Beginning in 2002, Alliance-Utopia became embroiled in four devastating legal challenges:

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(1)  We were victimized by what was at that time the largest telecommunications scam in history;  A company called Norvergence sold us an equipment lease and service agreement for a phone and a "T-1" Internet system.  Norvergence went bankrupt immediately after the equipment was installed. We  weren't getting the services we were promised, and wanted to return the system. We then discovered that right before they went bankrupt, Norvergence sold the lease to Preferred Capital, a finance company in Ohio. Preferred Capital wouldn't let us return the equipment. They claimed to be "a holder in due course", and entitled to monthly payments whether or not we received the services we were promised.  Although our business was in Los Angeles, a "forum clause" in the contract required us to litigate the matter in Ohio. It turned out we were one of thousands of small businesses caught in the same net, forced to litigate in a forum thousands of miles from where we were located.

 

(2) The owner of the office building we were in also went bankrupt. Since the new owner bought the building from the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Trustee,  he refused to honor our lease, forced us to relocate to another floor, claiming he wasn't obliged to compensate us for the thousands it  cost for our move.

 

(3) Our two largest clients fell behind on their payments, and eventually stopped paying us at all.

 

(4) We had serious technical problems with certain video decks and digital editing systems. Unlike today, video equipment was very expensive when we bought everything in 1998 - 2002. The equipment was financed through lines of credit with the seller, for which I co-signed  personal guaranties. The dispute eventually devolved into a lawsuit. Our attorney made some serious errors; I was jointly and severally liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the finance company's legal fees and interest, and they began pursuing me personally.

 

We were financially devastated by the sum-total of everything that happened,  so hiring another lawyer was out of the question.  I began taking paralegal classes at West Los Angeles College in the evening, hoping to understand what went wrong, and see if there was something I could do about my predicament by representing myself.  One of the first things I learned were the basics of legal research. 

 

Abraham Lincoln once said that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, and I hadn't even graduated from paralegal school. It was a terrifying experience going toe to toe against two experienced attorneys; I made a lot of mistakes. But in the end,  my arguments, supported by the legal research I did prevailed 100%. 

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When I moved to Hawaii in 2006, I decided to pursue a full-time career in law. I began the process of applying to law school while working as a paralegal for the Hawaii Attorney General; I spent two years in Employment Law, and eight years at the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Criminal Justice Division.

 

In 2012, I was accepted at the University of Hawaii's William Richardson School of Law. I attended the part-time evening program while continuing to work  for the Attorney General during the day. In 2016,  I graduated and passed the Hawaii Bar.  

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