Frank Weinberg Black
Att. Joel Martin McTague
7805 S.W. 6th Court
Plantation, FL 33324
Deland, June 15, 2016
Re: Your letter dated June 1, 2016
Joel Martin McTague,
I am in receipt of your
letter dated June 1, 2016. You asked in your letter why you
should not refer this matter to the Florida Bar for further
investigation by June 30, 2016.
Since you are obviously
interested in my answer, here is my opinion on this matter:
You, as an attorney, should know that quoting statutes is
not considered UPL – no matter what old case law you are
quoting. If I would have followed your advice and tried to
interpret the bylaws of the community, you might have had a
case. As you know, I did not!
In a recent opinion the
Florida Supreme Court ruled that I would have to get paid in
order to make my opinion the unauthorized practice of law. I
can assure you: I didn’t get paid!
As usual, it all comes down
to the interpretation of a few words, but you might have
mentioned in your letter that it is as easy for the majority
of the board to remove an officer from office as it is to
fire the association attorney.
Let’s make one thing very
clear: I understand that you are desperate to keep the
valuable account of this association. It makes a lot of
money for your law firm. But I hope you didn’t charge the
association for writing this letter since the full board was
not informed about this issue and didn’t approve the cost
for writing such a letter that in my opinion lacks facts! A
few board members I talked to informed me about your letter
before I had even seen it!
I’m gladly discussing this
issue with representatives of the Florida BAR in case you
follow up on your threat! In my opinion it’s an empty
threat!
Regards,
Jan Bergemann
President
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