Ms. Hurst charged in excess of $10,000 for a final guardian ad litem report that had numerous factual errors, spelling errors, grammatical errors, and even incorrect names for the clients in some places. The carelessly written and unprofessional report seemed to imply she was filling in a previously written report and just changed the names. In my opinion, Ms. Hurst was neither objective nor professional. My attorneys and I were shocked at her excessive fees (frankly, it made me wonder if perhaps some of her fees were passed back to the attorney who insisted on using her) and unprofessional final report.
My attorneys and I requested a guardian ad litem. I understood that a guardian ad litem was intended to be objective and simply looked out for the best interests of the child. That's exactly what my child desperately needed. Unfortunately, Ms. Hurst's work did not meet this description.
Her report demonstrated incompetence and made it seem that she was primarily concerned about charging as many billable hours as was possible. When I received the final breakdown in her hours charged, a significantly higher number of billable hours were spent speaking to the attorney with whom she had a previous relationship. My attorneys and I later learned that they were friends. Unfortunately, at that point there wasn't a way to request a new guardian ad litem. She charged in excess of $10,000 for a final report with factual errors, horrendous spelling & grammatical errors, and even incorrect client names in portions of the the report.
Ms. Hurst did not seem to read nor heed the physiological evaluations I insisted on for myself & my spouse at the time. Now it's been 6 years and my child is in therapy as a result of living with a controlling and emotionally abusive parent.
My child is finally old enough to have a say in where she lives. She begs to move, but is too afraid of my ex to speak up. The child is terrified by the emotional abuse dished out by my ex on a daily basis. His controlling and emotionally abusive behavior is the reason we divorced. I would think a qualified and objective guardian ad litem would have seen the situation objectively.
Sadly, whether due to incompetence, bias, or another reason, Ms. Hurst wrote a report that has ultimately damaged my child permanently. If only she had been objective, listened to my concerns seriously, and carefully reviewed and took into account the professional and objective parental psychological evaluations. Ms. Hurst's poor judgement causes my child pain everyday. It breaks my heart. I was extremely disappointed in the guardian ad litem services provided by Ms. Susan Hurst. read more
