole heap of stress on top of whatever issue you are already looking to settle.
I spoke with Sheikh in early June on the phone and then detailed my required services in an email to which he said he was happy to help with.
After the payment 07/06/2023 was received communication became incredibly difficult. Sheikh always responded days or weeks later saying he was in court busy.
After agreeing to start the settlement draft on 14/06 I reached out 19/06 for an update which received a response the same day: "You’ll have the draft by Wednesday Luke. I had to be in court today with another client."
(Still to this day 01/11 5 months later I have never seen evidence this draft existed)
In September the solicitor representing the other party contacted MettLaw asking for the settlement so Sheikh arranged a call.
08/09 - "Are you available for a Zoom call next week Tuesday afternoon around 2pm?"
12/09 (30 minutes before the call) - "Hello Luke, I am in court today and the hearing has been delayed. We’ll need to re-schedule our call."
14/09 - Sheikh says he will no longer be able to help with the issue unless I pay more as its "no longer as straight-forward"
I responded 14/09 and highlighted that since I explained this on a call and sent a detailed email of the situation from my stance it was clear however I understand things can get misinterpreted so please re-quote me but include the payment made since there has been no evidence of any work to date.
This was an attempt by Sheikh to basically scam the original payment and charge me again since the Zoom Call never happened and the draft from June was never seen.
I contacted Sheikh numerous times over the next month on 25/09 and 12/10. 2 weeks between each email to show I was patient and give reasonable time for a reply even though its months since the initial promise of a draft.
Finally 13/10 Sheikh responded and now claims the original quote was for 2 hours work although this was never stated only that he was going to do the settlement as required.
His reason was "appeared to me as a straightforward job"
The email also further detailed his reasoning:
"One hour for obtaining and reading the background information and making notes; (completed)
One hour for preparing the agreement. (incomplete as the other party did not co-operate)."
To ignore emails and reply after 1 month is terrible and shows the service levels from MettLaw.
To give Sheikh the benefit of the doubt I offered him to write off part of the payment since I agree he at least read the background info and had sent a couple of emails but since no draft was done and his communication terrible its unfair to try and completely write off the full payment.
All further emails to date have been ignored including as mentioned above an opportunity to put things right and a warning that I would be forced to leave a review and complain to the relevant parties.
To give you another example example of the terrible communication I requested a simple payment invoice so I could file my VAT.
12/08 - I requested the invoice
16/08 - "I’m away until this Friday. I’ll send you an invoice next week."
A seemingly fair response at first but when no response was received the next week it shows the type of lawyer Sheikh is with not only no urgency but failure to stick to his own word. I followed up again 29/08 - 2 weeks after it was supposed to be sent.
Finally after a follow up detailing it was urgent due to needing to file VAT a response of "Yes Luke, I’ll send it to you by Monday." was given on 31/08. No apology for the delay simply that.
5 days later on 02/08 (Tuesday) the invoice was received.
