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01 Jan, 2009 by Anonymous
Mrs. Morasch gouged me in my divorce. She made sure everyting was convenient for her and not in her client's best interests. She would not respond timely to any of my written requests/instructions and lost my divorce case for me due to her poor representation which has cost me thousands of dollars. During the divorce hearing, she just sat there and never once defended me. She was a total disappointment.
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15 Feb, 2016 by Anonymous
Ms. Peterson was hired by me in relation to descrepencies on my credit report. During our initial consultation, she appeared competent and knowledgeable. After she was hired, she did not follow through on promises she made to attempt to contact the companies regarding my case, she did not return my phone calls or emails. I had to
Physically go to her office twice. The first time I showed up, she apologized for not returning my calls stating that things got extremely busy. She admitted that she had not even started on my case and it had been almost a month since she was hired. After our meeting , I heard from her via a letter she sent to the companies on one occasion and then another "letter" that actually was an invoice for time accrued. Well it's been 6 months and I have heard nothing else from her. I just recently emailed her requesting the valve of my retainer: $44.00. This attorney is awful and I am extremely surprised she has remained in business. I only stumbled upon her through my employer's EAP Program...if you need a lawyer, beware of this one....in fact, run the other way.
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19 Feb, 2024 by Barb
Contacted through his message center on 1/12/24 and again on 1/16/24. Why have a message center if you are not going to respond? Today is 2/19.
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13 May, 2021 by Jeanette
I wish there was an option for no stars. One star sounds like she kind of did her job and she definitely did not so, she doesn't deserve even one star. I feel we could have won our case if Jill even attempted to do her job. She had over a year to prepare for the hearing (because of COVID our hearing was postponed) and she waited until THE DAY BEFORE the hearing to reach out to us. She did not prepare well and she absolutely failed to prepare us. She often took weeks to get back to our questions and concerns and sometimes did not respond at all; her paralegal is rude and not helpful. i have never been so disappointed and felt more defeated then I do right now. If you think you have a decent chance of winning your case do NOT hire Jill Fox.
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19 Feb, 2016 by Anonymous
Attorney Ford was referred to me via Pre-paid Legal to write a letter to someone who was defaming my name. He sent the draft letter for me to review. I submitted the letter with changes. I then received a email from his administrative assistant with the original letter attached without the changes I requested. The name and orientation of the agency was wrong, and there were several name spelling errors. I let the office know that I was not aligned with them sending out the letter. Despite my communication of my not being aligned with the letter they sent the letter out without my knowledge or approval.
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19 Apr, 2013 by Anonymous
Hired this attorney regarding a corporation. He did not complete the paperwork properly. He is not very efficient and leaves things untidy. I would never hire this attorney again.
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11 Mar, 2016 by Wendy
DO NOT HIRE ERIN KEELER (RICKARDS) AS YOUR DIVORCE ATTORNEY.
Erin Rickards failed me in every way that a divorce attorney could fail. She failed to give me good advice. She failed to critique every level of the valuations done of shared assets. She failed to ensure that premarital assets were attributed to me. She failed to account for money that could have and should have been deducted from the equity of assets. She failed to go after my ex when we really had him with his lying and concealing of assets. She failed me. I trusted her and thought she knew what she was doing. But she did not. She had barely been out of school three years when taking my case she had NO business being my divorce attorney. She made mistake after mistake and failed to protect me from total financial ruin.
The results of Erin Rickards failure towards her client is that I am about to go into bankruptcy because of the insurmountable debt that I have incurred because of the huge divorce judgement against myself. I owe more on my divorce judgement today then I did in 2010 because at 9% interest I can barely make the interest payment each month. Furthermore, the emotional and physical stress that I have suffered since my divorce trying to run the business that I unhappily own and be a single mother and pay my ex-husband every extra cent I have has had a terrible toll on my physical health to the point that I can no longer even work in the restaurant as I am physically unable.
Please take my advice and do not use her if you want to come out on top on your case.
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04 Aug, 2023 by Anonymous
Going through a divorce for 15 months now. Staci charged a 20,000 dollar retainer. She was very hard to communicate with. When she talked to me she told me to answer in “yes or no” to her questions. She didn’t want to know the background of the divorce. It took her 22 days to file a motion that was time sensitive to the divorce date. The motion was finally filed. At that motion she called the court the day before and piggy backed on the motion to withdraw 6 days before my divorce trial. She constantly threatened to withdraw several times through our relationship. She extended my divorce trial and left me high and dry with the expert witnesses that were arranged for court. She also did not ask for discovery that I requested through the case. I never received my wife’s discovery. She ignored requests and her duties as my attorney. She did not put the time in and was not concerned about being prepared in hopes the divorce would be settled out of court. I would not recommend her to anybody. Going through a divorce while your lawyer treats you like a number was offensive and frustrating. She managed to get me for 12,000 dollars essentially for a discovery request and filing a motion to the court in an untimely matter.
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21 Feb, 2013 by Anonymous
Showed up for court, without any research of the charges. Didn't discuss the case or what he was going to say to the judge, he had no notes from our previous conversations. I I would have done better going to the hearing without counsel. Extremely poor representation.
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13 Dec, 2019 by Janie
Amanda will tell you she's a "damn good lawyer" (more than once). She's not interested in information, or answering questions- she has one goal and one focus- and that is to win. I suppose this is a good trait in a lawyer, as long as you can stomach her arrogance and rude behavior. She does not like to answer questions and the many assistants who come and go often lose paperwork or have no idea what is going on with your case. Be prepared to gather EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING from your doctors, care providers, and case workers. Also, make sure you make a LOT of copies, because this law firm can't seem to retain the documents you will be providing. We delivered numerous documents by mail, certified mail and even in person. We went over the file page by page- in person and the night before the hearing, an assistant claimed they did not have the key doctor's contact information. Not only was this not true, it caused an enormous amount of stress, not to mention the cost of paying the doctor who ultimately was not allowed to testify, as the law firm didn't acquire the proper permission for her to attend, even though they had previously assured us they would. We caught them in several lies about our attorney's availability and what documents they had.
I work in the adult court system- I have some understanding of proceedings and I've worked closely with attorneys most of my career. I have never been spoken to or treated so rudely as we were in this law office. I'm sorry to say it was too late to fire her and start over. While I feel we may still be able to win the case, I don't feel like this attorney's office has been any help in the prep process- in fact they have been an outright hindrance at times. For the amount of money they are going to walk away with, they really ought to be more respectful of their clients.
If you only care about winning and don't mind being uninformed and treated like you're stupid- and if you don't mind doing all the legwork and building your own case and repeatedly sending them documents- then this just might be the law firm/lawyer for you.
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13 Nov, 2018 by Keili
This review is solely based of off the experience with follow up and initial conversation with intake to pursue a consultation with an attorney at this firm.
After speaking with Kyle the office coordinator so called “Office Manager” KYLE last week about scheduling a consultation with one of the attorneys on a time sensitive issue I was told I would be contacted via email later that day with some dates and times available. With no response still as of today and several attempts to call in to try and schedule with no return calls back I can see why prior reviews with the same experience are apparent. More so I continued to try to make a consultation appointment yet again this morning and spoke with the receptionist who let me know KYLE was the only one who could schedule the consultation and he was unavailable. It wasn’t until informed the receptionist of my frustration and experience with no follow up from KYLE and I wanted to speak with his higher up that he was instantly available. He reassured me he had emailed me yesterday from our first initial conversation a week a go and deemed himself that should have sufficed in lieu of not returning any calls prior that week with my time sensitive issue. After I let him know of his poorly conducted attempt to contact me back he then let me know non of the attorney’s were available or could take my case. His exact words were “no one is available until after the new year”. I understand completely that the firm has many cases as they came highly recommended but as a smaller firm it should not take over a week to get a response from a schedule coordinator to let a possible future client that all the attorney’s are unavailable until after New Years. Really?? After calling KYLE on his lack there of his demeanor completely changed and I asked to be re routed to the front desk. Instead of being professional he asked why and why did I need to talk to the receptionist. I let him know that I wasn’t going to continue the conversation with him and would like to speak with the front desk. This is when he informed me that he was the Office Manager and anything that needed to be left with the front desk he could be made aware of. Interesting how if you a not even a client but a prospective and that’s how you are treated then how actual clients are treated. All in all I believe this was a way letting me know to dodge this firm like a bullet.
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02 Nov, 2013 by Anonymous
This attorney claims to be an expert in child custody matters, and states on his website that mediation with the other parent is important to the child's welfare (my paraphrasing). In fact, Mr. Cross encourages contention and strife between the opposing parties, uses the children as pawns in the divorce, refers to custody issues as the "custody battle"and even suggested that the "goal"of any custody fight is to "win, thus ensuring the custodial parent will get child support".
While my now ex-spouse and I are no longer friends, we are, thankfully,a united front regarding our children, and we have agreed to never disparage each other to the children, to respect each other in our individual lives, and to reassure them through our behavior that their Mother and Father are no longer married to each other through NO fault of their own, I absolutely WOULD NOT recommend Mark Cross as a family law lawyer.
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08 Apr, 2018 by Anonymous
This attorney needs to be turned in to the Bar! Took me for thousands of dollars wasting my time and many others meeting with my “character witnesss” and wasting paid time gossiping about other cases and chain smoking! Right before I was supposed to go to court for custody of my daughter he demanded $3,000 more in order to go to court and then wanted me to settle and because I would not sign an agreement he threatened to take me to court. I then found and excellent attorney after this horrible experience.
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08 Nov, 2022 by Anonymous
I hired Lissa to assist me with a very painful divorce promoted by domestic violence. I wanted a female attorney and thought that Lissa would be an important advocate. I spent almost $50,000 on lawyer fees just for her to drop me as a client a month before our court hearing, in the middle of summer when no one was available to step in and take over. She offered no reason for the sudden drop and I ended up Iosing over $200,000 because I was left without a trial lawyer at the eleventh hour after paying her for nearly a year.
During our time together, Lissa was unprofessional, woefully underprepared for our temporary court hearing, had no eye for detail and had a very short temper. Every document I received from her was chalk full of mistakes, she would frequently lose her temper and start yelling at me and her staff, and arrived to our temporary court hearing with little preparation. She appears to take on far too many clients at once, leaving her stressed, over worked and underprepared to deliver results. But she'll certainly take your money.
Lissa Kaufman was the absolute biggest mistake I made during my divorce. I hope others chose more wisely.
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08 Dec, 2008 by Blake
Retained Douglas Haynes to represent me in my divorce. He was completely non-responsive. As the court date neared he did not take my calls or responde to voice mails or emails. I was not able to retain another attorney. I finally sent a certified letter requesting that he respond. I copied the court on that letter. He never contacted me. I went to the court date expecting to represent myself only to find him walking in and responding to the court as my case was called. I was shocked he was there but a little relieved that I had someone to represent me. It was then that I found out that he never informed me of a deposition that I was to attend. The court awarded my ex-wifes attorney a $1500 judgement against me for failing to appear. The judge also had me pay for the mediation ordered. Doug Haynes has cost me so much money from his lack of representation. I would recommend never seeking advice or service from him.
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14 Sep, 2024 by Anonymous
Jaye Taylor, doesn’t care about kids! She only cares to line her pockets and do whatever it takes to win and benefit herself. She destorys childhoods and severs family relationships.
I was an un-represented child and Jaye made a court order to financially penalize me for not wanting a relationship with an abusive parent. How the court allowed a 14 year old to be unrepresented in testimoney and then claim I wasn't credible. Children do NOT lie about abuse and the system failed me, with with Jaye’s support. I am now an adult telling my story in hopes to save another child from the turmoil.
Stop Jaye Taylor!
Please contact me for detialed information.
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25 Sep, 2024 by Marlene
As soon as we met him I knew we would look for a different attorney. I have never met anyone more unprofessional in my 80+ years. It was obvious he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. It got worse during the consultation. I think he prejudged my granddaughter rather than the child custody case we were there for. He gave us completely different information than the lawyer who represented her in the CPS case. I would not recommend him at all.
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27 Aug, 2024 by Crystal
He refused to answer phone calls, refused to answer emails, refused letters, and refused to visit his client after the first meeting and saying he would return in two days. 6 months later after much fighting we had the Bar and the Client assistance office replace him. He didn’t even both to show up for court at one hearing. And lied out right at a second hearing stating that he had reached out to the Public Defenders Office personally to replace him, without realizing that in the hearing he misses the PDO had already stated they had not heard from him, only his client.
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13 Sep, 2024 by Anonymous
Did not review evidence and made unsubstantiated accusations.
Sons arrest information: https://gazettetimes.com/news/local/crime-courts/corvallis-man-allegedly-eggs-jewish-center/article_02606142-0e5b-5e6c-a8f5-d8e1a93644e9.html
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FAQs
Questions? We have answers
What a Family Law Lawyer Can Do for You
A family law lawyer provides legal services related to family relationships, including marriage, divorce, child custody, and adoption. Family lawyers help clients navigate emotionally charged legal issues, providing guidance and representation in disputes that affect spouses, children, and parents. Whether you're going through a divorce, seeking custody of your children, or drafting a prenuptial agreement, a family law lawyer ensures your rights are protected and your interests are represented.
Family law attorneys often handle sensitive matters and offer objective legal advice, helping clients reach fair outcomes either through negotiation, mediation, or litigation.
When Should I Hire a Family Law Lawyer?
Hiring a family law lawyer is beneficial in several situations, especially when legal matters involve close personal relationships. Common reasons to hire a family law lawyer include:
- Divorce or separation: When ending a marriage, a lawyer can help you navigate issues such as division of assets, spousal support, and child custody arrangements.
- Child custody and visitation disputes: If you and your co-parent can't agree on custody or visitation, a lawyer can represent your interests and work toward a solution that benefits your children.
- Child support: Whether you’re seeking child support or defending against a claim, a lawyer can help ensure the appropriate amount is calculated and enforced.
- Prenuptial or postnuptial agreements: A lawyer can help draft or review agreements that protect your assets in case of divorce.
- Adoption: Family law lawyers guide you through the legal process of adoption, ensuring that all requirements are met.
- Domestic violence or restraining orders: If you're a victim of domestic violence or being falsely accused, a lawyer can help you obtain or challenge protective orders.
- Paternity cases: If there are questions about the paternity of a child, a lawyer can help establish or dispute legal fatherhood.
Hiring a lawyer early can prevent issues from escalating, and they can offer you the best chance of achieving a favorable outcome in emotionally charged situations.
What Does a Family Law Lawyer Do?
A family law lawyer provides a wide range of services depending on your specific legal needs. Their responsibilities may include:
- Advising on legal rights and options: Helping you understand your legal rights regarding divorce, child custody, support, and other family law issues.
- Filing legal documents: Drafting and filing petitions, motions, and agreements with the court, such as divorce papers, custody agreements, or support orders.
- Representing clients in court: Arguing your case in front of a judge if a settlement can’t be reached through negotiation or mediation.
- Mediation and negotiation: Assisting with alternative dispute resolution methods, such as mediation, to reach agreements on issues like custody, property division, and support without going to trial.
- Enforcing court orders: Helping you enforce court orders related to child support, alimony, or custody if the other party fails to comply.
- Drafting prenuptial or postnuptial agreements: Creating agreements that protect your assets in the event of a divorce.
- Handling adoption proceedings: Ensuring that the legal process of adoption is followed, from filing paperwork to finalizing the adoption in court.
How Are Family Law Lawyers Paid?
Family law lawyers typically charge clients in one of several ways, depending on the complexity of the case and the lawyer’s experience. Common payment arrangements include:
- Hourly rates: Most family lawyers charge by the hour, with rates varying based on experience and location. Clients are billed for the time spent working on their case, including consultations, court appearances, and document preparation.
- Flat fees: For more straightforward legal services, such as drafting a prenuptial agreement or handling an uncontested divorce, some lawyers offer flat-fee arrangements.
- Retainer fees: In cases that are expected to require significant time and attention, such as contentious custody battles, a lawyer may charge a retainer, which is an upfront payment that covers the initial costs of legal services. The lawyer then bills against the retainer as they work on your case.
The exact cost will depend on the complexity of your case and the lawyer’s fee structure, which should be discussed upfront.
How Much Does a Family Law Lawyer Cost?
The cost of hiring a family law lawyer varies based on factors such as the lawyer's experience, the location, and the complexity of your case. Here are some general cost guidelines:
- Hourly rates: Family law lawyers typically charge between $150 and $500 per hour, depending on their experience and the complexity of the case.
- Flat fees: For simpler cases, such as drafting a prenuptial agreement or handling an uncontested divorce, fees may range from $1,000 to $5,000.
- Retainers: For more complex matters, such as contested divorces or custody battles, lawyers may charge a retainer ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 or more. The lawyer will bill against the retainer for the work they do on your case.
- Additional costs: You may also be responsible for additional costs, such as filing fees, mediation fees, or expert witness fees.
Always ask for a clear breakdown of the lawyer’s fees and any additional expenses during your consultation.
Top Questions to Ask a Family Law Lawyer
Before hiring a family law lawyer, it's important to ask questions to ensure they're the right fit for your case. Here are key questions to ask during your consultation:
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What experience do you have with family law cases like mine?
Make sure the lawyer has experience handling cases similar to yours, whether it's a contested divorce, child custody dispute, or adoption. -
How will you charge for your services?
Clarify whether the lawyer charges by the hour, a flat fee, or requires a retainer. Ask for an estimate of the total costs involved. -
What are the possible outcomes of my case?
An experienced lawyer should be able to give you a general idea of what to expect based on the facts of your case. -
What is your approach to resolving disputes?
Ask whether the lawyer tends to favor negotiation and mediation or whether they prefer to take cases to court. This can help you determine if their style matches your goals. -
How long do you expect my case to take?
While it’s difficult to predict, the lawyer should give you an estimate based on similar cases. -
Who will be handling my case?
In larger firms, junior attorneys or paralegals may do much of the work, so make sure you understand who will be your main point of contact.
How to Check the Credibility of a Family Law Lawyer
To ensure you're hiring a reputable family law lawyer, follow these steps to verify their credentials and reputation:
- Check state bar association records: Verify that the lawyer is licensed to practice in your state and is in good standing with no disciplinary actions.
- Read client reviews and testimonials: Look for reviews on websites like Avvo, Google, or Martindale-Hubbell. Previous clients can give you insight into the lawyer’s professionalism and success in family law cases.
- Request references: Ask the lawyer for references from past clients who can speak to their experience with the lawyer.
- Review their website or professional profile: Look at the lawyer’s background, case history, and areas of focus to ensure they have substantial experience in family law.
- Look for professional memberships: Membership in reputable organizations, such as the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), can indicate a lawyer's expertise and dedication to family law.
What Should I Prepare for My First Consultation?
To get the most out of your first consultation with a family law lawyer, it’s important to come prepared. Here’s what you should bring:
- Relevant documents: Bring any documents related to your case, such as marriage certificates, prenuptial agreements, financial records, custody agreements, or court orders.
- List of assets and debts: For divorce cases, prepare a detailed list of all assets (e.g., homes, bank accounts, retirement funds) and debts (e.g., mortgages, loans, credit card balances).
- Details of the family issue: Provide a written summary of the situation, including key dates and facts related to your divorce, custody dispute, or support issue.
- Questions for the lawyer: Write down any questions you have about the legal process, costs, and potential outcomes.
- Your goals: Be prepared to discuss your objectives, such as custody arrangements, property division, or spousal support, so the lawyer understands your priorities.
Being organized and clear about your situation will help the lawyer evaluate your case more effectively and offer the best advice for moving forward.
