Reviews

John did our trust. He was responsive and answered every question and made recommendations as to how to best protect our children as beneficiaries of the trust. He was also glad to answer legal questions we had that were unrelated to the trust. He always answered my emails and I had no difficulty with reaching him by phone.

For fixed-fee services, John is UNRESPONSIVE and LACKS ATTENTION TO DETAIL. I strongly urge avoiding hiring John as your attorney. I hired John for a prenup. He offered a fixed rate of $650. My fiancee and I did not have a complex situation; I even had a pre-written draft of the prenup ready to review on Day 1. John assured me his fee covered counseling, advice, negotiation, and attorney certification. 1. John does not respond to email in a timely way. He takes 1-2 days to respond to every email. Not a huge problem, except: 2. When he did respond, his emails were a mere 1-2 sentences long. They frequently failed to answer the question asked. When I emailed back clarifications, it would take 1-2 days for every round-trip of clarifications. This quickly burned time as my fiancee and worked toward our deadline. 3. John never answers the phone. Ever. It's always his assistant, even when you call back moments after he left a voicemail, or seconds after he sent an email. 4. When you schedule a call with John, he often calls early or late. Sometimes, he called 20 min early of our scheduled appointment, other times an hour late. I am a busy professional. I'm not just waiting around for my phone to ring, able to hop on 20 min early or an hour late. John's failure to adhere to his schedule disrespects his client's time. 5. On phone calls, John doesn't "lead." A good attorney leads by saying: "I noticed in your draft, clause A and B. Here are things to keep in mind about clause A. Btw, do you really want to phrase clause B like that? Here's the implication." That's helpful. By contrast, John would say: "What questions do you have for me?" You as the client must have all the questions, or else he has nothing to advise you. But as a client, you don't know what you don't know. That's why you hire an attorney -- to advise. John was almost worthless in this regard. 6. John does not draft anything, even minor word changes. John would say, "you need to include XYZ in your contract." Then I'd have to search on Google for examples of that contract language. Then I'd have to send it back for review, which (from 1-4 above) resulted in more delays and unhelpful emails / phone calls. 7. John doesn't read opposing counsel markup. When opposing counsel sent over document edits, I reviewed them in detail and asked questions, like: "what does this legal reference mean?" and "should I be worried about that clause?" -- John's responses were: "that's boilerplate, don't worry," or "I don't know, I have to look that up," or simply "I have no idea." What the hell are you paying for with these kind of answers? Even for boilerplate, if it FEELS MATERIAL to the client, it's the attorney's JOB to EXPLAIN it. Thoroughly. That's what an advisor does. John utterly fails at this. 8. John does not frame options; YOU must come up with all the options. John just says, "You could do that," or "Yes, that's an option." For example, negotiating spousal support, John provided no assistance either framing or recommending options. A good attorney says: "Here are some ways to structure this. Of these 3 options, I recommend X, because of Y reasons." The client WANTS this. Sure, I may not ultimately follow it - that's my choice - but a rec gives me a better understanding of the issues. That is the difference between advisor vs. scribe. John is NOT an advisor. He's more like a computer program that spits out errors with no helpful explanations, or "Yes, that option is acceptable." 9. John does not negotiate. His fee includes it, but he never once picked up the phone to negotiate for me. I had to communicate directly to opposing counsel, or through my fiancee. 10. John makes REALLY careless mistakes. When sending opposing counsel his attorney certification, he sent the wrong freaking document. He was slow to respond to emails. When he did respond, he sent the wrong damn document. This CAUSED US TO MISS OUR DEADLINE.

I had interviewed several attorneys before I decided to have Mr. Morkos complete my Prenup agreement. He was professional, knowledgeable and very accessible. Being a professional myself, it was important to find an attorney who fully understood my concerns. I highly recommend Mr. Morkos.

John is very professional and exceeded my expectations. He always made himself available anytime I had a question. I would highly recommend.