Note: the podcast is in two parts. This is the bar disciplinary hearing for Bruce Matzkin, taken from the official recording. There were two witnesses: Cordelia Jones and Bruce Matzkin. The Bar discipline lawyer and Bruce’s lawyer, Cameron Atkinson, both asked questions. After the witnesses, each side presented closing arguments.
On Thursday May 1, 2025, the long-awaited Connecticut Bar discipline hearing against Bruce Matzkin was heard.
But for the timing, no one outside the process would have cared. In the months leading to the hearing, Matzkin gained notoriety defending John Cook and Michelle Preston in a lawsuit brought by popular YouTuber Jeremy Hales.
As such, both sides of the Hales ecosystem eagerly anticipated the hearing.
The complaint was brought by former client Cordelia Jones in 2022. Cordelia is a charming person who has sent emails to me like the following.
Greetings Sir,
This is my personal email is PII and I have NOT given you permission to use it. Discontinue emailing and including me in any communication electronic or otherwise. I am not a public figure but a private citizen. Besides, your request should be sent to the CT Board Association they are the ones that send out invitations to hearings; the more interesting case seem to be your own drama/legal actions against the FBI
That was actually emailed to Richard Luthmann, who included her on a group email.
Cordelia, who testified first, stated that she was involved in an employment related legal dispute. She let her lawyers go and had trouble finding new counsel.
She then found Mica Notz on the internet. Mica told her that she had decades of experience with these matters. Cordelia said that she agreed to work with Mica, who is not an attorney.
She said several weeks into the process Mica was out of town and told her to call Bruce Matzkin.
Matzkin, Cordelia testified, was rude on the phone and then demanded $500. She refused to pay and fired both of them.
Matzkin then presented her with a bigger bill, put a lien on the settlement, and got $5,000. The $5,000 number, Cordelia testified, was something that Bruce Matzkin purportedly told her.
Cordelia stated that she settled without lawyers later.
When Bruce Matzkin testified, he said that Mica was his paralegal. He stated that Cordelia agreed to work with them, with the $500 being a retainer.
She agreed that he would charge $500 per day for a fact-finding months later, and in the meantime, he would try and settle for 25% of the settlement.
In a Perry Mason moment, the Bar cited an email which backed up Matzkin’s version. Below is the email the Bar received from him.
I asked Cordelia about this after the hearing.
Hello Sugar!
You are mistaken… I agreed to pay Mica never agreed to pay Bruce anything ! I didn’t have an agreement with Bruce PERIOD.
Your investigative skills are lacking …
Hence is what this entire case is about !!
Except, in a subsequent email, Mica made clear that Bruce would represent Cordelia.
Cordelia continued to insist that she hired Mica, not Bruce.
Wrong again … Sugar. Mica is self employed and owns employee rights and for the past 30 years represented employees before EEOc & CHRONIC. Bruce works for her because she subcontracts out to attorneys Bruce being one of several!
Mica is an independent contractor, who works on a contract basis with Bruce, however, the email clearly stated that Bruce “will attend the fact-finding.”
There was also a dispute over what Cordelia termed a bill for much more, almost $2,000.
In his testimony, Bruce Matzkin said it was not a bill but an itemized list of things he’d done, to show that he’d done much more than $500 worth of work.
After the hearing, Bruce Matzkin also provided the check he received for this case which was for $1,000 not $5,000.
The Connecticut Bar also charged Bruce Matzkin with writing mean emails, complaining about the process.
Bruce stated in his testimony that he was trying to draw attention to an unfair process. His attorney, during closing arguments, argued that Bruce was exercising his first amendment rights.
When I interviewed Bruce Matzkin last year, he drew a comparison between his Bar discipline and the lack of discipline for lawyers at a BigLaw firm involved in the MacDaddy affair.
In the MacDaddy affair, two lawyers from now defunct LeClair Ryan law firm represented two competitors in separate lawsuits, despite the glaring conflict of interest.
In that case, the Bar dismissed the complaint with no investigation, without addressing the conflict of interest.
In this case, a billing dispute borne out of Ms. Jones refusal to pay a retainer fee lasted over three years and went to trial.
Finally, I appeared earlier this week on Two Lee’s in a Pod to talk more about What the Hales.
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