I recently had the opportunity to hire the Pepitone team as representation for my case. I was referred to them by another firm which had been unable to take my case at the time.
The firm offers a flat rate service, along with an à la carte menu of legal services which one might need. This information will be provided in a client agreement and fee schedule.
The Pepitone team operates fully remotely. Communication is done through e-mail, with phone calls as a secondary option, primarily for emergencies. The team uses Dropbox to manage documents which you might need to provide them.
While this is a professional legal firm, one weakness of the firm is that their communication with clients could be improved.
The protocol for email communication with their team was a bit unclear. Their team consists of several individuals; you will inevitably receive emails from different team members, each of which is CC'ed to all members of the team. As a client, it won't be immediately clear to you what each member's role is; therefore it is unclear who you should address email correspondances to. Even if you respond to the most recent email (Reply All) with a request, there is no guarantee you have addressed the correct individual. Similarly, it is not clear if all your correspondences should be directed to Ashley Pepitone.
Finally, you may infer some miscommunication or dropped tasking within their team. For example, if Ashley has directed another member of the team to contact you to set up a working meeting next week, you might not hear from them until the week after. Or if a certain document is promised for CoB Wednesday, you might not get it until Friday or the week after (or ever unless you remind them). Another example would be delays in drafting initial documents so much so that the opposing party drafts, files, and serves the initial documents first.
One way for the firm to mitigate these unmet expectations or promises would be to proactively communicate these sorts of delays to their clients. This includes if leave is being scheduled to be taken--the courts are informed, but the clients are not. Of course, this leave information is publicly available since it is filed with the relevant courts--but it would be nice to know when a client can expect to be able to reach an attorney or know if their case is actively being worked on or not.
Finally, the execution of tasks within the firm's control is lethargic; there appears to be minimal urgency to get things done; at least that is what it feels like observing the sequence of promised deliveries and communication patterns. Of course, this could be a by-product of multi-tasking or their workload. There are certainly other firms which communicate more clearly and which act with greater urgency. read more
