5 /5 Carole Isaacs: One day in my mail I found a letter from my landlords attorney telling me my landlord had filed a petition with the San Francisco Rent Board to raise our rent. My roommate and I immediately went to the Tenants Union for counseling. We met Jason Wolford who told us we had a good case, but should hire an attorney to represent us at the hearing. Jason provided us with a fairly long lists of attorney. We reviewed the list and determined that Wolford Wayne was the best fit for our situation.
Megan Johnson, an associate at Wolford Wayne, was the person Jason recommended. Megan represented tenants in buyout negotiations, affirmative wrongful eviction cases and Rent Board cases. We met with Megan in person and we were impressed with her knowledge of our case. Megan felt our landlord’s case was weak and once they saw the rebuttal she would submit to the Rent Board they may withdraw the Petition to raise our rent. She clearly explained to us what information we needed to provide her to do her best in defending us at the Rent Board hearing. For various reasons that we do not understand and were out of our control the Rent Board took 6 months to schedule our hearing. During this time Megan was in touch with both us and the rent board working to facilitate a speedy hearing and to discuss with us the various documents the landlord provided as evidence why our rent should be raised.
In the end, the landlord withdrew their petition to raise our rent 3 days before the scheduled Rent Board hearing. This was frustrating, but all is well that ends well. Thanks to Megan Johnson we are now prepared to document our comings and goings and other information the landlord would twist to try and prove that we no longer lived in our apartment.
All around we could not ask for a more knowledgeable, goal oriented attorney who communicated with us in a timely manner in a way we could always understand. Megan was perfect! There is nothing I would ask her to do differently and without hesitation I would recommend her to anyone having the unfortunate experience of having to deal with the San Francisco Rent Board.