Mark A. Massey, Partner

Attorney Profile

Attorney Mark A. Massey is a seasoned, smart Partner of Komanapalli Massey LLP who passed the California State Bar the first time he took it in 1995, and has been regularly practicing law since then. He attended law school at Glendale University College of Law (GUCL) where he earned a Bachelors of Science (BS) degree and then his Juris Doctorate (JD). For four long years, Mr. Massey spent every weekday working full time to support his growing family, and every evening and Saturday attending law school at GUCL in order to give his children a better future. He worked full time for ABC-TV for the first two years of his law school career, and then as a law clerk for the Appellate Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office for the last two years. He has worked his whole life, even as a child picking weeds for elderly women in exchange for a few coins. He has worked as a stock boy and carryout at a grocery store, as a roofer in the hot summer sun, as a lumber straightener in a saw mill, and at other assorted jobs before being hired by ABC-TV. He worked there for 14 years before moving into his legal career, beginning as a law clerk for the District Attorney. Clearly, Mr. Massey is no stranger to hard work, and his work ethic is uncompromising.

Indeed, during his law school career and after, he has excelled because of his powerful work ethic. He achieved to such a high level during his first year of law school that he was invited to write for the Glendale University College of Law, Law Review. Being appointed to the Law Review is a distinct honor at any law school, and only a select few are invited into Law Review based in large part upon grade point average, but also upon factors which indicate to faculty that the invitee will likely excel as an attorney. The article which Mr. Massey wrote was one of only three student articles selected to be published in the 1996-1997 edition of the Glendale Law Review.

The accolades kept coming during his third and fourth years in law school. For his third year, he was asked to serve as the Manuscript Editor of the Law Review. That same year, Mr. Massey was one of only two students awarded top honors for “Excellence in Appellate Advocacy,” for which he received numerous prizes and a certificate recognizing the honor at the conclusion of the law school's Moot Court competition. Finally, his law school career culminated in the highest honor bestowed upon a law student when the faculty asked him to serve as President and Editor-in-Chief of the Glendale Law review. He served well in that prestigious role by seeing that the 1994-1995 edition was published in good order and on time.

After passing the Bar Exam, Mr. Massey was hired by the Los Angeles County Office of the County Counsel to prosecute juvenile dependency (child abuse/neglect) cases. His client was the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (the DCFS). Mr. Massey was extensively trained by the Office of the County Counsel to prosecute the DCFS's petitions against parents and others accused of child abuse or neglect. Following three months of daily training in and out of court, he served as both a trial and appellate prosecutor of those cases for the County Counsel. After two years of prosecuting dependency cases, however, Mr. Massey could tolerate no more of his client's unethical use of twisted facts and fabrications to win its cases, usually in disregard for the children's best interests and with disdain for the families they were supposed to be serving and helping to reunify. So, he switched sides in order to defend parents and others accused by the DCFS of child abuse or neglect.

Since then, he has served hundreds, perhaps thousands of families to reunify as quickly as possible, usually over the objections of the DCFS and the minors' appointed attorneys who generally follow in lock-step with the County Counsel's recommendations because they too lack adequate training and experience to realize that the county is concerned with children's best interests only when their best interests do not conflict with the county's interests. His reputation in the dependency courts is stellar; he is very well known and respected by judges and attorneys alike because of his tenacious representation of his clients and uncompromising high moral standards! It is no wonder that the Los Angeles County Superior Court declared him an “Expert in Juvenile Dependency Trial and Appellate Law and Practice” and permitted him to testify as an Expert in the field in the Superior Court.

Mr. Massey has dedicated tremendous portions of his time to pro bono (without charge) representation of parents, defacto parents, and relatives and foster caretakers of children involved in the dependency system. His pro bono representation of these folks has usually been intentional, but sometimes not. Desperate parents, defactos, relatives or foster caretakers of children who have been detained from them by the DCFS or other counties' versions of that agency, often promise to pay what they know deep down that they simply cannot pay in order to secure the best attorney available, which Mr. Massey most certainly is in that field. Mr. Massey has taken most of these unintended pro bono cases in stride because he recognizes that he has an ethical obligation to apply a significant portion of his time and unique talent, knowledge and skills toward helping at least some of the many families who cannot afford to pay high attorney fees, but need more help than the overburdened and under trained court appointed defense attorneys can provide. People from whom children have been seized by the county do not wish to plead guilty to allegations which are false, but the overburdened court appointed counsel almost always pressure parents and others to do just that, promising a “good deal” from the county in return. Mr. Massey left the panel of defense attorneys appointed to represent parents and the like for the very reason that he was too overburdened by the hundreds of cases to which he had been appointed adequately to serve his clients.

Thus, when you hire Mark A. Massey to represent you in a juvenile dependency case, you not only get the most talented, educated, well trained and well versed in the law attorney you can hire, you also receive his undivided loyalty and attention to your case and to resolving in the most expedient manner possible, your family's dilemma. In addition to his extensive juvenile dependency career, Mr. Massey has also handled many family law cases and he is equally well versed in that area of practice. He is highly skilled in attaining rulings for his clients with respect to child and spousal support, child custody and division of marital assets and obligations.

Mr. Massey has also handled many personal injury and civil rights cases, including filing lawsuits or defending against them, and his trial and appellate skills have translated well into that field, into the many criminal defense cases he has handled, and into the many cases he has handled in areas of the law such as probate, bankruptcy, immigration and others. His broad education in the law is what prompted him and his Partner, Joyce Komanapalli to advertise Komanapalli Massey LLP as a General Practice.