One-Star Review: Advice Was Factually Incorrect and Costly I hired Troy Pickard for a one-hour consultation regarding a complex Oregon landlord-tenant case involving illegal lease termination charges and corporate retaliation (ORS 90.385). I provided him with extensive documentation, including emails, payment portal screenshots, and the landlord's illegal waiver forms, well in advance of the appointment. The consultation was highly disappointing and a waste of the $350 fee: Poor Professionalism: The attorney was ten minutes late for the scheduled call, cutting into the paid hour. Did Not Review Evidence: It was immediately clear the attorney had not reviewed the detailed evidence I sent. Factually Incorrect Advice: Despite my evidence proving the landlord retaliated (charging me a fee after I refused to sign an illegal contract), the attorney focused entirely on a non-existent threat of a landlord counterclaim. He incorrectly stated that my lease termination was "unlawful" because it was sent by email and advised me that the landlord would successfully counter-sue me for "abandonment." Advocated Against My Best Interest: Based on this flawed analysis, he strongly advised me to settle for a "Mutual Release of Claims." This advice would have forced me to sign away my legal right to pursue the mandatory ORS 90.385 statutory fine for retaliation, which is the core of my claim. I rejected his advice, trusted my own legal research, and pursued the retaliation penalty myself. My strategy is now pressuring the corporate President for a settlement. If you have a complex case involving ORS 90.385 (retaliation) or illegal waivers (ORS 90.245), be very cautious. His advice would have cost me over $20,000 in mandatory penalties I was entitled to recover. UPDATE: Response to Attorney's Public Comment Mr. Pickard, I appreciate your quick response and acknowledge that landlord-tenant law is technical. However, my issue was not simply disliking your advice; it was that your analysis failed to account for a critical, non-technical financial reality of my case. The "little detail" you missed was the mandatory statutory penalty triggered by the landlord's retaliation (charging a fee after I refused to sign their illegal waiver, a violation of ORS 90.385). The law requires this penalty to be 2x my actual damages, creating a significant, five-figure liability for the landlord. Your "expert" advice was to ignore this massive financial liability and accept a "Mutual Release of Claims," which would have forced me to sign away my legal right to recover that mandatory penalty. You advised me to forfeit this significant recovery based on a weak, easily defeated defense argument (abandonment) that the landlord never even pursued. My review stands: the advice was factually incorrect and financially dangerous for the client. read more

Really awesome they are doing what they can to tackle unfair landlords and property management, doing discussions with CAT and helping to educate renters read more

Lead me on that we have a case. Then on the 3rd consultation decided to not represent me because the money I was getting for was not high enough for Troy to gain his commission. Troy lacks initiative and lacks oath. read more

If you're looking for a poor and weak negotiator, Troy is your guy. But he doesn't come cheap though, he charges $500 an hour. For me, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't pay him $50 an hour. I find he did more harm for my case than helped. Total waste of time. read more

Troy was the perfect tenant attorney to reach out to in my time of need! An accident caused me to have to pay my complex an excess of 15k within 30 days. Obviously like most normal folks I had no way of doing this. I reached out to several other tenant attorneys who advised the only option I had was to file for bankruptcy. Troy with Portland defenders was the only one who gave us reasonable options. An agreement with the complex was made and we only ended up paying a fraction of that. Troy and Portland defenders really went to bat for us when the time came. Would highly recommend to those having landlord issues. read more

Portland Defender How I feel Troy Pickard (Portland Defender) did me wrong. It's 5-1/2 years later and only now am I able to post this because just thinking about it again was too depressing so I kept putting it off. But here it is now! - Never met the guy until the day of the trial. In fact, I didn't even know he was going to be the one conducting my case when it got to the trial. I thought it was going to be Marissa or whatever her name was there at the Portland Defender office because she was the one I had been working with for the previous couple of months. The most important thing that was going on in my life and he couldn't even take a moment to talk to me before the damn trial? Really bad, bad form. - I shouldn't have been advised the way I was. I think Troy was just trying to make a name for himself as a tenant attorney in hot tenant times rather than thinking about what was best for me, the client. They had nothing to lose. I had EVERYTHING to lose. - When I first discussed my case with their office, they should have just told me to go to small claims court or something because all I really wanted was moving expenses and a little extra time to try to find another place to live! (I had 30 damn days). Instead, following their advice, I end up with an eviction on my record and thousands of dollars in attorney fees to pay. - Could have and should have advised me on a way to mediate with the landlord or helped me to mediate with her so as to avoid all the court shit. - Didn't advise me on the full extent of what a loss could mean to me in terms of attorney fees. If I had known that they could be almost $9000 (naïvely, I thought at the most it would be two or three thousand), I wouldn't have proceeded. I didn't have the money just laying around for that. Ended up that I had to use my retirement savings. - I had thought I was going to have a jury trial, but when I went to pay the required fee for that as directed by Portland Defender, I was told that my attorney hadn't done what they were supposed to do in order to have a jury. Some legal procedure. I thought that put me at a real disadvantage because I was hoping for a sympathetic jury of my peers and maybe a better outcome than I ultimately got with just a judge deciding based only on the law. - After losing at trial, now with an eviction that could've been avoided and which was totally terrifying to me, and faced with thousands of dollars in attorney fees, not to mention all the other costs of moving and loss of income during that time and an emotional toll that persists more than five years later, Troy and his gang just left me to hang. I had to try to figure out what to do to get the attorney fees reduced myself. Because I didn't know what I was doing, I was only able to get them reduced a couple thousand negotiating on my own with the landlord's high-priced attorney. There's lots more I could say about this -- about Troy and his stupid Portland "Defender" law office -- but what's the point? In my opinion, lawyers are very similar to Realtors. They act like they're doing everything because they want to help you - but all they really care about is the money and/or raising their professional profile. They don't call them bloodsucking lawyers for nothing. read more

Troy provided me peace of mind, when working with him a couple of years ago. I had found myself in a very terrible, darn right awful, nightmare situation with a landlord. The law was clearly broken in this situation and Troy came to the rescue in providing me with a very clear action plan. I was able to remove myself from the situation and also win, in litigation. I always recommend any friends to Troy, when I hear about anybody dealing with tenant law. He's great at what he does! read more

We reached out to Troy as a recommendation from another lawyer. Our situation has been dire with property management taking advantage of not just us but others as well. We did extensive research, and told Troy of our situation. He sounded confident in being able to help us. Well after we paid for the consultation he basically told us there is nothing we can do. We felt extremely misled from our first conversation of all the wrongdoing going on. He said he could help us and did not. We feel ripped off of $350 which we didn't really have to spend. The only reason we decided to do it was because the deposit we were going to fight for would have paid for that on top of the proper return that we deserve. I'm unsure how Oregon functions with such a broken tenant landlord system. From what I've learned is they can essentially get away with anything. We've been waiting for a response from Troy and haven't heard anything since Saturday. We feel very taken advantage of yet again in this state. Hope others don't waste their money like we did. We would get a refund from the useless information we were given but obviously that isn't an option. Taking money from a low income family, having confidence in our case and then dropping us is not a good look at all. Really could have used that money for a lawyer that we have now found that is confident in our case. Please don't lie for a consolation then tell us everything we already knew. We basically got a repeat of what legal aid told us. Seemed very unprofessional in our eyes, and lack of compassion. We are disturbed by the situation, hope this helps others. read more

I was confident that Troy was going to be able to help me given his outstanding reviews. He didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know. Save your time and money and take advantage of the renters rights hotline. They will tell you all of your legal rights and guide you in the right direction without robbing you of $250. I cannot stress enough to anyone who took the time to read this review to NOT go here. Seems to me, more of a crook than a lawyer. read more

Spoke to the assistant twice and was promised a callback after using the online tool to submit my information, then providing further information via e-mail. Never got a callback... left a voicemail, waited about 3 weeks, still no callback. Left one last voicemail today but not expecting much. Will update the review if they ever get back in touch with me. read more

I had a decent phone consultation with Troy. I tried to hire him a few weeks later. He told me he needed me to sign an agreement and deposit funds towards the retainer. Never saw a contract or an invoice despite contacting him daily for about a week. He was wiped off the surface of this planet. Had to hire someone else. read more

I wouldn't trust this guy ever. I don't think he was the least bit concerned with my problem. He seemed more concerned have me pay his consultation fee. Then his ditzy legal assistant made some totally unclear comment that he will consult with me about my case, but can't represent me because I don't live in Portland. Makes no sense, he wants to take the consulting fee but is unable to represent me. read more

Troy is the man!! He completely punished my crook of a landlord and it didn't even cost me anything. My family won an additional 7 thousand dollars off of the landlady for her lack of repairs to the home. The landlord had to pay us over 25k (what we paid in rent for an entire year!) I feel like he really had the "little guys" back! Thanks again Troy. I will highly recommend you in the future, but hopefully I won't need you again! read more

I moved to Portland last year and ended up in an unfortunate situation with a crazy, narcissistic bully of a landlord who used his law background to push me around, threaten me, demand large sums of money from me, and generally make my life miserable. I asked a lawyer friend if she knew anyone who specialized in landlord/tenant law, and after asking around she said that Troy Pickard's name was recommended to her by several different lawyers at her firm whose opinions she trusted completely. Troy was very easy to work with and great at helping me to understand my complex legal situation. He quickly helped me to bring the situation to an acceptable resolution and avoid the significant financial risk I had been facing. I highly recommend Troy and Portland Defender. His rates are entirely reasonable and he went above and beyond for me. All communications were easy and timely. I had never had to hire a lawyer before, and although the legal situation was worrisome and intimidating, Troy put me at ease, made the whole thing much less stressful for me, and brought it to a close so I could move on with my life. Lawyers get a bad rap sometimes, but Troy is truly a good guy you can trust. He knows his stuff and will fight hard for you! read more

Having to use an attorney it's hard to say it was a great experience, but I will tell you it was worth every dime. He took the time to make sure I knew where I stood and what my rights are and was very helpful and calming me down. But more importantly he got the job done I'm very thankful that I chose him. read more

I loved working with Troy. He's competent, compassionate and definitely knows what he's doing. He's super down to earth and excellent at explaining things in plain terms. He genuinely cares about you and available for questions. Troy did fantastic job of taking me through the process and went the extra mile in assisting me. I would use him again in the future! read more

Troy Pickard at Portland Defender is a "get the job done lawyer"! Troy handled our case with knowledge and professionalism. His expertise allowed a quick and pain free resolution to an unfortunate situation. I recommend Troy for your legal needs without hesitation! read more