Reviews

Unfortunately over 6 years later and I have ongoing disputes with this lawyer. As for his response on yelp on 11/4/17 he is questioning my honesty and his explanation is totally false on everything. He is completely lying by stating that we actually were awarded anything in the court of appeals. The real truth is because of his negligence by not using an expert’s testimony at the trial to determine my damages we were awarded nothing. The trial court disregarded the damages claimed in our case because it was me who prepared the damages and they deemed it unreliable because I am not an accountant. The court of appeals agreed that we are entitled to collect damages and sent it back to the trial court to recalculate the damages. The trial judge awarded us $45,000. This was again appealed. And the bottom line is we were awarded absolutely nothing because of Mr. Appel’s massive blunder in the first place to not include an expert testimony to solidify our damages. Everything boiled down to we were damaged and entitled to fees for our damages but no one could verify how much our damages were. And if you re-read how much Mr. Appel charged us in the first place, he had absolutely no excuse to not use an expert witness. He is also being dishonest about his claim this he was awarded a summary judgement. He was awarded a partial summary judgement which is not final and therefore not appealable pending our counterclaim disputing his fee and malpractice. Finally in order to judge Mr. Appel’s billing practice and moral compass, on April 24, 2018 Mr. Appel emailed my lawyer Mr. Bellas the following, “When we were last in court, you had asked for the amount for our attorney’s fee claim remaining on out complaint. Our total fees and expense is, to date, $20,101.21.” Just to make in abundantly clear to everyone. After Mr. Appel collected over $40,000 for a claim that started with an offer to settle for a little over $4,000, he is now asking $20,101.21 for the 3 page motion of a summary judgement for his fee to collect the $24,725.56 in the partial summary judgement. I would love to see Mr. Appel stand before a jury and explain that as a lawyer, he wants $20,101.21 in lawyer fees to collect on an unpaid fee of $19,373.12 (plus 5% monthly compound interest which totaled $24,725.56) with a straight face. These fees that are stated in Mr. Appel’s engagement letter as, “in the event of litigation to enforce this agreement you agree to pay our reasonable attorney’s fees and cost.” It is my understanding that most of lawyer’s engagement letters do not include such language and Illinois courts very seldom if ever award such damages. The irony of all of this is that I went to Mr. Appel in the first place to defend myself against being sued even though I was the one being damaged in the first place. Throughout the trial courts and appellate courts they all agreed that I was the victim and damaged but because of Mr. Appel and only Mr. Appel I have been awarded nothing and have spent several thousand dollars in lawyer fees. Lastly as for Mr. Appel’s request for you to visit avvo.com to see “many positive reviews from our clients” please note that when I wrote my bad review on May 29, 2014 he only had one previous review from 2007. One day after my review he miraculously had two 5 star reviews, 4 within one week and enough within a month (all 5 starts eh?) to place my bad review to the bottom of the site. Goes to show how fully honest he is. Other than one review in 2018 his last reviews were in 2016. I wonder how many new ones he'll get to cover this up?

Brendan helped me recover a mortgage loan I thought lost in a matter of days! He explained my legal options and all the possible outcomes very clearly. He is very resourceful a shows a high level of expertise. Him and Doris provided an outstanding level of service; very responsive, always accessible and very friendly.

Had no problem what so ever.. All my emails were responded on a timely manner and explained us about each stage of the process and was very happy with the service Would highly recommend .

My boyfriend and I used Brendan and Doris for the purchase and sale of our home and I can't say enough good things about them. Doris was by far the most responsive person in the entire transaction and she would take the time to explain anything/everything that we found confusing. It would be an understatement to say I was pleased with our service- they were amazing!! I think Doris and Brendan really went above and beyond to make our experience as painless as possible. I can't thank them enough!! I will definitely hire them in the future!

I have worked with Brendan and his team three times over the past two years and I highly recommend their services. Brendan helped us close on a home sale and a home purchase last month and he also helped us draft rental agreements and consulted with us on another property. Brendan and his team are tremendously diligent and responsive and their fees are very reasonable - especially considering the high quality work that they do. I will work with Brendan again and I highly recommend his services.

My landlord of 30 years did not want to pay interest on deposit, insisting it was in the lease excluding it from the City of Chicago Ordinance which demanded it. Mr. Blair informed me that there could not be a exception to this mandate, wrote a very direct but friendly letter to my former landlord for me stating the law. It worked! My landlord who is very difficult to deal with agreed to pay the interest on the deposit in the near future! Enjoyed the friendly, prompt, and effective interaction between me as well as the landlord. Mr. Blair was very knowledgable about the issue I needed help with!

I had an excellent experience with Brendan Appel for my real estate legal help. He was very thorough, attentive, offered expert advice and a nice person. It was a good feeling to know he was in my corner.

I recently used Brendan for the purchase of a piece of property that I used to build a new house. Having never built a home before there were several steps in the process that were new to me. Brendan was very helpful and thorough in explaining to me everything and guiding me into making educated decisions on the contract terms. Brendan's and his team were very responsive when communicating and helped make the process go smoothly for me from start to finish. I would definitely recommend Brendan and use him again in the future.

Brendan did a great job on both closings for a new condominium and existing home. On the closing for our new condominium it was noted they had some wrong information on the deed. We were told the information was wrong since the beginning on the original and subsequent deeds and that we should just accept the mistake. Brendan said that was not acceptable and had all the preceding deeds for the property changed to reflect the correct information.

Brendan is very responsive, easy contact with the office and staff, worked with him twice. He caught some unreasonable fees listed on the closing sheet, so his service was virtually "free". Highly recommended.

Brendan's firm did a brilliant job helping us with the sale of our home. Their perseverance was exceptional and they kept us informed at every step. We recommend them most highly and without reservation.

I am a first time home-buyer and can't say enough good things about the Law Office of Brendan Appel. Brendan was very helpful in walking me through every aspect of the closing, and patient in dealing with a difficult bank situation. He went above and beyond in ensuring that our deal stayed intact and advocated for us to get closing credits from our bank when they caused significant delays in the process. The office's legal assistant Doris is a Saint! She answered every phone call and e-mail as questions came up, notified us quickly as things progressed, and also advocated for us when other parties were unresponsive. She coached us through every stage of the process and always did it with patience and a friendly tone. I am so grateful for her help and guidance. They really helped make this process easier and it was a very stressful and difficult situation dealing with unresponsive bank representatives, difficult sellers' attorney and constant delays from other parties. We couldn't have gotten through it without them!