My lawyer Helen Parsonage barely used to respond to my emails, despite being paid thousands of dollars. She literally took 2 years to answer some of my questions. She took almost a year to mail back the hard copies of my case when she was supposed to mail it back to me in a few days. I repeatedly requested my attorney to keep all the paperwork ready for me to sign in ONE visitation, instead of multiple visitations as I don't have a car. But the paperwork was never ready back in 2019,2020 & 2022. I had to waste my time and money to travel to her office only to discover that the paperwork is not ready and I need to come again some other day. It has been a pattern. I expressed my grievance and there was no change in behavior. I was only gaslighted when I tried to stand up for myself.
I've been a client for the last 3 years. I never texted/called my attorney. I always used to communicate via email or I used to call the receptionist. Recently, I had a time-sensitive question. As usual, both the attorney and her assistant ghosted me. I waited for 2 weeks for a response. Finally, after 2 weeks, I reached out to my attorney via Whatsapp out of desperation. Attorney got offended that I had the audacity to send her a text on Whatsapp. It's easier for me to text than call because of my speech impediment & my attorney knows that I have a speech impediment. Well, don't share your Whatsapp phone number on your website and Facebook pages publicly if you're going to get so offended at your client for contacting via the phone number you shared publicly. Weird! My attorney also overbilled me and charged me thousands of dollars for doing basically nothing. She renewed my work permit twice, changed my address with USICS, and met a couple of times in person. That's it. I asked her to give some of the money back & she won't respond. I guess I need to cut my financial losses & move on. I found a better affordable lawyer & I won't repeat the same mistake as I did before. I will never pay an attorney up front all the money before she even does the actual work of attending an immigration interview. Toxic attorneys who gaslight their clients all the time are extremely time-consuming to deal with. Toxic attorneys take up all the mental real estate as you walk on eggshells and ruminate all day and night. It's not worth it. read more