CA State Bar Shuts Down “Illegal” Law Office

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Prosecutors at the State Bar of California have shut down a satellite office of Walter S. Martinez, a solo practitioner in Upland, California, alleging that two office administrators were illegally practicing law.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office charged a dozen people, most of them chiropractors, as part of an ongoing sting operation against illegal patient referral and insurance over-billing schemes. Operation K-Fraud, which stands for “Knockout Fraudulent Attorneys and Unscrupulous Doctors,” targets a scheme in which doctors allegedly agreed to pay 30% of their patient billings to law office administrators in exchange for those patients’ referrals.

The defendants include eight chiropractors, one attorney and three administrative staff members. The attorney is David Gonzalez of Placentia. Another defendant, law office administrator Lisa Marie Tran, worked in Martinez’s Orange County office.

  

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Earlier this week, an Orange County Superior Court judge granted the State Bar authority to take over Martinez’s Westminster satellite law office, which also goes by L&M Legal Services. Two office administrators were ordered to cease and desist from practicing law.

The State Bar has taken files from the office and returned them to clients. Martinez has not been charged.