Mr. Athey breached his fiduciary duties to his client in a civil litigation
I retained Mr. Athey as my legal counsel when I was the defendant in an ongoing litigation involving a former home builder and the buyers. As the builder's claims were questionable, Mr. Athey was instructed to pursue a strategy to complete discovery
and pursue the dismissal of groundless claims from the builder and buyers when he accepted the case in 2018. However, Mr. Athey ignored my objectives, and chose to "handle" my litigation as he saw fit - without communicating his intentions to me. Instead of conducting a reasonable discovery effort, Mr. Athey collaborated with the opposing attorneys to push for an early settlement.
The mediation was conducted without our input or consideration of our interests, and Mr. Athey failed to disclose a conflict of interest of the mediator. The situation deteriorated when Mr. Athey deliberately settled my litigation without my consent or even notifying me. For 18 days following the mediation, Mr. Athey failed to respond to my emails or communicate his actions to cancel depositions and allow for the discovery deadline to pass. Mr. Athey only wanted to settle the case with as little effort as possible. I did not sign the draft settlement and later realized that he had already informed the opposing parties that I had agreed to the settlement.
Rather than rectify his mistake, Mr. Athey tried to pressure me to sign the plaintiff's settlement over the next three months and filed his motion to withdraw. Mr. Athey did not oppose or appropriately respond to motions from the opposing parties. At one point, I then instructed Mr. Athey to add a one-sentence statement to the settlement's release language to resolve the impasse. Mr. Athey failed to present this as a counteroffer to the parties. Rather, he encouraged the opposing attorneys to obtain an ill-conceived deposition of the mediator, violating mediation confidentiality. He even encouraged the opposing attorneys to have me reimburse their costs!
What should have been a reasonable settlement became a litigation nightmare, all due to Mr. Athey's failure to communicate and act in the best interests of his client. Mr. Athey's negligence, breach of fiduciary duties, concealment and misrepresentation resulted in a botched mediation and 4 unnecessary years of costly litigation. During his time as legal counsel, Mr. Athey did not make a single call to me or respond to my phone calls. From my experience with Mr. Matthew Athey, I would certainly not recommend him for any legal matter where competent legal representation is essential.
