Reviews

I do not recommend hiring the lawyer Mr. Michael Pascoe, who works at this law firm – and this is coming from a lawyer. For context, I rarely post reviews and up until this review, all of them were 5 star reviews because it can be hard to run a business and I have real sympathy for business owners. However, a recent conversation with some friends inspired me to post my first and likely only negative review on Google – I’m speaking up because picking a meal is one thing, picking a lawyer you’re spending thousands of dollars on is another. People can have a hard time finding a great lawyer at an affordable price, especially as it’s hard for them to evaluate the quality of legal representation, and I hope my perspective can help out those that are looking. First, some background on my interactions with Mr. Pascoe: my partner and I were looking for lawyers to draft a prenup – I hired one lawyer based on a reddit rec while my partner hired Mr. Pascoe. However, we both agreed that if given the choice again, my partner would never have hired Mr. Pascoe. I’ll refrain from going into detail on everything I saw that concerned me, but suffice it to say that I would not recommend Mr. Pascoe to anyone based on what I saw of the prenup drafting, his interpretations of the law, how long it took to get things done, and more. Here’s just one example of a major problem in the prenup drafting - Mr. Pascoe (or someone working at his direction) had removed and then inserted clauses into the prenup that actively hurt their own client’s financial interests. In a few different places, their revised prenup stated that after marriage our assets would be community property rather than separate property – what this meant was that my partner, who makes more money than I do, would have had his post-marriage income, stocks that vested to him, his retirement money, and more split 50/50 with me in the event we both divorced rather than considered his own separate property which I was not entitled to. This was not what either of us wanted (plus if we wanted that, it’s the default in CA so there would be no need for a prenup), and I was genuinely astonished that Mr. Pascoe’s revision changed the correct delineation of these assets as separate property in the original prenup draft my lawyer sent to Mr. Pascoe. If I were to be charitable, perhaps they would have caught this massive error in the second (and last) revision they made – however, I’m doubtful they would have noticed an error of 3 words in a 20 plus page document given other errors I saw in their revisions (including their last one). Again, I emphasize that my review is specific to Mr. Pascoe. Every lawyer is different and this review is not meant to be about lawyers whose legal work I’ve obviously not had the chance to see. Hopefully my experience and perspective will be helpful to anyone who reads this review.

Michael and his team did a great job.

i selected michael as my attorney with the misleading reviews online. while he promised a very strong defense at the beginning, he disappeared and a woman in his office, named Evelyn R., came to picture and michael disappeared. they destroyed my case. my opponenet took out child out of town when i had visitation time, and instead of filing to "contempt of court order" - which could get my opponent in jail - they forced to "collaborate to have a good visibility in front of the judge". they literally wasted 10k of my money for no one single meaningful output. they bad work made me pay much more to my next lawyer and wait way longer for my case to clean up the mess they made

Michael Pascoe and his team at SVLO absolutely saved me - not just in terms of dollars, but my sanity - seriously, they kept the situation from becoming unhinged and kept me from taking the wrong turn several times! I would react and try to steer things in a direction that would ultimately not serve me well; Michael was calm and thoughtful and was able to end this emotional roller coaster that I'd been on for the past year and half. He kept me focused on what mattered and took care of all the rest. His knowledge and experience proved right every time; Michael would call it and he knew exactly what he was talking about. I learned to listen to voices of reason and my attorney's words of wisdom. For me it was taking a huge leap of faith. All I can say is the faith I placed in Michael (and Evelyn) paid-off. One thing I really liked is that even though I hired one attorney, and was charged only for one, I had a team representing me. Sometimes both Michael and Evelyn would appear and they were both involved and active in my case. They are both incredibly knowledgable and skilled at negotiating and have different styles that depending on the situation they would decide who to bring in. This was undoubtedly one of the worst times in my life, and I hope to never go through anything like it again, but I can say without reservation that the SVLO team made it great. THANK YOU!

michael gave me a sales pitch of filing a RO against the RO and easily solving the case. he requested $20,000 as retainage. after paying retaining fee, another attorney, evelyn (who was a disaster), was my unofficial but practically THE Attorney, and michael went out of scene. i asked michael several times that he proised me he will file a RO against the other party, but he ignored my emails and instead wrote long long emails to keep a good image in front of the judge. this is when my opponent plagiarized the case, and i could easily quash the case. for one months of literally no work more than 20min hearing, he charged me over 10,000. it took him two months to return the remainder of my money while he was not on my case even for one month.

Michael is an amazing individual and an even better attorney. I had a complicated case involving child and an unrelenting individual. Michael calmly assessed the situation and performed wonderful negotiations. We signed off within 8-9mo from start to finish, this would have been impossible to imagine without Michael. He is super busy and has become even more sought after now, but his staff does a wonderful job of scheduling and as an individual going through something unknown and scary you feel your being taken care of.

Michael is an awesome guy and the best lawyer i have ever met! He is truly more interested in doing the right thing for the client than he is in creating a huge bill!!! He has gotten me out a bad family situation and made me feel completely confident that i had the ordeal under control with him at the helm. Coco the therapy dog sat in my lap while i cried my eyes out and Michael was so patient and sympathetic!! In retrospect i felt like i was sitting in my friends living room sharing my problem as opposed to an attorney’s office. His bill was reasonable and he and his fabulous staff held my hand the whole way out of my hellacious situation... Thank you Michael et all for your dedication and support. I don’t know where I would be today without you!!! Having said all that, I highly recommend Michael and his wonderful staff for anyone needing a family attorney. In fact after my problems were solved we went back and had him set up our family will and trust. Now we not only have today taken care of, but our future is also covered and set should we have any kind of unforeseen issues. My thanks again to Michael and his staff for saving my life and helping me be prepared for the future !!!!!

As a former client of Ms. Parker's, I can attest that she will work hard to obtain a fair judgment for her clients. My experience is that she is knowledgeable, thorough, on top of judicial decisions that affected me, and has great integrity. She always conducted herself professionally in meetings and in any form of contact she had with me or the court. She communicated honestly and straightforwardly with me and was completely on top of deadlines - nothing was left to the last minute, nor was she late with any filings. I recommend her wholeheartedy.