I have known Donald Cosley my entire life. Our mothers were friends. My father, however, documented his distrust of Don Cosley nearly a decade before he died. In 2016, dad sent me estate-planning documents and explicitly wrote that he wanted me to use an attorney other than Don for his estate administration, and any legal services for that matter, because Don can't be trusted. My father was a financial planner with meticulous attention to detail, both for his clients and for himself, and was the most honest man on earth.
Despite that written warning, Cosley Law Office prepared a new Will for my dad in December 2022, just 5 weeks after I had gone over the documents with dad in detail, with the clear understanding that they were final because my father's dementia was worsening. Dad had very recently moved into an assisted living facility, and was under mandatory quarantine for an active COVID infection when the Will was drafted. Dad and I were close and in daily contact during that difficult period, including a text exchange and a 71 minute phone call on the same day. He never told me he had changed his estate plan, I can say with pretty solid certainty that dad didn't even know he'd made the changes.
He was removed from the facility where he was quarantined, and dragged to Don's office, sick with COVID. As I understand, these facilities have safeguards in place when a resident is signing important documents, and it is my belief that dad was taken out of the facility to circumvent that oversight.
The Will itself contains obvious errors, including misspelling a beneficiary's name and female pronouns appearing in documents for a male testator. For a document that radically changed my father's meticulously planned estate, those errors matter.
After my father died and I learned of the changes, I contacted Mr. Cosley immediately and raised serious concerns about my father's condition, potential abuse and exploitation of a person with dementia, the circumstances surrounding the Will, and the use of Cosley Law Office's services. I expected concern and transparency. I did not receive that. Rather, he attacked my character and insisted that my dad and I were estranged when the Will was drafted, despite extensive call logs and text messages showing that we were close and in daily contact.
For over a year, I have been asking Don to help me hold accountable the people who abused and exploited my father. Not only has he refused, he continues to attack my character, which is likely how he will respond to this review.
This review is not about disappointment over an inheritance. It is about an elderly man with dementia, dependent on others, signing a Will while newly in assisted living and sick with COVID; an attorney with lifelong family ties; a document undoing decades of meticulous planning containing obvious and sloppy errors; and a complete lack of transparency or accountability after serious concerns were raised.
I would not trust Cosley Law Office with any estate, or other legal matter. Not only can he not be trusted, he has no shame or remorse for the profound harm his conduct has caused. read more