It started with some ill-advised emails, but that opening allowed an unscrupulous lawyer, clerk, and judge to spring into action.
The result is a multi-front attack on Massachusetts lawyer, Bruce Matzkin’s, professional livelihood and reputation.
The whole thing started when Bruce Matzkin, an attorney, sent four emails starting in September 2025 to Candace Thomas, the clerk for Florida Judge Robert Groeb.
This was regarding one of several legal matters involving Michelle Preston and YouTuber Jeremy Hales.
Hales decided that Preston, along with her daughter, could be pawns for a protracted storyline in which he turned their lives upside down for YouTube content.
At the center of this scheme were several frivolous lawsuits at the state and federal level.
Matzkin had represented- pro bono- Preston in one federal lawsuit, but these emails were sent about a separate state lawsuit playing out in Levy County, Florida.
Matzkin noticed several potential errors including that Thomas had falsely entered a default despite Preston filing her answer.
Matzkin wasn’t a lawyer on the case nor a party. The emails could have been ignored, but Thomas put them on the court record.
Those entries were enough to set off Randall Shochet, Jeremy Hales’ unscrupulous attorney.
Hales strategy, since he started torturing Preston, has been to file anything and everything, and then create drama from that filing.
Shochet, who previously lost his dental license due to fraud, has obliged, willingly filing flimsy arguments which are used for YouTube content.
Shochet followed Thomas’ lead and filed a motion to strike Matzkin’s emails, while accusing him of unlawfully practicing law.
Shochet didn’t respond to an email for comment, while the Levy County Courts issued this statement on Thomas’s behalf, “In response to your email sent to Candace Thomas, judges speak through their rulings, and it would not be appropriate to offer additional commentary outside of that context.”
Shochet made a flimsy argument. Matzkin never claimed to be representing, and emails to a clerk wouldn’t constitute practicing law. So, Shochet dressed up his motion by falsely claiming that Matzkin had secretly written motions in the case.
“Bruce Matzkin has sent emails to the Court and parties in this case and may have prepared legal documents in this matter.” Shochet said in his motion.
Matzkin did not prepare legal documents and Shochet knew it when he falsely made this claim.
Preston was represented in this case by Florida attorney Scott Stark, and Stark was deposed in January 2025 by Shochet. In this deposition, Stark stated that Matzkin only provided legal guidance, but Stark prepared and filed the court filings.
“I made the final corrections, and I signed it, so it’s my, my complaint.” Stark said.
The motion Shochet filed was dubious for another reason- by this point Michelle Preston was in bankruptcy.
All legal matters were stayed or paused.
He then made a dubious argument why his motion to strike should be heard.
Judge Groeb allowed his motion to be heard and even ordered Matzkin, a non-party, to attend.
From there, Shochet made two more misstatements. He suggested that Matzkin was served, even though only an email was sent. Furthermore, he claimed that Judge Groeb could hear him on declaring that Matzkin was unlawfully practicing law.
Only the Florida Supreme Court can make this determination.
Beyond that, unlawful practice of law is a felony, so a civil judge declaring it is abhorrent absent an investigation.
The hearing was held on December 17, 2025. There is no transcript because a local rule excludes many hearings from requiring transcripts.
Judge Groeb issued an order which included the following
Shortly after receiving the order, Shochet contacted the Connecticut bar. He sent them the order which decreed that Matzkin had practiced law without a license.
That was enough to open a full investigation.
Post-script
Check out the fundraiser to help me create more articles on the Hales case. Find articles one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four.
This is legal abuse syndrome in motion. Hales and Shochet are not just litigating; they appear to be using the legal system as a reputational wood chipper. Matzkin was not a party, not counsel of record, and not filing pleadings. Yet Shochet allegedly turned clerk emails into a career attack, then ran to a bar authority with a judicial order as a weapon. That is not justice. That is process abuse. And Groeb, whether knowingly or not, appears to have supplied the blade. The law is supposed to resolve disputes. In these hands, it becomes punishment before proof.