The State Bar of California has charged partners at Downtown LA Law Group, the law firm at the center of a $4-billion Los Angeles County sex-exploitation settlement scandal, for enrolling clients in states where they were not licensed to practice.
The bar charged Farid Yaghoubtil and Daniel Azizi, two co-founders of a personal injury firm, and Igor Fradkin, a trial lawyer, on Monday for registering accident victims across the US, even though they have no lawyers to handle cases outside of California. The company took clients in Texas, Florida, Maryland, Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the complaint.
Yaghoubtil faces 16 charges, including practicing law without a license, charging illegal fees, and continuing to represent a client who has fired a firm. Azizi faces 11 charges and Fradkin faces four.
A spokesperson for the Downtown LA Law Group did not immediately comment in response to an inquiry from The Times. The company has previously denied any wrongdoing.
“The public depends on attorneys to follow the law and be transparent about where they are authorized to practice,” said George Cardona, the State Bar's senior trial attorney, in a statement. “When attorneys expand their practice in areas where they are not licensed or allow employees to perform unauthorized legal work in those areas, they are putting clients at risk.”
DTLA is currently experiencing another investigation from the state bar regarding the thousands of sexual harassment lawsuits filed against the county, and a investigate at the district attorney's office. They both look allegations It was reported by The Times last year that employers were paying clients to register with the company and file sexual harassment claims, some of which were allegedly false.
The company said it “obviously does not engage in, and has never allowed, cash exchanges to retain customers.”
When the state bar's investigation was revealed in January, the company said it was cooperating with investigators and “taking whatever steps are necessary to protect the legal privacy rights of sexual harassment plaintiffs.”
Downtown LA Law Group, one of the largest personal injury practices in Southern California firms, it was founded by three long-time friends: Azizi and Yaghoubtil, cousins, and Salar Hendizadeh, his friend from elementary school. They began working together in August 2013, according to the complaint.
Hendizadeh left the company last October. The suspect sued him on March 5 for similar allegations of recruiting clients without a license, including in Texas, where the firm went under the name “Lone Star Injury Law Firm” and billed itself as “Texas' #1 National Injury Law Firm.”
The firm had one L.A.-based attorney who was licensed to practice in Texas, Darren McBratney, but he left in early 2022, according to bar complaints. The bar says the company refused to remove McBratney's name from its website for years despite a cease-and-desist letter.
Attorneys are able to take cases in states where they are not licensed, but they must work with a local attorney or get permission from the court.
On Jan. 19, 2020, the bar alleged that the company registered Texas resident Kelli Rushing after she was injured at a hotel in Fort Worth. The company eventually received a settlement of about $1.1 million. Of that payment, DTLA received about $455,0000, the filing said.
On May 25, 2022, the company booked a mother and daughter in a Lyft accident near Baltimore and offered the mother “bicoastal treatment,” including spinal surgery in LA, according to the bar complaint.
On May 15, 2025, the complaint said, while the company was under investigation for its out-of-state practices, DTLA asked the client to sign a document that “falsely stated to DTLA” that they were not licensed in Maryland.
“As disclosed to you when you retained our firm, Downtown LA Law Group, LLP is not licensed to practice law in the state where your legal matter is pending,” the document provided by the firm read, according to the state bar. “From the beginning, we made it clear that we were not going to be your primary legal counsel in that district.”
The bar also alleged that the firm continued to represent California resident Phyllis Goldsmith after she asked to terminate the firm on September 1, 2021, nearly a year after they filed suit against her. About a week after Goldsmith asked them to drop his case, the company sent a subpoena to the defendant's insurance company even though they were no longer allowed to represent him, according to the complaint.
