The State Bar of California has charged the partners of Downtown LA Law Group, a law firm at the center of a scandal that has consumed Los Angeles County’s $4-billion sex abuse settlement, with signing up clients in states where they had no license to practice.The bar charged Farid Yaghoubtil and Daniel Azizi, two founding partners of the personal injury firm, and Igor Fradkin, a litigation attorney, on Monday with signing up accident victims across the U.S., despite having no attorneys who could litigate the cases outside California. The firm took on clients in Texas, Florida, Maryland, Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the complaint. Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, said in a statement that the cases highlighted by the bar “are multi-jurisdiction with California defendants.” “DTLA is confident they will be able to resolve the matter to the satisfaction of both the State Bar and our law firm,” the firm said. Yaghoubtil faces 16 counts, including practicing law without a license, charging illegal fees, and continuing to represent a client who had fired the firm. Azizi faces 11 counts and Fradkin faces four.“The public depends on attorneys to follow the law and to be transparent about where they are authorized to practice,” said George Cardona, the State Bar‘s chief trial counsel, in a statement. “When attorneys extend their practice into jurisdictions where they are not licensed or allow staff to engage in unauthorized legal work in those jurisdictions, they put clients at risk.”DTLA is currently facing another investigation from the State Bar in relation to thousands of sexual abuse lawsuits filed against the county, along with a probe from the district attorney’s office. Both are looking into allegations reported by The Times last year that recruiters paid clients to sign up with the firm and file sex abuse claims, some of which were allegedly fabricated. The firm has said it “categorically does not engage in, nor has it ever condoned, the exchange of money for client retention.”When the State Bar inquiry was revealed in January, the firm said it was cooperating with investigators and “taking whatever steps necessary to protect the legitimate privacy rights of the plaintiffs who are victims of sexual assault.”Downtown LA Law Group, one of Southern California’s most prolific personal injury firms, was founded by three longtime friends: Azizi and Yaghoubtil, who are cousins, and Salar Hendizadeh, a friend from elementary school. They began working together in August 2013, according to the complaint.Hendizadeh left the firm in October 2025. The bar charged him on March 5 with similar allegations of signing up clients out of state without a license, including in Texas, where the firm went under the name “Lone Star Injury Law Firm” and touted itself as “Texas’s #1 Injury Law Firm.”The firm had one lawyer based in L.A. who was licensed to practice in Texas, Darren McBratney, but he left in early 2022, according to the bar complaints. The bar says the firm 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’re not licensed, but must partner with local counsel or get permission from the court.On Jan. 19, 2020, the bar alleged, the firm signed up Texas resident Kelli Rushing after she was injured at a hotel in Fort Worth. The firm ultimately got a settlement of about $1.1 million. Out of that payout, DTLA got about $455,000, the bar filings said.On May 25, 2022, the firm signed up a mother and daughter who were in a Lyft accident near Baltimore and provided the mother with “bicoastal medical treatment,” including spinal surgery in L.A., according to the bar complaint. On May 15, 2025, the bar complaint said, while the firm was under investigation for its out-of-state practices, DTLA asked the client to sign a document “which falsely stated that DTLA made clear” that it was not licensed in Maryland.“As was disclosed to you at the time you retained our firm, Downtown L.A. 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 outset, we made clear that we would not be acting as your primary legal counsel in that jurisdiction.”The bar also alleged the firm continued to represent California resident Phyllis Goldsmith after she asked to terminate the firm on Sept. 1, 2021, when nearly a year went by without them filing a lawsuit on her behalf. About a week after Goldsmith asked them to close out her case, the firm sent a demand letter to the insurer representing the defendant even though they were no longer allowed to represent her, according to the complaint.
