June 11, 2002

Fee Arbitration Panel 1B

RE: Dispute No. 02-21-G Michael Doyle v. David VanDyke

I am baffled on how to reply to VanDyke's almost totally false response to my complaint to the panel. It would seem if VanDyke were a surgeon that his defense for malpractice would be the following: The operation was long and very complicated. There was no infection at the incision. He performed the operation at the agreed fee. I will recover fully and my prognosis is excellent. However, VanDyke cut off the wrong arm!

I do not dispute that VanDyke provided legal services. My complaint is that VanDyke did the following:

VanDyke DEPRIVED me of information that would be pivotal in my decision of whether or not to even retain his services.

I do not deny item 1 on page 13 of the VanDyke response.

I deny item 2 on page 13 of the VanDyke response. There was at no time an agreement to pay the flat fee of $13,000. Please see VanDyke letter dated June 6, 2000 attached. In this letter VanDyke offered a cap of $10,000 which I did not agree to either. I did at one time bring to VanDyke's Portland office a stock certificate for 1300 shares in a company that I am the majority shareholder. The certificate was not endorsed over to VanDyke, a copy is attached. At no time did I agree to pay $13,000 but I did offer the certificate as collateral against what might be an agreed upon fee in the future.

I deny item 3 on page 13 of the VanDyke response as it applies to the NASD. I resigned my NASD license in August 1996. I did not know VanDyke existed until late April or early May of 1998, nearly two years later. How then, could VanDyke assist in something nearly two years prior to our first meeting?

I would ask the panel to consider all of VanDyke's work product in assessing the damage done to me. Please see my letter dated June 1, 2002, attached filed with the Board of Overseers. In this correspondence I point out VanDyke's breech of professional duties in his FAILURE to designate the defense's own doctor as a witness for me. Such failure was the cause of a verdict for the defense and at a great loss to me.

The crux of my complaint is as follows:

1. VanDyke FAILED to disclose his relationship both personal and business with DeTroy. The firms of Berman & Simmons and Norman Hanson and DeTroy are constantly working together to settle claims for their respective clients. Such relationship could involve the loss of fees to Berman & Simmons if DeTroy's firm litigated and appealed every case as retribution for VanDyke pointing out the DeTroy lies. VanDyke plays basketball with Ben DeTroy, Peter DeTroy's brother, and VanDyke kept that fact from me until he let it slip in the fall of 2001. By DEPRIVING me of this knowledge of these relationships VanDyke caused me to engage his services under FALSE and FRAUDULENT circumstances. To illustrate how seven other lawyers handled my request they all refused to jeopardize their relationship both personal and business with DeTroy. The lawyers that I sought out, not at VanDyke's suggestion as he claims in his reply, were John Kelly, Daniel Lilley, John Campbell, George Beals, Nicholas Walsh, and David Beneman. All of them disclosed their relationship with DeTroy either personal and/or business and declined to take on the case. Had VanDyke been honest with me I never would have engaged his services.

2. VanDyke DENIED repeatedly that my file contained any documentation that Dyer and DeTroy gave conflicting advice and opposite advice in writing to what they offered to the State as their proffered testimony. By VanDyke lying about such crucial information he was able to maneuver me into not one but two guilty pleas. Attached are the letters and memos discovered in my file on May 23, 2001 and later. How does VanDyke explain the DeTroy letter saying this may be a security two months after DeTroy claims he told me it was a PONZI? Either it was a Ponzi in November 1996 or it was a security it could not be one thing in November and something else in January 1997. VanDyke's defense was that I should have found this in my own file. However, VanDyke knew that from May 1997 until May 2001 that I never had my files. They went from me to DeTroy, to Berne, to VanDyke. Apparently, his defense is, using the surgeon again as an example, I failed to read my MRI correctly and it's my fault that VanDyke cut off the wrong arm. The memos and letters are attached. The significance of them is that VanDyke kept their existence secret from me and then lied about their very existence. By doing so VanDyke FRAUDULENTLY induced me to both engage his services and to plead guilty to a felony that he knew was caused by conflicting and/or misleading advice from DeTroy and Dyer. To paraphrase several lines, "tell them (the clients) the investment is working", Dec. 3, 1996, "expose the (State's) investigation as a bogus misuse of administrative authority", Jan. 9, 1997, "the State wants to interrupt their (the clients) income for unknown reasons" Jan. 9, 1997. Had VanDyke at our first or second meeting showed these documents to me and told me that he could not try the case with them I would not have engaged his services. By VanDyke withholding these documents from me he DEFRAUDED me of all the fees paid and those billed but unpaid.

3. Let us now turn our attention to the VanDyke Affidavit dated November 2, 2001, attached. In VanDyke's own words item 10 parts 1 through 6 he was totally unprepared to commence a felony trial. In order to get VanDyke to sign and testify at the hearing honestly VanDyke extorted from me a signed release only minutes before the hearing was to begin on November 5, 2001, attached. This signing took place after, and only after, Hallett convinced me that we were in a perilous situation and we were desperate to have VanDyke testify truthfully as to his total incompetence.

4. The next item is Hallett's Affidavit signed on July 9, 2001, attached. This affidavit catalogues all of the items missing from a lawyer's file about to begin a felony trial. This illustrates the extreme duress brought to bear on me by VanDyke's lack of preparedness and his pressuring me to plead guilty because it would be impossible for VanDyke to mount a trial at that point.

5. Consequently the fees paid of $16,158.26 (supplied to me by the billing clerk at Berman & Simmons) and the billed but unpaid amount of $10,000 or $13,000 both of which I did not agree to pay should be refunded and/or canceled as the case may be.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael A. Doyle

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