Tuesday, February 24, 2026
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Perspectives
Lawyer Represents He Has ‘Strong Appellate Practice’—but Does He?
By Roger M. Grace
The Court of Appeal for this district, rebuffing an appeal in a fraud/breach-of-contract case, said in an unpublished opinion filed last Thursday: “Due to serious defects in their appellate briefs, defendants have forfeited all the claims of error that they raise on appeal.” An affirmance based on defective briefing is not unusual, but generally occurs where the appellant is a nonlawyer, acting in pro per; here, the appellant was not only represented by counsel, but by an attorney who, online, touts his supposed expertise in handling appeals.
Does that claim go beyond hype and constitute lying?
Robert Warren Hirsh, a member of the State Bar of California since 1982, proclaims on his website:
“Robert W. Hirsh & Associates has a strong appellate practice in which it represents clients before the following state and federal appellate courts: California Supreme Court, California Court of Appeals, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit.”
The blurb goes on to say:
“Effective legal briefs are tightly written with no verbosity. Robert W. Hirsh & Associates prides itself on its brief writing skills, which our principal, Robert W. Hirsh, learned from his training with some of the most eminent judges and attorneys in the United States.”
★
Justice Victor Viramontes of Div. Eight said in Thursday’s opinion that defects in Hirsh’s briefs “include a failure to cite and discuss relevant evidence that was presented at trial, and a failure to provide reasoned legal argument supported by factual analysis and citations to relevant authority.”
Hirsh responds:
“I strongly disagree with the Court of Appeal’s (‘COA’) opinion, because Appellants’ briefs fully cite and discuss all relevant and necessary evidence for the COA to have adjudicated the appeal. The COA’s opinion is simply mistaken.
“The gravamen of Appellants’ very narrow appeal is that the admitted evidence at trial was inconsistent with the trial court’s detailed findings in its Statement of Decision (‘SOD’). Appellants’ carefully crafted appeal was to cause the COA to simply compare the SOD and the admitted evidence, note their inconsistencies on their face, and reverse the trial court’s decision based upon them.”
The case is Pay Up Jr v. Rechnitz, B332788.
★
There’s a strange thing about Hirsh’s cases before the California Supreme Court and those heard by the Ninth Circuit and its Bankruptcy Appeals Panel. Lexis has not included decisions in those cases in its database.
A search on the Judicial Council website’s “Appellate Courts Case Information” page for cases handled by Hirsh in the state high court brings up the response, “There are no cases matching the search criteria supplied.”
Pacer, the federal courts’ database, can be searched for Ninth Circuit cases by inputting the name of an attorney who was involved. Searches must be confined, however, to three-year periods. If you enter “Hirsh, Robert” under the category of “attorney” (and ignoring cases handled by a Robert J. Hirsh of Arizona, now deceased) what pops up? For the period from 2005-08, there’s one hit for Hirsh of Beverly Hills: he was attorney for the appellant in Imperial Sales Corp. v. Congregation Torah. An opinion in the case does not appear on Lexis because there is none. Hirsh filed a notice of representation in the Ninth Circuit; the court set a briefing schedule; there was a dismissal by a deputy clerk on June 26, 2008, because no opening brief was filed.
If a search is conducted on Pacer for cases before the Bankruptcy Appeals Panel, there is one hit: Hirsh represented the appellant, Jonathan Philip Helms, from Dec. 27, 1996 until Aug. 29, 1997 when the decision of the bankruptcy judge was affirmed.
★
It appears, from a gander at Lexis, that Hirsh represented a party in the Court of Appeal on seven occasions, other than in the case decided Thursday. In one, his client was his wife. One of the opinions was certified for publication.
How, then, does Hirsh justify the statement that his firm “has a strong appellate practice” and “represents clients” in the “California Supreme Court” and the “United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit”?
Hirsh says, in an email:
“[I]f presented with a matter, we would strongly consider accepting it if the matter was within our expertise. For example, we would not accept a case involving patent issues, but we would consider one with business and real estate litigation issues.”
★
Hirsh is a frequent litigant.
There was one case in which, represented by counsel, he sued for an allegedly wrongful handcuffing of him.
On Jan. 21, 2022, Hirsh went to the Commerce Club in the City of Commerce to play poker. It was during the COVID pandemic and he was advised by a staff member that he could not lower his mask to drink water at the poker table.
Hirsh was uncooperative and was asked by the management to leave; he refused. The lawyer continued to remain even after sheriff’s deputies advised him that he was trespassing.
He was double-handcuffed by deputies and forced to exit the premises, allegedly suffering physical harm as a result. Hirsh sued the Commerce Club, the county, and others.
It was alleged in his complaint, filed by his lawyers on Aug. 11, 2022, in the Los Angeles Superior Court:
“Rather than conducting an objective, competent and unbiased investigation of the situation to which they had been summoned, instead, acting as the casino’s unthinking, reflexive bouncers, the defendant deputies intentionally lent themselves and their badges to the casino’s elicit effort to deny plaintiff the ‘reasonable accommodation’ that he was entitled to under the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
The matter was removed by the county and two deputies to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Hirsh said in a declaration in opposition to summary judgment:
“Having access to water was important to me because I suffer from several medical conditions, not least, diabetes. I need access to water to stay hydrated and clear headed while I play cards, and to take medications as necessary.”
Judge Mark C. Scarsi on Aug. 23, 2023, granted summary judgment against Hirsh on all claims except those alleging negligence. Hirsh was ordered “to show cause why summary judgment should not be granted…as to his remaining theories of negligence” and, when he did not file a response, Scarsi on Sept. 11, 2023, awarded a final judgment in favor of the defendants.
★
A July 29, 2000 article in the Los Angeles Times by Davan Maharaj (who went on to serve as editor/publisher of the newspaper from 2011-17) says:
Don’t mess with Robert W. Hirsh.
The 43-year-old lawyer sued the single mother he hired to stain the woodwork in his Hancock Park Tudor-style home, claiming she left some streaks on the wood.
He sued his stockbroker for not getting him into Microsoft stock.
After returning from a 1996 trip to Boston, Hirsh sued Pier 4 restaurateur Anthony Athanas, claiming the then-85-year-old man had assaulted him and his family after they complained about poor service.
Hirsh has also sued his own clients, including the one who claimed that Hirsh’s representation had cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hirsh demanded about $47,000 in fees, and when an arbitration panel ordered Hirsh to pay the client $25,000 instead, Hirsh filed a malpractice suit against his own lawyers who had represented him before the arbitration panel.
The article goes on to report:
“According to court records, Hirsh has been a party in at least 82 cases since 1982, a staggering number, even in litigation-laden Los Angeles.
“Hirsh’s adversaries say Hirsh uses his legal license as a cudgel. They call him the quintessential professional litigant, who files lawsuits and extracts settlement dollars from defendants ranging from mom-and-pop firms to multibillion-dollar corporations.”
★
That article appeared more than a quarter of a century ago. Has Hirsh changed?
Well, on Sept. 24, 2024, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis A. Kin denied a petition for a writ of mandate Hirsh sought commanding the State of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development to pay money to his children to subsidize their supposed rental of rooms in his house. Kin set forth (with citations to the record omitted):
The goal of the state rental assistance program at issue was to prevent evictions and housing instability due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Guidelines for the program were enacted to ensure that “those most in need of pandemic-related rental assistance” received it.
Against the backdrop of this program and its goal to assist those in need and hoping to avoid eviction and housing instability, petitioner and his family members, including two of his daughters-one, a 19-year-old freshman attending Washington University in St. Louis and the other, a Juris Doctor candidate attending the University of Chicago Law School at the time-applied for (and, in some instances, received) tens of thousands of dollars in rental assistance. The family members claimed to be petitioner’s tenants renting rooms in petitioner’s 5-bedroom, 7-bathroom, 7,869 square foot home valued at approximately $7,645,800 but purportedly could not pay the thousands of dollars in monthly rent they claim he charged them. Ultimately, respondent State of California Department of Housing and Community Development denied petitioner and his family members’ requests for rental assistance on the ground that “inconsistent or unverifiable information has been provided by the applicant.”
Kin found that Hirsh “does not establish how the Family Members are qualified for rental assistance under the guidelines of the Program.”
Copyright 2026, Metropolitan News Company