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04 Jul, 2022 by Kim
If it was possible to give 0 stars I would have. Under no circumstance should you hire Trina for anything, especially with any visitation with TRO in place or custody issues. She is in it for herself…to get paid. He care nothing for the kids, especially their emotional and psychological well being. She traumatized my kids further. DO NOT HIRE HER.
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03 Sep, 2014 by Anonymous
Hired as a custody evaluator for a child abuse case. She did an excellent job investigating and uncovering facts, but did a very poor job testifying. On the witness stand she seemed to have forgotten many important details. She responded "I don't know" or "I don't remember" several times to facts that she had provided while testifying on my child's behalf.
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01 May, 2024 by A f
5 months ago I paid him $750 to do some paperwork. He cashed the check and didn't do the paperwork and he's impossible to get ahold of. Voicemail box is always full, can't leave a message. Took the money and ran.
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30 Aug, 2022 by Pukalena kaleiohi
Supposedly my late Fathers (jerald kim) attorney...he won't return our phone calls...went help us get a copy of our Father's will..seems like he took the money and called it good. Not very reliable or trustworthy...he said he would get back to us in 7days..it's been 2months..
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30 Apr, 2016 by Anonymous
This attorney handled our landlord tenant case. Involved within this case was a no contact order approved by the judge against some tenants that were terribly disruptive, threatening, and who caused physical injury to our non-aggressive friendly French Bulldog. Ms. Voss did win our case for us, but she failed to have our daughter's name, who was a minor at the time, redacted from the files or sealed altogether. When we realized this we went back to her asking her to do so, and she refused to "take our case". Okay wait, you erred to begin with causing potential future harm to our child, and you refuse to make it right indicating this is a case you don't care to take? This is, in our opinion, beyond unprofessional and careless. If we could have given her no stars, we would have. She is why the profession has such a bad reputation.
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23 Oct, 2014 by Anonymous
Ms. Voss represented my ex during our divorce process... At my ex wife's expense, she successfully negotiated my pre counsel offer down to to about half of my initial offer after about 10 months of incurring legal fees for both parties. If you're looking for an attorney to recommend to a future ex, I would strongly suggest Ms. Voss if the financial settlement means anything to you.
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15 Jul, 2018 by Maa
Mr. Chur was hired by me to help with a workers comp. case. He dragged the case out, got a mediocre settlement and took 50% of the settlement. He nickel and dimed me by charging for things like phone calls, office supplies and office clerk work at attorney rates! This guy is a rip off and has no shame! On a positive note, the toilets were clean.
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13 Jul, 2015 by Anonymous
Daniel Chur represented me in a work.comp. claim with John Insurance representing my employer for a back injury which caused me a discectomy operation. And Mr. Chur used his expertise to settle my claim as fast and without my consent as possible, when I questioned him as to a settlement without my approval he said he already gave the insurance company "his" word and if I didn't go along with it he would "release" me as a client. He settled within the year, took more than a third and cared the less that I was still in daily pain.
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07 Aug, 2024 by Anonymous
My husband and I hired Mr. Wilder and were provided much hope for the future. The entire process was painful, from lack of contact from Mr. Wilder at the beginning, as his staff led us to believe that he was our attorney, then come to find out he's not even an attorney, then abruptly left, and we were handed off to another assistant. They lost our signed paperwork multiple times, needing it to be resubmitted, and we didn't have a printer at the time, so we had to drive all the way to a UPS store, or on two instances, the library. Mr Wilder then proceeded to not be able to obtain certain files from various doctors in a timely manner, so we had to do it for him, then he charged us for obtaining the files AND the mailing of the files. It wasn't all that much money, but when you're a struggling couple, every dollar counts. He didn't prep for the deposition at all, and was an awful experience. The whole process was unpleasant, and whenever we'd stand up for ourselves, he'd scoff at us, then talk in a very condescending tone. All in all, we wouldn't recommend him, especially not in Hawaii. The amount of stress, lack of insight, and respect speaks volumes for his character. That is all I feel comfortable saying
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29 May, 2024 by Anonymous
This attorney advised us to get as much treatment as humanly possible, then negotiated the bills down before court, thus leading us into court with a much much much smaller claim, then dropped out immediately before the court date, putting a lien on our recovery, thus we walk with nothing, and he brings home almost $100,000. Don't believe the you pay nothing unless he wins. Absolutely not true. On top of it all, he talked down to us constantly, made my spouse, and immediate family very uncomfortable. Would never hire again.
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29 Mar, 2016 by Anonymous
It is sad to say that Schmeding was hired and did nothing for my case. I provided ALL documentation and he failed to keep the communication. In the end, after hiring an AWESOME attorney, Schmeding still got double the cut from my settlement then the one who actually worked on my case. I do NOT recommend this firm and would chose to represent myself if needed to. Please be careful and do your research.
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05 May, 2016 by Anonymous
Found this to be an incredibly bad experience unfortunately on the extreme end of what's common with many attorneys, in this case poor results with high fees. My opinion Would definitely be very careful in hiring any attorney and conduct your due diligence and be very aware of excessive unnecessary billing while pursuing and inefficient and ineffective legal path.
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27 Apr, 2016 by Anonymous
Was quoted a fee, then they wanted twice the retainer than was quoted, assistant lied about the work done on the case, said all paperwork was complete, was not completed as told. fired attorney. Have all correspondence associated with case.
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12 Oct, 2016 by Anonymous
He constructed a very poor trust for my mother that lead to legal problems after my mother passed away. He refused to communicate and work with our family after the fact, and was extremely rude and unprofessional. If I could give a negative score I would.
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12 Dec, 2016 by Anonymous
From the beginning she was unorganized. Prepared worksheets that were confusing andhard to understand. She would only meet at a zippys location and never at her office. Whenever we had questions about our case she was always too busy to get back to us and will try to fit us in. She is awful.
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28 Jan, 2018 by Blitzen
I checked out Chuck Choi and saw that he had a lot of re-org plans confirmed so I figured he would probably be a good attorney for my chapter 11. I hred him in August '16. He failed to explain to me the importance of the unsecured class ...he refused to do litigation or even be an aggressive negotiator when we we're on the right side we have the proof and he just gave them a get out of jail free card… A free pass and it was a lot of money that they did not deserve. They were guilty of fraud. These people were members of the LLC with me and held The mortgage on the property at the same time. They had very little into the deal but because they held the mortgage they wanted to foreclose and steal millions of dollars in equity. They hired a lawyer without my knowledge . This guy coached them on how to kill the deal. They then set about sabotaging our development deal. Their actions are a breach of their fudiciary duty to me as a co-member of the LLC and we had the proof of it . In Cases of fraud like this that note doesn't even exist and Chuck gave them a pass and they're supposed to be paid $1.25mn. Chuck is a very arrogant person and is difficult to get along with. He's also vindictive; at a status conference he set me up pretending nothing was going on, and a half hour before the status conference he filed a motion to withdraw from the case in a surprise ambush move to cause maximum detrimental effect and harm to me and my company ... We still don't know the fallout from this treachery against his own client . Then he did the worst possible job he could do at that status conference; he lied by omission to The judge for months… The result of which is we have a terrible record silent when it shouldn't be. I argued with him over it & he won out & now I'm having to set the record straight and it's difficult if not impossible to do and he knew better. With an attorney like this, you better watch your back ... Don't you see the knives in mine ? What kind of lawyer hides the fact that he's going to withdraw from his client and then proceeds to represent? while client is in the dark ?!! It's so important to have a good attorney; & then, 5 mins after the hearing concludes & we meet he doesn't even mention it to me? he hid it from me. Why would I want a bum like that arguing on my behalf? He Ambushed me. He sabotaged the case. The judge issued an OSC after the hearing due in large part because of what was said by opposing counsel this is the same lawyer that advised his clients how to kill my deal so they could gmmnmnnforeclose on the note and steal the shopping center land . This prolific liar, lied in court and Chuck said nothing . Opposing counsel told the judge that his client was just a simple dentist who needs his money and I as manager was not following the plan and was not going to follow plan of reorganization... And therefore he should allow the foreclosure to proceed where they steal $6 million in equity ... CChoi silence was a co- signature of opposing counsel's Truthfulness but it wasn't truthful at all ...it was a straight up lie! And Choi knew it was a lie but he did nothing about it. So I filed paperwork showing the Dentists financial position and it was signed by the dentist's wife showing $78 million in assets and a net worth of $44 million. I believe Chuck Choi is working with the opposition to harm me. I believe Choi is capable of anything including these atrocities here that could cost me everything I own. CChoi never did answer the opposition at all in Their recent pleadings that could cost me millions and therefore I cannot recommend him for anything not even fighting a traffic ticket... I believe he belongs disbarred . he's going to hurt somebody real bad, just like he has done to me. Don't ever turn your back on Choi .
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23 Oct, 2022 by Anonymous
Be VERY cautious when considering this attorney. Things were mishandled and often ignored. Be sure and check Billings every month. Accountings were missing as required by State law. Typically concerns were ignored. Keep track of where your assets are and what name they are placed. There are many other qualified individuals.
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24 Jun, 2018 by Anonymous
Erika Amatore is the worst attorney hired by our consulting business. Our consulting business has been active for almost ten years around the world (e.g. Canada, Korea, US, Belize, Russia, Bolivia, Switzerland, Africa, Singapore, etc) and used a variety of attorneys for various matters relating to intellectual property, tax matters, patents, regulatory matters, and most recently breach of contract. We've had excellent legal support many times, however, no lawyer has ever treated our firm in the poor manner that she did. The worst--Erika did not disclose that the judicial official working in our case has a conflict of interest worth our review and when another attorney flagged the issue she did not share that concern (that conflict ended up being exposed six months later and is worth knowing). She did not get to know our company's case nor fact check case details with us before committing our company to key deadlines. She did not follow directions on almost any request---she failed to use prepared legal material by prior legal counsel and instead recreated legal documents at our company's expense. In files we gave her she introduced legal and factual errors that she did not highlight so those changes and errors were not caught in time. Her errors actually contradict the cornerstone of our case that we asked her to review three or more times at the beginning--meaning her errors are incompetence or disobedience possibly both. She did not consult with our firm about deposing a witness nor review key documents that would have prepared her for the deposition. She shared company files outside the firm without seeking the firm's prior informed consent which put intellectual property of client's at risk. Erika was under prepared for our discovery deadline and sent us on multiple wild goose chases regarding how to produce documents (e.g. the format requested changed multiple times making our staff spend dozens of hours of repetitive unnecessary work). She ended up dropping the case with little notice, right before the discovery request, without consulting the company nor informing it of it's legal rights. If a person professionally commits to representing a case at the very least, commit to key a few milestones and come up with a strategy to transition if one cannot commit long-term. She did not have the maturity to do that. To sum it up, Erika comes across as a self-absorbed and heartless millennial that is distracted, doesn't care, and is sloppy. This firm and our management has worked with and/or supervised over sixty people and she, undoubtedly, is the worst professional worked with. Our firm worked with the legal firm to get the answers/find a solution and/or give her the benefit of the doubt for over a month. The only thing we accomplished was finding out that our gut feeling presented here is more than true and grounded by fact and we found out worse things beyond our imagination. We are left feeling that if we found truth to our complaints---imagine the additional damage she did because we probably found out only a portion of the truth. It is our formal opinion this person lacks the intellectual and moral character to represent others needing legal help. Erika Amatore is also in dire need of some serious soul searching. We wish her luck in conducting that intense reflection because she is going to need it.
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01 Sep, 2022 by Jennifer
I have tried to contact several times throughout the past year and a half! With no response yet he’s getting paid.
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26 Sep, 2014 by Anonymous
benefits assistance atttorney, Appealed decision of Dept of Human services Hawaii to deny assistance for qualified individual. Attorney did a fair job on the appeal. But what i didn't like as a client was her attitude not to look beyond the scope of what was really happening. After the decision was granted by Circuit court Judge in our favor, DHS needed to schedule a new hearing. I asked for a original document be entered into evidence during the DHS hearing this document said i asked for money while pending a hearing date. I never sign any papers of such a sort. The only papers I signed was at legal aid of Hawaii. They gave me papers to sign to represent me, some of these papers I signed were blank. This paper was one of a few main reason i gave to being right. Days b4 hearing I had ask attorney to ask for documents bcuz i never signed or gave a reason asking for finacial assistance pending hearing. The day of hearing I asked My lawyer did she ask DHS/AAO for document she ignored me. long story short after losing that hearing.
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06 Jun, 2014 by Anonymous
When I spoke with Carolyn Oshiro she stated that her first consultation was free. We did not have a first consultation. We had a few phone calls which SHE initiated to me after my first call to her, asking about a consultation. She never told me that each time she called me she was charging me. She initiated all the calling. The bill for just her phone calls to me where I answered some questions, was over $200. Had I known she was initiating calls that she was charging me for, I would not have spent the time I did with her. You can imagine my surprise when I got the bill. Also, I asked her to send me copies of what she was doing, and she did not. However she charged me over $500 for two sheets of paper with a dozen or so questions. Beware. I would not recommend this attorney.
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01 Oct, 2020 by Stunna media
Goldberg should never practice law Had to give 1 star ⭐️ to post but I would even give them that...this is to save everyone the grief of working with incompetent people
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06 Jan, 2023 by Anonymous
We contacted Atty. Rhoda Alvarez seeking help in assisting our niece in obtaining a green card. The answers and options she gave us were vague and not at all helpful. One thing she suggested was that we find someone to marry her. I don't think that this is even remotely legal and not a route we would pursue. The fee we paid for a Zoom consultation was high and not worth 1/4 of what we paid. Having dealt with really competent Attorneys in the past, this was a letdown.
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Top Questions to Ask a Lawyer

When meeting with a lawyer for the first time, it's important to ask the right questions to understand their expertise and determine if they're the right fit for your legal needs. Here are some top questions to consider:

  1. What experience do you have with cases similar to mine?
    Ensure the lawyer has relevant experience in the specific area of law pertaining to your case.
  2. How do you charge for your services, and what are the estimated costs?
    Understand the fee structure, including hourly rates, flat fees, retainer fees, and any additional expenses.
  3. What potential outcomes can I expect from my case?
    While no lawyer can guarantee results, they can provide an assessment of possible scenarios based on their experience.
  4. What is your approach to handling cases like mine?
    Learn about their strategy, whether they prefer negotiation, mediation, or litigation.
  5. Who will be working on my case?
    Find out if the lawyer will handle your case personally or delegate tasks to other attorneys or paralegals.
  6. How will you communicate with me throughout the process?
    Establish expectations for updates, preferred communication methods, and response times.
  7. What is the likely timeline for resolving my case?
    Get an estimate of how long the process may take from start to finish.
  8. Do you have references from past clients?
    Testimonials or references can provide insight into the lawyer's professionalism and effectiveness.
  9. What are the strengths and weaknesses of my case?
    Understanding potential challenges helps you prepare and sets realistic expectations.
  10. Are there alternative ways to solve my legal problem?
    Discuss options like mediation, arbitration, or settlement to resolve the issue efficiently.

How to Check the Credibility of a Lawyer

Before hiring a lawyer, it's crucial to verify their credibility and ensure they're qualified to handle your case:

  1. Verify Their License:
    Check with your state's bar association to confirm the lawyer is licensed and in good standing.
  2. Experience and Specialization:
    Ensure the lawyer specializes in the area of law relevant to your case.
  3. Disciplinary Record:
    Look up any history of disciplinary actions or complaints through the state bar association.
  4. Client Reviews and Testimonials:
    Read reviews on legal directories like Avvo, Martindale-Hubbell, or Google to gauge client satisfaction.
  5. Professional Memberships:
    Membership in professional organizations or specialty bar associations can indicate a commitment to their field.
  6. Awards and Recognitions:
    Honors from reputable organizations reflect expertise and a positive reputation.
  7. Consultation Assessment:
    Use the initial consultation to evaluate their communication skills, responsiveness, and willingness to address your concerns.
  8. Ask for References:
    A credible lawyer should be willing to provide references from past clients.

What Should I Prepare for My First Consultation?

To make the most of your initial meeting with a lawyer, come prepared with:

  1. Relevant Documents:
    Bring all documents related to your case, such as contracts, correspondence, legal notices, court papers, or evidence.
  2. Written Summary:
    Prepare a concise written summary of your situation, including key dates, events, and involved parties.
  3. List of Questions:
    Write down any questions you have about your case, the legal process, or the lawyer's experience.
  4. Financial Information:
    If applicable, bring financial documents like pay stubs, tax returns, or bank statements.
  5. Contact Information:
    Provide details of any witnesses or other parties relevant to your case.
  6. Personal Identification:
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  7. Pen and Notebook:
    Take notes during the consultation to remember important points.
  8. Budget Constraints:
    Be ready to discuss your budget and any financial limitations.

How Much Does a Lawyer Cost?

The cost of hiring a lawyer varies widely based on several factors:

  • Fee Structures:
    • Hourly Rate:
      Lawyers may charge anywhere from $150 to $500 or more per hour, depending on experience and location.
    • Flat Fee:
      For routine legal services like drafting a will or handling an uncontested divorce, lawyers might offer a flat fee.
    • Retainer Fee:
      An upfront payment against which the lawyer bills hourly fees.
    • Contingency Fee:
      Common in personal injury cases; the lawyer receives a percentage (typically 25% to 40%) of any settlement or award.
    • Monthly Retainer:
      For ongoing services, businesses might pay a monthly fee for a set number of hours or services.
  • Factors Affecting Cost:
    • Complexity of the Case:
      More complex cases require more time and resources, increasing costs.
    • Lawyer's Experience:
      Highly experienced lawyers may charge higher fees.
    • Geographic Location:
      Legal fees can vary significantly by region or city.
    • Additional Expenses:
      Court filing fees, expert witness fees, travel expenses, and administrative costs may be extra.
  • Estimating Total Costs:
    Request a detailed fee agreement outlining all potential costs.
    Discuss any additional expenses that may arise during the case.
  • Negotiating Fees:
    Some lawyers may be willing to negotiate fees or offer payment plans, especially for clients with financial constraints.
  • Pro Bono Services:
    For those who cannot afford legal services, some lawyers or legal aid organizations offer services at reduced rates or for free.
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