Like Kendrick v. Drake, but for lawyers.
The post Ain’t No Feud Like A Lawyer Feud Because A Lawyer Feud Winds Up In Court appeared first on Above the Law.
Hoo boy! These two Phoenix lawyers really, I mean REALLY, don’t like one another. Arizona plaintiffs lawyers Gil Negrete and Brandon Rafi are legitimately feuding — on his podcast, Negrete compared it to Kendrick Lamar and Drake saying, “This is real lawyer beef. Shutting him down.”
While not as tight of an explainer of the disagreement as Not Like Us, the Phoenix New Times still dives into the law battle. It features name calling, bomb threats, multiple podcast rants, and — because it is two lawyers going at it — a court case.
Negrete spoke extensively with the New Times and said he and Rafi used to be friends who would bond over music, go to Suns games, and even vacation together. But a conflict over a client changed all that.
Then in 2022, Negrete said, Rafi cut him off. At issue was one client, representing what Negrete said was only $5,000 in business, who signed with Rafi’s firm before switching to Negrete’s later the same day. Through a subordinate, Rafi demanded Negrete send the client back to RLG. Negrete said he tried to persuade her, but she did not want Rafi’s firm to handle her case. After that, Negrete said, RLG stopped sending cases his way.
Negrete said he objected to how the younger lawyers at Rafi Law Group talked down to him. “I’m being scolded like I was a little kid,” said Negrete, who is 47. “And I’m not a little kid.” The statement from RLG’s attorney did not address New Times’ question about Rafi’s relationship with Negrete before the lawsuit between them.
But the tension between the lawyers escalated with the bomb threat.
On February 9, 2024, there was a bomb threat made to the offices of the Rafi Law Group. Someone took photos of the police response, which then wound up online.
Those photos were shared on the Instagram account @LawyerFiles, an attorney gossip account with more than 62,000 followers that has since been set to private. The account claimed, erroneously, that police were raiding the firm and that RLG’s attorneys had been drinking. RLG wasn’t a new target. In September 2023, @LawyerFiles had authored a long post criticizing Rafi as inexperienced and bankrolled by his father.
Cue the lawsuit. An amended complaint filed on behalf of Rafi and his law firm identified the posts as defamatory “and specifically designed to inflict maximum reputational harm.” Additionally, the court filing blamed Negrete for “arranging (a) home invasion” at Rafi’s home in January of this year.
Rafi Law Group made a statement about the lawsuit. “The purpose of this lawsuit,” the statement said, “is to once and for all put an end to Mr. Negrete’s baseless claims.”
The statement added: “For years, Gil Negrete has used ‘anonymous sources’ to regularly and consistently defame Mr. Rafi, Mr. Rafi’s family members, Rafi Law Group employees, and Rafi Law Group, with no regard for how his unprofessional behavior will impact others. Multiple attempts were made directly to Mr. Negrete from Mr. Rafi and other members of Rafi Law Group asking him to cease this unprofessional behavior; these went unanswered leaving Mr. Rafi no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit.”
Negrete, perhaps shockingly for a lawyer, is happy to freely discuss the beef — and lawsuit. On his podcast he said, “This is a public lawsuit that you filed against me, and you’re saying that I called in a bomb threat to your office?” Finishing with, “You punk ass bitch.” He also denied he is currently behind the Instagram account in question.
Negrete told New Times he does not own the account, though he knows who does. “Today, it’s not me,” he said. “Maybe it’ll be me tomorrow, though.” Asked to clarify, Negrete said — tongue-in-cheek, he noted — that he might buy the account to further antagonize Rafi.
He also denied responsibility for the bomb threat and home invasion. A police report identifies a sixth grader — not Negrete — pulling a prank as responsible for the bomb threat. This fact goes unaddressed in the complaint, and really sparks Negrete’s ire.
“This isn’t even immature,” Negrete ranted on his podcast. “This is criminal. This is a frivolous police report.” It also, he said, constituted a violation of Rule 11 of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires that “factual contentions have evidentiary support.”
“I’m going to the (state) bar,” Negrete said on the podcast. “I’m putting it on record, and I’m not going to rest until this man has some sort of punishment coming to him for the shit that he pulled on me and my family.”
Then there’s the matter of WhoIsGilNegrete.com. Negrete has had some run-ins with the law — outside of his role as an attorney — as well as with the state bar. This, in turn, has resulted in some discipline, including a recently served 15-month suspension from the state bar. The website was dedicated to detailing those, but has since (after New Times started asking questions about it) been put in “maintenance mode.”
It’s a whole messy saga. And fascinating to watch from afar.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
