Reviews

Ilana and her team were excellent in helping my family get through a terrible time. They responded quickly, and Ilana was so prepared in court even the Judge complimented her. I will refer my friends and family to her anytime.

Before I hired Ilana as my attorney I had custody of my child, and the other parent had 16 hours of visitation a week, after I hired Ilana I lost custody of my child. Ilana isn't as experience dealing with CPS as she says she is. She also is not experienced dealing with cases where abuse is involved. She was reluctant to bring to court witness experts. During the time my child custody issue was still in court I was advised by her/ her staff to do somethings that hurt my case instead of help me. When she saw the case was getting more complicated (the other party's attorney is really good) she withdrew from my case. Before she left my case, the other attorney had asked her for dates to go to court but instead of going to court with me she withdrew and I had to go to court unrepresented (I couldn't get an attorney within a week). I then lost custody of my child. I had to hire another attorney now to get back custody of my child and it is costing me a fortune to undo the mistakes that she advised me to do. She contacted my new attorney to let him know that I still had a balance with her. I had a balance with her (after paying over 30K) and she charged my bank account without notifying me that she was going to do it. The contract she asks you to sign says that she can charge your credit card on file, that I am not sure how she gets that information, probably when you make the electronic payments on the link that she gives you (but that is just a guess). She may be a good attorney in simple cases, but if you need to proof that your kid or you are in danger she may not be the best attorney for your case. She is definitely not an attorney I would recommend to a friend.

I cannot say enough good things about Ilana. If you want a lawyer who does fantastic work and cares about her clients, she's your girl. I found out I needed a lawyer at the last minute on a Friday with an issue that was time sensitive due to my husbands' passing. in addition, my case was legally unique. Ilana accepted my case and worked throughout the weekend gathering the information she needed, consulting other lawyers, researching and notifying me of all she was doing. She drafted a motion and a proposed order based on little previous case law regarding the issue in question. Ilana worked efficiently and was able to get my case in front of a judge the following Monday. The motion was approved and it was life changing for me and my family. It's been two months since working with Ilana and she continues to check in on me and see how I'm doing and if there is anything she can do. If you're looking for someone who is effective, efficient and compassionate, I highly recommend Ilana.

Bill is one of the most respected and reputable lawyers in Travis and surrounding counties. I’ve not only had the privilege to work with him but also having him as a mentor throughout my legal career. I would highly recommend Bill to anyone looking for a lawyer who can handle complex property division, custody litigation as well as a mediator for high conflict family law cases.

If you're a mother and a victim of Domestic Violence - RUN AWAY! FAST! If she is randomly assigned to your case do everything you can to get her removed ASAP. She is a victim blaming/shaming and DV Best Practices ignorant Advocate for Abusers. RUN.

I have had the privilege of working with this law firm for the last 7 years with my child custody case. I will never use another attorney in Austin Texas. They are trustworthy, honest, extremely hard working not to mention knowledgeable and well known in the legal community.. Truly one of a kind. I also would like to comment on the staff. Throughout the long battle I have never encountered an attorney or there staff who do not exemplify excellence. They are fabulous and I’m so grateful to have them to answer all my questions.

Went to work and helped me finish my divorce quickly. They were empathetic to my situation and gave me logically advice.

My custody case took almost 2 years which involved two other attorneys before I found Bill ending in a successful judgement after an all day trial. Bill and his right hand person, Chris, were masterful. I didn't always understand his advice along the way but looking back everything he advised and did was perfect. Bill Powers is hands down the BEST family law firm in the Austin area! — Clay Bridwell

This is a first class firm that has had my back and resolved issues more than I want to admit! I recommend Bill to everyone.

Beware of being billed for far more hours than you requested. If you have a smaller task such as reviewing an existing prenup draft, I’d steer clear of this office and find an attorney who will do the work for a flat fee you negotiate ahead of time. I am sure there are options for local attorneys that are far more above board about their costs and that will follow your requests. I worked with Jamie Kerr on reviewing an existing prenup that my fiancee’s attorney had drafted. I had already reviewed the agreement myself and we had gone through a few revisions with my fiancee’s attorney before I was ready to find my own attorney to do a review for me. I had never worked with an attorney before, and I was uncomfortable with depositing a $2500 retainer for something as small as a prenup review as I felt I would have little recourse if I were billed for far more hours than I wanted to spend on this review. During our initial consult meeting we discussed the retainer and my concerns about how much this would end up costing. I asked that Jamie only spend time on major issues with the document so as to limit time spent on my review. Before agreeing to further services I requested in writing that we not use a retainer and that Jamie not spend more than an hour or so on the review without telling me that this was shaping up to be a much larger task with unexpected issues in the prenup so as to get my approval to spend more time on it. He received approval to move forward without using a retainer and I assumed got the message about how much I wanted to spend on this review. I received a new draft of the agreement from my fiancee’s attorney with changes made based on how we decided to simplify it in the initial consult meeting with Jamie. I did exactly as Jamie requested to help him get through the review more quickly by giving him a redlined version of the new draft with Word’s track changes feature turned on so he could easily see exactly what was changed. I was blindsided when I ended up being billed for almost six hours of work on top of the initial consult fee, so nearly $2000 for a prenup *review*. This is more than double what we paid to have the entire agreement drafted and put through several revisions, and multiple times the $500 range we’d heard of for a prenup review. In our initial consult meeting Jamie insisted that he had no way to determine ahead of time how long this review would take. I believe he had enough information after that meeting to inform me that my request to spend another hour or so reviewing it would fall far short of how long he would likely spend on it. Not giving me realistic expectations demonstrated very poor client management. With Jamie we did only one round of review and the agreement did not become any more complicated than what we went over together in the consult meeting. He also ignored my request to inform me that the review was taking longer than I anticipated and to ask how I would like to proceed at that point. I attempted to call/email Jamie after receiving the bill and let him know my requests to limit the time spent on my review were ignored. Jamie was willing to no-charge about $200 of the $1500+ bill for about six hours but would not make things right by only charging even somewhat close to the amount of time I had requested be spent on my review. After that I felt obligated to share my negative experience with anyone else searching for an attorney in hopes of saving them from a similar experience.

This group is amazing on resolving child support issues. The staff is so friendly and they care about each individual case.