The presiding disciplinary judge of the Arizona Supreme Court suspended a lawyer who was called a “vexatious litigant” by the attorney general’s office.
Over the past few years, attorney Peter Strojnik sued more than 1,700 small businesses, on behalf of a group called Advocates for Individuals with Disabilities (AID). They accused the businesses of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Arizonans with Disabilities Act (AzDA).
Usually, Strojnik and AID demanded a settlement of $7,500 to drop the lawsuits. According to the Arizona State Bar, he won around $1.2 million in settlements, which primarily consisted of attorney’s fees.
In 2016, the Arizona State Bar started investigating Strojnik after receiving complaints from a number of business owners. One of them, JoAnn Burgess, the owner of a building in Phoenix, wrote to the organization about the lawyer’s conduct.
At the time, she told ABC 15, she decided to settle Strojnik’s lawsuit because the cost of litigation is more expensive than a quick settlement. However, she “felt what they were doing was totally and completely unethical.”
