Reviews

I am the custodial parent and was being challenged on my behavior with my 12 year old. Child protective services were called to investigate an accusation of withholding food. The case was deemed unfounded. My child’s mother apparently desired a second opinion. This is when I called the firm Austin Batalden worked at. Batalden was happy to meet with me and my wife for the consultation fee. While speaking with her, she exuded a confidence to handle our legal situation. Based on her appraisal, Batalden estimated the cost would end up being a few thousand dollars if things went smoothly, and perhaps ten thousand dollars or more if they did not. Once Batalden began working on my case, I began to lose confidence in her. I tried to encourage Batalden to be more assertive with the facts already available, and I kept getting the sense that she did not want to be too strong with the opposing counsel. The opposing counsel was being quite strong however, and when I had spent about four thousand dollars, I decided to seek out a different attorney. I hired a new attorney. Batalden’s firm, aware of my disappointment, transferred my case for the associated clerical fees. I was quite relieved once I began to work with my new attorney. What I learned is that attorneys can often sound intelligent, and indeed are intelligent in terms of law, but that does not inform clients as to their competence other areas related to their job. My opinion is that Batalden was disinterested in my case and my perception was that my case got away from her before she realized it. I also perceived and felt that she was not interested in me and my well-being as a person experiencing a difficult situation evolving into a crisis. My mental health and that of my wife and whole family suffered through the next two years to have our matter eventually go before a judge. I believe this could have been avoided. I remain my child’s custodial parent and my child’s mother was ordered supervised visitation and mandatory professional coaching. I would not recommend Batalden for any matter that had more nuance than simply navigating the legal system. The total cost of my court ordeal was around 50 thousand dollars. I believe this too could have been avoided.

I hired Austin for my divorce and recently for my custody case. Austin is one of the most genuine people I have ever met - she is very knowledgeable about family law and puts the childs interests above everything else. She is not only a great lawyer, but a very patient, strategic advisor on how to proceed with your case. She responds quickly and communicates very well.

Austin Batalden has been an incredible attorney for my family and I. Austin took amazing care with my case. She made sure that everything was done correctly. She communicated everything clearly and easily. I really appreciated her realistic approaches to a turbulent situation. If you are looking for a family law attorney, you cannot do better than Austin. Knowing that you have someone competent and empathetic handling a sensitive issue brings priceless peace of mind.

I deeply regret hiring Austin to represent me during my divorce. The resulting judgment was a disaster where the plan to increase parenting time with my children was not robust enough and simply fell through without any alternative. I was stuck with very little parenting time and had to hire another lawyer to undo the mess that Austin created, costing me tens of thousands of dollars more. Even worse, Austin bailed on me with merely 48-hours notice while the judgment was being finalized. She partnered with other lawyers to create her own office, hoping that I would follow and keep her as my lawyer. What a joke. Throughout my divorce, Austin provided very little--if any--counsel, merely forwarding emails from the other party to me. She wouldn’t add any analysis, options, or comments to help solve problems created by the other party as they came. She typically had no hindsight into the unreasonable proposals from the other party, leaving it to me to understand whether the methods used by my former spouse to intimidate me were just smoke and mirrors or could be actual bad news for me. Austin’s inability to truly represent me added a lot of stress to an already nerve-wracking situation for me. The icing on the cake was that every single piece of correspondence or legal document that Austin wrote was full of spelling mistakes and typos. I had to spend an unreasonable amount of time proofreading emails and documents that were poorly written. I stuck with Austin because I didn’t know better and was afraid of changing my lawyer in the middle of the process. I was aware that she wasn’t doing a great job but I didn’t realize how catastrophic her skills were until I hired a real lawyer who knows how to advise, protect, and represent their client. Do not hire Austin, especially if your case is very conflictual. She is not mature enough to be a lawyer.