Law Offices of Shane L. Harward PLC

02/28/2026

California has barred fee-sharing with Arizona Alternate Business Structure law firms.

Two law firms have withdrawn a federal lawsuit that challenged a new California law restricting attorneys from sharing fees with out‑of‑state firms in which non‑lawyers hold ownership or have decision‑making authority.

02/27/2026

The State Bar of Arizona is raising an alarm about the Arizona Supreme Court's policy experiment with law firm licensing, warning in a new memo that its current trajectory may put ordinary consumers at risk.

The Bar’s comments come as the court re-examines its “Alternative Business Structures” program, a licensing effort unique in the country that allows Wall Street investors, marketing professionals, and other non-lawyers to own law firms.

An investigation by The Arizona Republic found the program has become an epicenter for consumer complaints. The allegations range from illegal robo-calling in Texas to what Alabama prosecutors are calling a “deceptive scheme” that “commoditized” car accident victims in one of the poorest states in the country.

Firms commonly use their licenses to act as nationwide call centers, The Republic found, raking in cases nationwide and farming them back out to ‘partners’ across the U.S., taking a cut of the profits in the process. Regulators say the business model creates perverse incentives that can harm legal clients, but it has flourished within the program anyway.

The Bar’s general counsel, Jessica Fotinos, trained her sights on that out-of-state spillover in the Feb. 17 public comment to the court about proposed rule changes.

The State Bar, which is in charge of investigating allegations of misconduct by Arizona lawyers, “may be inadequately resourced to regulate national activity,” she wrote.

“A growing number of practitioners are offering services to set up ABSs for the sole purpose of running a national practice through Arizona licensure without a focus on serving Arizona clients,” the comment reads.Those business models “do not meet the regulatory objectives” of the program, and “may increase the risk of consumer harm."

The law licensing program may increase risks to consumers unless the court changes course, the Bar warned after an Arizona Republic investigation.

02/26/2026

"Scrutiny grows over Arizona’s non-lawyer-owned law firms."

Arizona needs to admit that this program is a failure and should be eliminated:

A 2021 Arizona program allows non-lawyers to own law firms called “Alternative Business Structures“. It’s a policy experiment through the Arizona Supreme Court allowing investors and other non-lawyers to own law firms.

Arizona is the only state in the country with a program like this, except for Utah, which scaled the effort back significantly in 2024 after it ran into problems.

An investigation led by “The Arizona Republic” uncovered that several Arizona regulators who helped oversee this program also made money counseling the firms by applying for licenses. . . .

It's a policy experiment through the Arizona Supreme Court that allows investors and other non-lawyers to own law firms.

02/25/2026

Uber's fight to lock poor injury victims out of the courthouse.

“Uber wants to lock poor, injured plaintiffs out of the courthouse — and it’s asking California voters to help.”

02/20/2026

Your car could be ratting you out to your insurance company. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/19/business/automakers-selling-driving-data-to-insurance

02/20/2026

Trump's sweeping global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court.

Someone asked when the U.S. consumers will receive their tax refund. Short answer is that we won't.

No Direct Mechanism: There is generally no legal mechanism for individual consumers to directly claim refunds from the government, even though they likely paid for the tariffs through higher retail prices.

Unlikely Lower Prices: While the ruling means the cost of importing goods should go down, it is unlikely that businesses will immediately lower prices to reflect this, as consumer prices rarely drop once they have risen.

Political Proposals: There have been calls from officials, such as Governor Gavin Newsom, for the administration to issue direct "tariff refund" checks to Americans. Previously, President Trump had suggested a "$2,000 dividend" for households. However, as of late February 2026, no such direct consumer rebate system has been implemented into law.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c0l9r67drg7t

02/12/2026

Axiom Closes Ariz. Law Firm Amid Suit Alleging PE Control

By Ryan Boysen | 2026-02-10

Legal staffing and services provider Axiom received approval Tuesday to shutter its Arizona law firm subsidiary, while a pending lawsuit claims the experiment was tainted by Axiom's private equity backer putting "revenue over ethics."

At a Tuesday hearing, Arizona's Committee on Alternative Business Structures formally accepted Axiom's April 2025 request to voluntarily surrender its alternate business structure license for the firm called Axiom Advice & Counsel, or AA&C, which was launched in 2023.

At Tuesday's hearing, AA&C attorney Reid Potter said the subsidiary had ceased all operations by March 2025.

In an emailed statement, Axiom spokesperson Paul Johnson said the company "made the strategic decision in 2025 to discontinue [AA&C] as part of our broader effort to focus resources on our core businesses and accelerate key growth initiatives."

Arizona's alternative business structures, or ABS, program allows law firms to bring on nonlawyers as executives and give them equity in the business, and to raise outside equity capital - both things that are strictly prohibited in most other states. The program was designed to spur innovation and increase the availability of legal services to poor and working class residents.

The program launched in 2021, and Axiom was one of the first big national companies to take advantage of it by securing an ABS license in 2022 for AA&C. The idea was that Axiom would refer legal work to AA&C.

A lawsuit filed in December in Arizona state court claims the brief lifespan of AA&C was characterized by lies, unfulfilled promises and numerous ethical breaches that finally led to its collapse in late 2024.

The complaint blames much of the alleged misconduct on Axiom's attempts to appease Permira, the private equity group that took a majority stake in Axiom in 2019 for an undisclosed sum.

"This case arises from private equity's attempt to use Arizona's court-regulated [ABS] framework as a profit center, treating a licensed law firm as a business unit rather than a professional enterprise - and then abruptly shutting it down when it failed to generate the targeted returns," the complaint begins.

"This is not a routine contract or employment dispute," the complaint continues.

The lawsuit was filed by Phyllis Hawkins & Associates LLC, a legal recruiter in Arizona, and husband and wife and Jeffrey and Natalie Harris.

Natalie Harris is the manager and sole member of PH&A, while Jeffrey Harris is a litigator.

The lawsuit includes claims for racketeering, breach of contract and fraud, among other things.

In the lengthy and at times difficult-to-follow complaint, the couple claim Natalie Harris was approached in early 2022 to build out AA&C by recruiting accomplished Arizona attorneys.

Natalie Harris claims she was concerned about working with an ABS law firm owned by a national company backed by private equity, but that she was given every assurance that everything at AA&C would be above board.

She claims she was further reassured by the fact that well-known Arizona legal ethics attorney Lynda Shely was AA&C's compliance attorney, responsible for reporting to the Arizona ABS Committee that the firm was following all relevant ethical guidelines. Shely also sits on the Arizona ABS Committee.

Natalie Harris spent 2022 doing considerable legwork and placed five attorneys with AA&C in January and February 2023, including bringing on her husband to lead AA&C's nascent litigation department, the complaint said. She then continued working with AA&C on a long term contract.

Those attorneys were promised a compensation structure that would allow them to keep roughly 75% of their billings, and Natalie Harris was promised roughly $250,000 per attorney, according to the complaint.

Natalie and Jeffrey Harris claim those promises were soon broken.

Throughout 2023 and 2024, the lawsuit claims, AA&C was hampered by incessant disputes over salary and cost reimbursement, and other skirmishes between staff attorneys and de facto firm leader Catherine Kemnitz.

In Nov. 2023, attorney Rachel Tenin was abruptly fired after airing her concerns to Kemnitz, who subsequently spoke ill of Tenin to remaining AA&C attorneys, the lawsuit claims.

Jeffrey Harris, meanwhile, was left scrambling to handle a ballooning caseload while Axiom refused to let AA&C provide him with basic supplies, software or even a paralegal, forcing him to personally handle administrative work like "handwriting each envelope for demand letters."

The complaint claims Axiom initially told Jeffrey Harris and other attorneys that requested changes and support were "on the way" or delayed due to "startup pains," but that Axiom executives "eventually dropped the pretense and told AA&C that essential and promised infrastructure and back-office support" would only be provided "after the firm was profitable."

In November 2024, Natalie Harris said she had a "troubling" phone call with her husband, who was in Florida for business development at the time.

"In over a decade of marriage, Natalie Harris had never heard her husband sound so exhausted," the complaint says.

Things came to a head later that month, when Natalie Harris and others at AA&C sent a written report to Shely and Kemnitz outlining their concerns. Natalie Harris said her recruiting contract with AA&C was terminated shortly thereafter.

The lawsuit claims Shely "did not convey any information from the whistle-blower reports to the Arizona Supreme Court nor to the State Bar of Arizona."

The complaint also claims that after leaving AA&C, Natalie and Jeffrey Harris learned that "there was no meaningful firewall between Axiom Global and AA&C as to attorney-client privileged information."

It also claims that Axiom has "engaged in the unauthorized practice of law since its inception in 2000, which fact was never disclosed to the Arizona Supreme Court or plaintiffs."


At Tuesday's hearing, which only briefly mentioned the lawsuit, a representative for Axiom said none of the parties had been served yet.

Counsel for Natalie and Jeffrey Harris did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment. Permira declined to comment.

Natalie and Jeffrey Harris are represented by Scott C. Ryan and Richie J. Edwards of FR Law Group PLLC.

Counsel information for the defendants was not available.

The case is Phyllis Hawkins & Associates LLC et al. v. Permira Holdings Ltd. et al., case numberCV2025-066941, in the Arizona Superior Court of Maricopa County.

https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/2440336?

Legal staffing and services provider Axiom received approval Tuesday to shutter its Arizona law firm subsidiary, while a pending lawsuit claims the experiment was tainted by Axiom's private equity backer putting "revenue over ethics."

02/09/2026

Arizona's Alternate Business Structures (ABS) program is a horribly flawed experiment.

"Law firms can’t do that in New Jersey, where Gorga lives, or in Florida, where the Berman twins came up with the idea. In fact, their business model is allowed in only one jurisdiction in the United States, thousands of miles away: Arizona. The Arizona Supreme Court made history in 2021 when it launched the “Alternative Business Structures” program, which licenses Wall Street investors, marketing professionals, and other nonlawyers to own law firms. The idea behind the licensing program was to cut red tape in the legal industry and bring down the cost of getting a lawyer. Regulators insist the program is geared toward Grand Canyon State residents. That isn’t the reality."

"The out-of-state spillover goes beyond just billboards. The program has become an epicenter for consumer complaints, an investigation by The Arizona Republic found, leaving a trail of legal clients across the United States who say they were mistreated, misled, or, in the words of a lawsuit against one firm, outright “scammed.” In Alabama, for example, prosecutors are probing an Arizona-licensed firm’s connection with a “deceptive” scheme that “commoditized” car accident victims. In Texas, a woman settled with another Arizona firm she accused of clogging up her personal cell phone with at least 16 illegal robo-calls and automated text messages trying to solicit her as a client."

Consumers across the country, and even around the world, are exposed to an Arizona program trailed by complaints.

08/27/2025

"Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed a lawsuit alleging a years-long, multi-million-dollar scheme to steal homes from senior citizens across the Valley.

The lawsuit names Edward Trenton Albarracin, also known as Trenton Edwards, and Gretchen Marie Zamjahn, also known as Gretchen Edwards, as the alleged perpetrators."

Arizona's Attorney General is suing two people accused of stealing homes from senior citizens through a multi-million-dollar real estate scheme.

12/04/2024

"Tesla named 'the deadliest car brand in america', by nhtsa data -motortrend."

This year, Tesla had several recall on several of their models for parts and labor issues.

11/21/2024

Ground beef recalled due to possible E. coli contamination.

Wolverine Packing Co. is recalling more than 167,000 pounds of ground beef shipped to restaurants due to possible E. coli contamination.

11/14/2024

The latest Cybertruck recall involves an issue with its drive inverter, potentially causing a loss of propulsion and increasing collision risk. This recall affects 2,431 Cybertrucks made between November 6, 2023, and July 30, 2024, equipped with faulty metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET).

This is the Cybertruck's sixth recall in about a year—a concerning track record for a new vehicle. Unlike recalls that Tesla often resolves with software updates, this issue requires a service appointment to replace the faulty inverter, a process expected to take about three hours. For details, check Tesla’s official recall page.

Cyberecall.