Damn Lawyers: Rigged Arbitration?
Accusations of a Texas-sized fraud… Hidden conflicts with lawyers… Even perjury. We’ve heard it all in Our DAMN LAWYERS investigation. But when you think lawyers screwed you in a RIGGED ARBITRATION, how do you get justice?
“It’s my understanding that juries in general don’t like lawyers,” said Caroline Allison.
“We would have won in a jury trial that’s the bottom line. Our case, it would have been done and over with two years ago,” said Caroline Allison.
When you sue a damn lawyer, you won’t get a jury… You get a judge… And a supposedly fair arbitrator to decide if your lawyer screwed you over… And they are lawyers too… Just isn’t right.
“Going to court is like going to the casino. you roll the dice, you never know what you’re going to get,” said Caroline Allison.
Caroline Allison walks out of the Harris County Courthouse… Frustrated… Again.
Harris county district judge Cory Sepolio rejected the Allisons latest effort to prove their damn lawyers and the arbitrator in their fight defrauded them out of millions of dollars.
“He doesn’t want to hear the information. He doesn’t want any discovery to be done to uncover uh, what malfeasance was done because it’s challenging the system,” said Rich Allison.
The judge is using the Texas arbitration act to protect the Allisons ex lawyers… It says a party has only 90 days to apply for a vacated ruling after the grounds for the application are known or should have been known.
In other words. You must find out you have been playing in only three months, or it may be too late.
That’s a dumb law… Likely written by lawyers… The Allisons lawsuit is still going on… You should be able to use this evidence till the court is over.
“The system protects the fraud and that’s the travesty,” said Caroline Allison.
“Well, our attorneys are going for a bleed out. I mean, they want literally to have us completely run out of money,” said Caroline Allison.
Caroline and her brother Rich have been through legal hell ever since their father died in 2017… Nine years ago!
“In our case, we got very bad advice. We had attorneys that basically manufactured conflict and caused devastation to my family,” said Caroline Allison.
The trio of Jorge Borunda… Nick Abaza and Michael Trevino saw tens of millions of dollars in the will.
They pushed for a contingency agreement to collect 35 percent of the settlement.
“They were saying that we were going to get nothing unless we challenged the agreement,” said Rich Allison.
The lawyers… We call them damn lawyers… Later wanted to collect… More than 3 million dollars. That was one third of the inheritance
Caroline and Rich… They learned later… Their inheritance was guaranteed in trust.
“They could have just told us the truth, saying that, hey, you don’t have to do anything,” said Rich Allison.
The Allisons fired the lawyers… Filed a malpractice lawsuit… And the fee dispute went to arbitration…
The arbitration judge… Another Damn Lawyer from Dallas… Was Anne Ashby.
“We believe, and it’s my point of view and opinion. That our attorneys rigged our arbitration. They were, they colluded with Anne Ashby to get the result, the desired result they were looking to get,” said Caroline Allison.
Ashby gave Allison’s former lawyers everything they wanted and more.
4 million dollars… Including back interest… That was September 2023.
But they didn’t know the back story that their arbitrator was likely compromised… In April of 2025 Allisons turned to us for help in further investigating.
Last April… The Allisons filed a formal “bill of review” to get that multi-million-dollar award overturned on the grounds that Ashby never fully reported the conflicts of interest in the case.
And what she did disclose contradict her initial claims that there were no conflicts at all.
perjured herself and did a false oath. of saying no conflicts during our arbitration proceeding,” said Caroline Allison.
When the former Dallas judge was chosen to be arbitrator, she had to disclose potential conflicts…. She says didn’t have any after a thorough review … She waited nine months to disclose a decades old relationship with Michael Collins…. He had married the judge… Collins was also the lawyer for their stepmom in the inheritance fight….
One conflict that was never disclosed was Steven Besly…
Besly was Ashby’s registered agent for her law firm… Before, during and after the Allison arbitration case.
He’s in the same law firm as the opposing lawyer in the probate case and shows up on their invoices.
Caroline believes her old lawyers are still talking to Ashby… Based on their arguments at the bill of review hearing.
“You all tried to call Anne Ashby and what did she do? She hung up on you. So why wouldn’t she hang up on joe little?” said Caroline Allison.
Joe little is the damn lawyer’s lawyer.
“We’re working on a story about the Allison probate case,” said Andrea
“I need you to stop right there and I’m just going to tell you I have no knowledge of anything. it’s all confidential and I’d love to visit with you, but I can’t, okay?” said Anne Ashby
“But you had so many conflicts,” said Andrea.
“Bye bye,” said Anne Ashby.
We have tried to hear Anne Ashby explanation… By phone and in person.
“Who first called you to become an arbitrator?” said Wayne Dolcefino.
“I need you to stop following me, leave me alone. thanks. I want the camera off, please. take your camera off,” said Anne Ashby.
Our damn lawyer’s series has attracted over 600,000 views and there are court watchers around the country following every hearing. But not this one… They couldn’t.
“Conveniently, the feed turned off. So, you couldn’t see any of the feed going on in the courtroom,” said Rich Allison.
Rich called the court… He never got anyone on the phone until after the hearing.
“The clerk said that the judge’s computer went down and the judge didn’t want to reboot it until after the hearing was done,” said Rich Allison.
Sepolio’s court coordinator is Alex Garibay… He’s been the court coordinator since 1998… Twenty years before Sepolio even got there.
“I told him to call his attorney, and he could find out exactly what happened,” said Alex Garibay.
Of course that was totally useless information since Rich’s lawyer was busy in court and Garibay claimed it wasn’t just the Allison hearing that was offline.
“Oh no, it didn’t come back up when it was done. it didn’t back up until later that afternoon,” said Alex Garibay.
“No, I was there on the line and saw it came back up,” said Rich Allison.
While looking at judge Sepolio’s campaign report we noticed something that is legal but should be stopped.
The court coordinator Alex Garibay has been paid almost 10 thousand dollars since 2025 from judge Sepolio’s campaign for consulting and fundraising.
So, he’s hitting up lawyers for money for the judge and at the same time controlling the docket in his court with the power to help lawyers move their cases along. That sounds fair.
Sepolio is good for his staff.
Campaign money spent on trips to New Orleans. Vegas. Nashville.
And judges don’t like publicity… Like our damn lawyer’s investigation… it’s funny how the camera shut down when it was the Allisons’ turn.
“They pretty much sent a message that they don’t care uh about public it’s right to know what’s going on in the courtroom by turning off the feed,” said Rich Allison.
Judge Sepolio had a chance to send a message to the damn lawyers that there is something just wrong with siphoning off a huge chunk of someone’s inheritance.
Something wrong with an arbitrator who has too many friends on one side of a fight.
but Judge Sepolio didn’t help.
“They defrauded us from even before we hired them, by writing fake reviews,” said Caroline Allison.
“They all write their reviews pretending like they’ve hired each other, which I think is misleading to the public,” said Caroline Allison.
Caroline filed a complaint about these BS reviews to the federal trade commission… No word yet on what they will do.
They’ve complained to the state bar about the ethics of Jorge Borunda… Nick Abaza… and Michael Trevino.
They were turned down. The state bar is useless.
The Texas state bar has a five percent record of investigating complaints.
“That means that 95% of complaints are going in the trash. and it can be a real legitimate complaint,” said Caroline Allison.
It is significant that the bar is investigating Anne Ashby.
When we were asked to investigate the damn lawyers our report concluded that Anne Ashby’s apparent amnesia about her clear conflicts of interest.
Had the stench of cronyism. It looks rigged to benefit the attorneys who stand to make millions of dollars.
Money their dad clearly wanted them to have in his will… The Texas supreme court is reviewing the case… They are hoping for justice.
“I do believe the Supreme Court of Texas is going to overturn this bad judgment that our attorneys got, mostly based on the fact that Anne Ashby blatantly failed to follow the law on multiple levels,” said Caroline Allison.
It’s an uphill battle because you must rely on lawyers to punish lawyers… Instead of going to a jury. The legislature would have to fix that… But a third of them are lawyers too.
“They don’t want it getting out to the public that you have dishonest people operating as judges in courts and operating as arbitrators in courts,” said Rich Allison.
If the supreme court overturns this arbitration award… It will send shock waves through the Texas courts… It’s long past time.
“When do we get our day in court? When do we get justice? We’re not lawyers, we’re regular people,” said Caroline Allison.
