Reviews

I worked with this lawyer and his law office on two occasions, once for a real estate closing and another for a family court case. In real estate matters, his assistant will take care of everything and it will be fine. On other court matters, you will never hear from him prior to the court date. If you need anything before that, too bad, he will have nothing to do with you. He won't answer phone calls, he won't return messages, nothing.

Right from day one Brett Cowen reused to return my phone calls. He only called me the day before court but I never even talked to him for long. He put me on the phone with his so called Private Investigator. I asked for my discovery packet, He gave me less than half of it. I asked where the 1st 14 pages were because when I did receive it, apparently he did not think I would notice that it started on page 15. I asked questions about the search that had happened in my home and his answers was always the same, "that does not matter" or "that's just the way it is done and the judge is going to leave it that way". Important questions such as, "I thought I was supposed to be given the search warrant so I could read it? I was never given one til I left the jail building, 10 days later". Brett told me that it did not matter as long as I was given one. The police do not have to give it to me before or when they search my home. I was given one when I left the jail so I still received it. I told Brett that I had asked the 2nd attorney for my discovery packet but did not receive it within the 15 days the DA had to give it to me. Again, he told me that it did not matter. Brett was my assigned lawyer through the Chenango County Public Defenders Office. He was the 3rd attorney assigned to me in the 1st 3 weeks of my case and was very clear right from our 1st appt that he had no intention of representing me to the best of his ability. Brett has done no work to help me on my behalf. He's done the opposite and just handed me over to the DA. The day of court, he pulled me into a room and outright lied to me because what he told me in that room, was not even close to what was said in the court room. And since receiving an email from reporting another attorney, I now find out that Brett has broken attorney client confidentiality by discussing my case with this other reported attorney who is not involved in my case at all. He lied to me, refused to return my calls, refused to give me all my discovery packet when I requested it, discussed my case with another not even involved in my case, and refused to do anything I asked. I may not have hired him myself but he is still paid to represent me to the best of his ability and he chose to do absolutely nothing but hand me over to the DA. Complete attorney misconduct in so many ways.

Brett was ultimately an all around great attorney, and presented the case well, was fair and very professional when meeting to talk about the case.