Dear Friends. (forwarded to Disciplinary, Oregon State Bar)
 
As most of you know, my former SSDI lawyer is holding my records hostage for administrative fees. These are records that I had to procure and pay for on my own. I hand delivered the majority of these records to Merrill Schneider myself. After finding much information on Merrill Schneider on the internet that has been sited from the Oregon State Bar Association it is obvious that this is his mode of operation to retaliate against clients that fire him for his careless handling of cases. If you go to  http://www.oregonshyster.com you will be appalled at his career.

The records that he is holding for ransom are legally my property and he has no right to withhold them from me. My current lawyer needs those records to compare what was presented as evidence in my July hearing and what I had requested that he present as evidence. We have already found that he omitted my MRI results and report that would prove my case without rebuke as well as several of the wonderful statements that many of you spent your valuable time writing (I have to also say that each one of those letters brought tears to my eyes as I never realized what incredibly fantastic friends that I have and how much I am respected and loved, thank you from the bottom of my heart).

My current lawyer needs those records to win my case in the appeal phase and Merrill Schneider is set on refusing those records to punish me. I am at a point where I have to take desperate measures to get them I have planned out a strategy to get them that will take several steps to achieve. I have sent him e-mails requesting the records four times now. The first was a cordial, respectful letter of request, the second I had to respectfully remind him of the code of ethics that his profession follows, the third I had to threaten to file a complaint with the Bar association and the forth I had to threaten the complaint to the Bar and also threaten to file a report with law enforcement that the records are stolen by "Theft by adverse possession".

After the last letter he said that he did not know who my new lawyer was but that he could guess and sent a four page document of allegations against attorney Daniel Bernath that made him look very bad. I did not hire Attorney Daniel Bernath http://www.DisabilityPaycheck.com but he now knows about the documents that Merrill Schneider sent me. He was very grateful for the information and then sent me documentation that all the allegations against him were false and made to run him out of the state because a lot of his Oregon competition could not deal with an honest man in their midst.

I would recommend Attorney Daniel Bernath http://www.DisabilityPaycheck.com to any of my friends that need his services after corresponding with him as he runs his practice the same way that I sold boats, honestly and without hiding things to boost the client's faith. I have retained Mr. Tim Wilborn from Oregon City and he has treated me very professionally and has been great about advising me in this matter.

I would like you, my close friends to e-mail Merrill Schneider demanding that he return my property to me at once. Also if you could pass this on to your friends to do the same as numbers seem to speak louder than words with this so called man of the law. Once again check out http://www.oregonshyster.com  to see who we are dealing with.

I need this done as soon as possible as Mr. Wilborn has advised me to show up at Merrill Schneider's office and demand my original records and that if he wants he can copy them for his own files. I plan on doing this either on Friday or next Monday so if he gets a deluge of e-mails in my favor he may be more willing to cooperate. If this does not do the trick then I will proceed to the Bar complaint and the police report.

I do not plan on letting this go even after I retrieve my records. I have been in contact with Shellei Bailey from KATU's 2on your side and she is putting her investigators on it so that maybe we can stop him from doing this to anymore people and possibly get him disbarred so that he can no longer practice law in Oregon. This so called legal counsel has in my opinion lost my July hearing intentionally because if he had won he would have had an income cap of $5300.00 but by taking it to the appeal phase he would make 25% of the retroactive benefits I will receive which would come out to be more that $11,000.00, not bad for just procrastinating and dragging out my case at my expense.

I am humbly asking you to take five minutes of your time to write a short letter demanding that he do the right thing and turn over my property so that I can get on with my case. I do not know if this will work because if he does turn over my complete records they will show that he failed to present crucial evidence that I demanded he present to the judge. That is a big no no in the legal profession and could get him in a lot of trouble and possibly get an investigation started to see how many clients he has done this to.

All the same it can not hurt to give this a try before going to more dire legal methods and muck raking which I would prefere not to do. I would rather let him hang himself as Merrill Schneider has already been in trouble with the bar for lying to get through his bar entrance interview, He was asked if he had ever been arrested and he said no even though he had a drug arrest in Canada, he was asked twice if he had ever used LSD before and twice he lied by saying no, he also lied about his use of street drugs and heavy use of alcohol during the first five years of his practice. This is proven by his letter to the Oregon Court of Appeals where he explained his actions by saying " I thought that if I told the truth that it would hurt me".

My friends, I am asking you to help me get my benefits that I paid into for 30 years and get a proven liar out of our legal system. Please take the time to send him a short letter suggesting he do the right thing.

 

Thank you all for your time and effort. I am grateful to all of you for your support.
You can e-mail him at merrillschneider@schneiderlaw.com  or fax him at 503-255-9145 or if you would like to personally confront the Beast his phone number is 503-255-9092. I am also running an ad on Craig's list to find anyone else who has been wronged by this shyster to continue the pressure but time is of the essence and your help will be the most expedient way to get things moving.
Thank you all so much
Christopher J Ostling

 

ps to Daniel Bernath, attorney

Also I never believed Schneider's crap about you in the first place, I may have an inherent distust of lawyers at this time but I had a good feeling about you the first time I saw your advertisement on oregonshyster.com. If you had any skeletons in your closet that would be a stupid place to advertise.

Mr. Schneider has absolutely no credibility with me what so ever so I felt that it was my duty to report the untruths he is spreading about you. I hope that it would be worth your while to take him to litigation for this. I am sorry that I did not find you first or second but I do feel I found a good man in Tim Wilborn and have found nothing negative about him so far and I have looked after the Schneider debacle.

Also I want you to know that it is not a sin to be from down south. Some of my best friends are originally from California and I doubt that there are many native Oregonians that can not say the same thing. We can't blame you for wanting to get away from there and put down roots here.

I can't imagine living anywhere but here along the Columbia river be it Oregon or Washington. So at least from me "Welcome Home" and I hope that you stay a long time. I am grateful for your honesty and candid explanations of what Mr. Schneider was trying to pedal. It just goes to show his true nature. If he didn't throw my hearing to increase his income then why is he so upset about losing me as a client.

He knows that he could have won at the hearing if he had done his job but he had to get greedy and make me suffer so that he could more than double his income off of me and that is tantamount to stealing in my opinion not to mention risking my life as I can very well end up homeless and there is no way that I could survive outdoors at this point in my life with my disability (kind of sad, I used to live in my tent, snow camping when I worked at Timberline lodge). If you know of any lawyers that would be willing to take my case against Mr. Schneider for  whatever negligence or other suit I could bring against him, Pro Bono of course since I am broke, I would be most grateful. I wish that you could do it but understand if you can't. I already have Mr. Wilborn for the SSDI case and am comfortable with him. I just need my records so i can prove that Merrill was negligent by not presenting evidence that I demanded he present to the judge.

Anyway Thank you for your responses and good luck with your practice.

I have found that as a Mechanic and later as a Yacht Broker that as long as I was upfront and totally honest with my customers I did very well and had more business than I could keep up with and I know that you will do the same.

 

It's an honor to have met you at least electronically and hope one day to meet you in person. Some day you will have to come to the marina I live at and have dinner at Mark's on the Channel, they have great live blues bands on Fridays and Saturdays and being on the water on a floating restaurant is a lot of fun. They have great food as well, the Vongole ( fettuccini and clams) is to die for.
Talk to you soon
Chris Ostling