Edward L. Seidel is a San Francisco-based real estate attorney who made partner at Cooper, White & Cooper LLP’s San Francisco office in 2020. This is a Ed. Seidel attorney review based on an interaction with a reader. Unfortunately, it was a terrible experience.
Hiring a real estate lawyer can help you during real estate transactions and disputes.
However, a reader shared how Edward L. Seidel showed extremely bad form, poor ethics, and arrogance as a real estate lawyer during the coronavirus pandemic.
Edward L. Seidel, Attorney At Cooper White & Cooper Review
Background
A reader made a no-financing contingency offer on a house in San Francisco. The seller finally accepted three days later, despite a 24-hour request to respond. This delay in response was a key hint of what was to come.
The closing date was to be 25 days from the initial offer date. Therefore, a closing date of the 3rd or 6th of the month was the target date.
After two weeks, the reader started second-guessing his offer and wrote a price concession letter. It wasn’t much of a price concession request; less than 2% lower than the initial offer.
After one week had passed, there was no response, so the reader followed up with the listing agent.
The listing agent said he could not get a hold of the sellers. The buyer was stuck in the dark. The buyer continued to follow up with the listing agent, asking for an answer because his rate lock would be expiring on the 4th within the target date window.
Finally, the listing agent got a hold of the seller who guided the agent they were warming up to a pricing concession.
However, the buyer needed to know by the 3rd of the month otherwise, the buyer would need to file for a rate extension at the cost of 16 basis points of the loan.
Seller Would Not Respond To The Buyer
The seller refused to get back to the buyer with an answer in time. They waited until two days after the deadline to respond with a no. The seller knew the buyer would have to pay a rate lock extension if they did not get back with a firm response by the 3rd.
The seller did not, and only responded on the 5th.
As a result, the buyer had to apply for a rate extension and pay more fees. The buyer’s bank now asked for more documents because the old documents had expired. This would take weeks longer for underwriting to review.
This process is out of the buyer’s control.
Any reasonable person would attribute the delay in closing due to the lack of communication by the seller.
There certainly wouldn’t be grounds to try and threaten the buyer after only 28 days. But that’s what Edward L. Seidel did.
Enter Edward L. Seidel, Lawyer
After the sellers didn’t respond to the buyer for 13 days after the price concession letter was sent, the sellers hired Edward L. Seidel to send a threatening letter to perform.
My reader showed me the letter and it was hilariously bad.
Remember, this is during the START of the global pandemic where millions of people have lost jobs.
Everybody is nervous and unsure about what is going on. Meanwhile, the mortgage industry is extremely tight. Closing on properties was taking much longer than usual.
Here are some reasons why Edward L. Seidel is a bad attorney and gets 1 start out of 5.
Why Edward L. Seidel Is Not Worth Hiring
1) Seidel showed zero empathy or understanding of the situation.
Only 29 days after the buyer submitted an offer, the sellers and Edward L. Seidel sent a threatening letter on the 8th of the month. 29 days into a ratification period is not a long time for any real estate purchase duration.
The average length it takes for a real estate contract to close was 50 days BEFORE the pandemic. During the pandemic, the average length to close a real estate transaction is likely 60-70 days.
Here are some details from Ellie Mae’s report:
- Purchase loans: 51 days (up from 50 days)
- Refinance loans: 48 days (up from 47 days)
- Federal Housing Administration loans: 51 days (up from 49 days)
- Conventional loans: 49 days (same)
- Department of Veteran Affairs loans: 53 days (up from 52 days)
Only a clueless real estate lawyer would not know the average length of time it takes to close a home. And only a bad lawyer with no empathy or understanding would send a letter like this and take on a client.
2) Only focused on money.
If Edward L. Seidel isn’t clueless, then he is greedy or desperate to bill hours for his firm. Any good real estate attorney would know that sending a threatening letter for a buyer to perform after only 29 days in the middle of a global pandemic is wrong. Remember, the seller didn’t respond to the seller’s price concession for 13 days.
A good real estate attorney would have provided free counsel to the sellers. He would have suggested they simply send a Notice To Perform document and wait until a more reasonable amount of time has passed. Communicating in good faith is important, not being a complete ghost.
By sending a threatening letter to the buyer, this disincentivizes the buyer to perform. Not the other way around. Edward L. Seidel harmed his seller’s chances of closing the transaction in a smooth and timely manner.
In addition, in the letter, Seidel states that his billable rate is $495/hour. He then goes on and says his partners charge even higher rates.
Again, Edward L. Seidel just made partner in 2020, so perhaps he is just feeling the pressure to try and make as much money as possible. Business is likely down given the shutdowns.
But it has been shown time and time again that people who highlight their income are insecure people. Never share how much money you make.
Hire A Good Real Estate Lawyer
The problem with hiring a real estate lawyer from a larger firm is the unnecessary expenses and the huge desire to try and bill clients for as much money as possible.
If you have a small claim/dispute for under $10,000, you can go to small claims court and represent yourself. Or you can hire an independent lawyer.
If you have a large dispute, only then, should you consider hiring a lawyer from a larger law firm.
Take a look at the reviews of Edward L. Seidel’s law firm, Cooper White & Cooper on Yelp. They are at 2017 California Street, 17th Floor, San Francisco CA 94111.
As you can see from the reviews, there’s no guarantee going the big law firm route is helpful.
Cooper White & Cooper Reviews On Yelp
From Steven. 1 Out of 5 Stars
This is the most rip off law firm we have ever worked with. A company rented our house and went bankrupt. We wanted to evict the tenants because they have not been paying rent for the past 4-5 months. My parents were referred by a crook to this company.
Their service is based on how much our property is worth. BIG BIG BIG red flag. They are essentially scamming elders because they do not know any better. I have found law firms that charge a flat rate of 1000 dollars for eviction. This shady company has charged us over 60,000 dollars and counting.
Every couple months they would send us a bill for 3000 + dollars; even though the tenants have moved out for months already.
Avoid at all cost and Avoid a realtor and contractor name Sonny for referring this company. He is probably swimming in referral commissions right now.
From Coconut. 1 Out of 5 Stars
I would not recommend this law firm. Jeff Woo eagerly took my case and passed it to a junior associate. They dragged the case out for almost a year!!
He did not follow through or take action unless prompted by opposing counsel.
We were always waiting and then…… we were always on the defense. He was not careful in contracts with dates and monetary sums. You have to double check the work before he sends contracts or leases out on your behalf.
It was the most stressful time of my life and it was so much more working with this firm.
From S.M. 1 Out of 5 Stars
I typically refrain from writing bad reviews, but working with Jeff Woo (or, more precisely, trying to get him to work) was incredibly frustrating, to say the least.
At first, he was very eager to take on our HOA case. He spent time (and charged us thousands of dollars) on sifting through emails and creating a useless “timeline”. As he communicated with opposing counsel, it became clear that Jeff was neither prepared (his correspondence contained numerous spelling and syntax errors) nor had the time to follow through.
He was frequently “out of town” or “unavailable”, causing numerous delays. He did not represent our HOA well (essentially rolling over when pushed by opposing counsel) nor did he provide sufficient updates on the case.
We literally had to prompt him to take action over and over again. And to top it off – he charged us for every email that we had to write just to remind him to update us…really???
When we called him out on fees for calls he claimed he had with us or emails he claimed he perused, he dropped us.
Extremely disappointing and infuriating!
From Deborah T. 1 Out of 5 Stars
Has anyone else been waiting a long time for trust to settle?? I have been waiting over a year and when I call get the same BS everytime , we are waiting on the trust to settle!
From Laura. 1 Out of 5 Stars
DO NOT HIRE THESE ATTORNEYS! at least not Stan. They will not go to trial because of laziness. We had a case that is in our favor and they basically told us we had no chance and we should settle.
We thought he knew what he was doing until the settlement offer he wanted us to agree to was beyond what we should be paying. He tells us it is best since going to trial can cost more than that. I did not believe this, so I called multiple lawyers and they told me no it would not cost that much to go to trial.
Guess what… WE WON! They owe US money and not the other way around. These attorneys did not know what they were doing and the worst part, they took a huge chunk of money from us!
They dragged a unlawful detainer case from April to end of July TRYING to SETTLE! that is outrageous. Hired new attorney and she went to trial and won this case in 6 weeks….
Edward L. Seidel Lawyer Conclusion: 1 Out Of 5 Stars
Hopefully this review will save you time and money.
I would not recommend hiring Edward L. Seidel for any legal work. Edward L. Seidel showed zero understanding of the situation and showed no empathy during the scariest period of the global pandemic.
Edward L. Seidel tried to use intimidation tactics during the global pandemic in 2020. He took on a case that he knew he shouldn’t have taken on. He reduced his client’s chances of having a peaceful resolution.
He almost blew the entire transaction for the seller.
If you are looking for a lawyer, find another lawyer and law firm with at least 4 out of 5 star reviews.
Edward L. Seidel gets a 1 out of 5 stars.