HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE
I am now a retired former business owner of a manufacturing business. When my wife and I decided to get divorced I called Susan Marks, attorney and proprietor of SAMLAW 0FFICE. My wife and I both knew Susan socially and she and her husband have been to our home for a Holiday party. Knowing her did not cause me to expect any special pricing, just fair, honest and professional representation. I explained our status to Susan: no minor children so no child dependency issues, assets included one major investment account, 4 retirement IRA's, one home that was free and clear of debt and 2 automobiles. My wife and I had already agreed to split everything 50/50. Susan's response was that this was a simple case. Therefore she asked for a $4000.00 retainer fee and said she could handle the case for that amount, possibly less.
The final total of all invoices came to a total of $11,175.55. There were numerous mistakes made by Susan and her staff that created extra billing hours for her. It would take too long to list them all so I will only mention a few. Susan sent me a balance sheet showing how the assets were going to be split. This was in preparation for a document that had to be filed with the court at the hearing. My wife and I had 4 retirement accounts between us, 3 were very small and 1 was large. Her spread sheet showed a quick and easy way of just dividing each account in half. The better and more correct way was to leave the 3 small accounts as is and make an adjustment to the large account so that we each ended up with an equal total amount. Since the spreadsheet that was sent to me was not editable I asked for a copy that was so I could show the right way to split the funds. I was told that could not be done because the spreadsheet had other clients' data on it. I call BS!
In December of 2022 we were given a court date of 2/03/23, almost 3 months to prepare for it. I thought this was the date for finalizing the divorce. I received an email from SAMLAW telling me that an attorney from the office would be with us at the hearing. A few days before the hearing I was told that we were not required to be at the hearing. Since my wife and I had initialed each page of a 24 page document and signed the final page I assumed that was the evidence of our agreement to the settlement necessary to finalize the divorce. Turns out I was wrong plus there were other documents necessary that I didn't even know about. Susan's attorney that attended the hearing came bac with a list of 6 documents that were missing and a new hearing date of March 20. After Feb. 3 I received an email for Susan's clerical saying that I should have known the divorce was not going to be finalized since we weren't required to be at the hearing. I did not know that, that is what I hired an attorney for. BTW, I was given notice on 2/2 that the hourly rate was being immediately increased for the attorney attending the meeting on 2/3.
All of these issues and others created enough billable hours to reach the $11,155.55 total. There are many other issues that I will list in a review on a different website that is industry specific. Anyone is welcome to contact me if they want more information or would like to see all of the invoices and verify the total. read more