Michael C Hall

The following is just my personal experience, nothing more.
I met Michael to discuss some questions about tenant/​landlord issues that I’ve faced. It was meant to be a short consultation and I had a series of very specific questions that I needed answers for.
1. He was 5 minutes late and then it took another 5 minutes to put my info into the system.
Afterwards he charged me for that time, I don’t think anyone would be happy to be charged for the time that was not spent on the matter directly. Considering the hourly rate, 10 minutes add up some $$$ to the bill. I was upset with that fact.
2. Some very direct questions he answered «I’m not sure, I don’t know, I have to look it up», and of course he still charges you while you are listening to this. I, personally, have a higher expectations from an experienced and expensive lawyer. My situation was not unique at all, when I went to get different opinions nobody else had to «make further research» to answer these questions for me.
3. After getting more opinions I realized Michael was not aware of some very recent regulations Without diving into specifics, his advice was not the best and the easiest way to go for me.
4. I was able to get some more or less useful information, I can’t give it a one star.
Overall experience: I felt like he was indifferent and not interested to help me at all. I had a feeling like they are trying to make me pay more to get the answers for the questions they would have to «further research» for me.
Again, this is just my personal experience, he might be a good lawyer, but this was my experience, and this is what I feel.
I would not recommend Michael to my friend.
Hopefully this feedback will help them to improve, if they care about it at all.

Mr. Hall has been exceptional with his experience and knowledge on the landlord-​tenants law and matters; Has been assisting, explaining, counseling and representing me at various times over the past 10 years. He’s always up front, direct, get to the point, and professional.

Dirty lawyer that knows loop holes on how to beat the system… but then again… ain’t most lawyers dirty? This one is the cream of the crop…

Honesty experience and excellent representation
We had a complicated case this week and my wife and I were very impressed by Mr. Hall’s presentation to the court. We found him experienced and knowledgeable about expectations from the court. Mr. Hall expertly scheduled witnesses, knew what and how to question them, presented the appropriate evidence at the right times and in the right order, and knew what to leave in the background. He was also extremely organized with the documents and presentation, which helped a great deal. We found Mr. Hall a very experienced and savvy professional litigator. His communication with the court was superb, could not really have been better. He was perfect!

My five star rating is based on 20+ years of experience working with Michael Hall. My family owns real estate in San Francisco and having a knowledgable, experienced, honest and TRUSTWORTHY legal counsel is very important. And that is who Michael Hall is. His 30+ years of experience in real estate law gave us the confidence to rely on him to help us with commercial lease negotiations, drafting commercial leases, landlord/​tenant questions and issues. Michael is extremely easy to work with, responds to emails promptly and is someone you can trust. Believe me… my family and I have known and relied on his legal expertise for 20+ years. That should say something. If you have any real estate legal issues, Michael Hall and his team are who you should call.
Note: I was born and raised in San Francisco… my parents worked two to three jobs, 7 days a week all their life (and invested in real estate in SF before it exploded). So we are NOT the evil landlords you read about on the news. So please don’t discount my review just because we are Landlords. Not all Landlords in SF are evil. ;)

We highly recommend Michael Hall.
Having to hire a lawyer is never good news… But hiring a good one sure makes the difference!
Right at the end of our Condo Conversion process, our TIC partners sent us their lawyer’s threatening letter with 7 (illegitimate) claims against us to pressure us in to signing the new CCRs ASAP under their terms, which basically meant we were to grant them 24 hour access onto their unwarranted deck built above our master bedroom — A deck that hadn’t been brought up to code during the conversion. We wanted to stick to the idea of having the hours of use adjusted to reasonable hours of access, respecting the hours of sleep below it.
Timing was as much of an essence to us in wrapping up the condo conversion and refinancing the units separately — but we didn’t want to settle while wrapping up the process, and certainly not under the pressure of those undesirable terms. You also need to know that those same partners couldn’t get themselves a mortgage loan when they purchased their unit in 2006 and we graciously helped them finance their unit under our names without charging them any interests! Yes, we are idiots.
Anyways, we needed a lawyer to respond to the letter threatening to sue us for about $ 150.000 plus legal fees etc for «stalling the condo conversion process», by not agreeing to the fishy terms they were trying to force upon us. We found Michael Hall! And Michael Hall led our case through a third party of Mediation services and did it with class — meaning without getting down and dirty in return. It goes without saying that the 7 claims were quickly dropped as they were one by one proven to be false claims: such as us building a new unwarranted bathroom under their stairs, damaging their stairs while nothing but a coat closet exists under their stairs and while easily proving that that second bathroom already existed before we purchased our unit by just pulling up the inspection report’s pictures dating prior to us purchasing the property. (They thought that since there were no architectural drawings of the property before the conversion, that we wouldn’t be able to prove the existence of it prior to purchase, whoops) AND MORE SO by documenting that we – in turn — brought that bathroom up to code in the process of the condo conversion, a legal process SIGNED OFF by all official City inspectors (electrical, plumbing and structural)… The list goes on like it. Yes, hard to believe. (You haven’t lived the real American experience until you’ve been sued by a dirty under cover opportunist! ;)
As big a headache as this case was to deal with at the time, the CCRs ended up signed within a reasonable amount of time while officially keeping the neighbors off of the master bedroom’s ceiling during night hours.
Michael Hall was easy to communicate with, responsive and knowledgable. And again, when we were loosing our temper in dealing with such an «ass move» on our partner’s part, excuse my french — he managed to keep our response classy, clean, and effective — allowing us to take the high road.
No. Hiring a lawyer wasn’t the most economical part of the process. Certainly not. But our neighbor is to blame for that one! Yes, lawyers work for a living. Both parties paid the big bucks to sort this situation out under legal supervision. At least, we know that they paid their lawyer to end up signing the CCRs under the same terms we would have without hiring the legal help. Meaning, without them getting their way! So – THANK YOU MICHAEL HALL for that!

We recently had a tenant landlord issue and several friends advised getting an attorney. One friend, a real estate agent suggested Michael Hall, Atty. We could not have been more pleased with the straight forward legal advice, the information provided to make legal decisions, money saved by knowing how /​what to communicate, and reduced emotional stress knowing we were following legal mandates. Atty Hall was responsive and professional throughout this extended period of time. We would definitely use his legal services again.

Not recommended.
Took the money for the consultation, and basically advised to just eat the disputed expenses due to the case being «shaky» and that I bought an old house so I should be expecting problems. One other tidbit uttered by him is «it would cost in the ballpark of $ 500 to find the plaintiff’s current address because I’d have to hire a private investigator». Yeah, maybe 30 years ago I would, but not now.
Also, didn’t take the time to fully read the documents I sent as a follow up. Wouldn’t return further emails or voice mail.

I went to Michael Hall for work on a condo dispute and his advice was ridiculously bad.
I was new to that process altogether and while during the «free consult» on the phone he advised that it could be handled in a few weeks when I got there for our first session it turned into a much longer and complicated matter and required much discussion and some rather unsettling options.
His recommendation as to our most prudent course of action would have bust up the entire property which is not what we wanted. He hadn’t read the documents I sent to him prior to our meeting — or if he did he spent a good deal of our first meeting reading them again, which we got the pleasure of paying him for.
Fortunately I eventually called the office of Andy Sirkin and, without even being a client of theirs, their clerk advised on the most accurate course of action that finally, and relatively quickly, got the job done. Yes, you can read that again, Sirkin’s office help showed me the most effective way to settle the dispute.

When you need an attorney, definitely go find yourself an expert in the area of law specific to your case. Experience proves costsaving in the end and it actually does matter that opposing attorneys in town (and the judges!!) know and respect your attorney well. Mr. Hall proved this to be true in my unlawful detainer suit which almost went to trial.
Personally, I’m the last person you’d find wearing a $ 150 pair of jeans or a paying $ 12 for a martini, and as someone truly housepoor and faced with a deadbeat housemate who refused to leave (and the police wouldn’t throw out) I was VERY conscious about how much time I spent on the phone and in the office with Michael Hall. Mr. Hall was good about having his paralegal do what was appropriate for the paralegal and having his associate attorney (at $ 250/​hour instead of $ 350/​hour) handle anything that didn’t really require his direct expertise or attention.
It still felt unfair to pay good money to deal with a bad tenant, but you never get better than a ‘just decent’ attorney unless you really pay for it. And if you make the mistake of wishing you had spent more afterwards… well, it’s a nasty, painful regret you have to live with for a while.
Not that Michael Hall’s the most expensive attorney out there, but there’s two reasons I chose him and ended up feeling lucky I did.
1.) Mr. Hall isn’t one of those attorneys who does things only the way they want to. Which is bound to leave you frustrated and unhappy because they aren’t really representing YOU.
2.) On the other hand, Mr. Hall isn’t one of those attorneys who will do exactly what you ask for regardless of how stupid this is. These are the really dangerous ones!
On a bunch of occasions, I found Mr. Hall smart, thoughtful and really insightful about how things go down. Many conversations started with, «You’d like us to do THING X and we can do that. Here’s what I predict will happen and here’s what I need to warn you might happen. And, finally, here’s an approach that we can take that might accomplish something close to your intention with THING X and/​or avoid bad outcome Y.»
I really appreciated that he spoke in such instances with expertise and based on experience, rather than estimations and opinions.
Mr. Hall proved to be so knowledgeable and so practical that I –an admitted control freak – was actually able to «turn it over to his capable hands» and actually start sleeping at night during a very nervewracking period. What’s that worth to you?! To me it was a LOT.
I’m totally frustrated how long it took to get the deadbeat housemate to leave, but bottomline, he’s gone because Mr. Hall was great at shutting down his lies, false assertions, and stalling techniques. It could have been much, much worse.
Best part of it, was that the housemate’s attorney became my best advocate. He was way in over his head and was so eager to settle quickly and avoid going to court, it ended up saving me thousands and thousands. In fact, the settlement included the deadbeat paying ME not the other way around. Woo-​hoo!
Obviously, the results of my case impact my opinion of Mr. Hall’s services. But I was entirely prepared for a less satisfactory result and actually as okay as I could be with that because I really felt I was well represented.

Don’t recommend. Charges you by the minute. He does his job, but I’m afraid to even ask him a simple question because he’ll round up and charge me literally by the minute. I didn’t get the feeling that he wanted to really help me but rather he was performing based on getting money.