Shepard Law

Beware this firm is NOT equipped to handle family law matters. My family law "lawyer" was terrible. My ex just threw haymaker after haymaker at me and the advice was to calm down. After I hired a criminal lawyer in the same firm he was ok and made the situation a little easier. However they both said they don't handle the other matters family for family and criminal for criminal. I asked my family lawyer to be there and she claimed it wasn't in the best interest of the firm to have two lawyers at the same court date. So my criminal lawyer handled a custody agreement which I was basically coerced into signing after being falsely arrested and removed from my children for 2+ weeks. Come to find out I wasn't told of the timeline of the next court date so I got screwed in this court date. As time went on literally zero things happened except for receiving bills. I called her out on a $1900 bill for nothing. This got brushed under as a criminal case charge which was untrue because my criminal lawyer was asking for his money before we even got out of court. Multiple times my lawyer was out of town or on vacation. Then to top it off I didn't talk to or email or do anything so I assume I have 3k in my retainer. I hire a new lawyer and apparently now I get charged $2,535 for what? I had zero dollar bills for the last month but I only received 465 back from my retainer. I do not recommend and Google needs to take them down as a highly rated family law lawyer on searches. They pay to be at the top of searches and rob their clients blind in the process.

My experience with this firm was almost entirely negative. A parade of errors included: 1) Handing over a communication from me to my lawyer (screenshots with commentary) impeaching my ex’s testimony to opposing counsel in open court at a PL hearing. We were reprimanded because the document was not in discovery and the judge never considered it. 2) Including an $80k retirement account from ANOTHER CLIENT among my assets at a settlement hearing 3) Failing to provide documents to a best interest attorney. They also failed to subpoena vital information and submitted a financial disclosure with fraudulent information. Copies of all documents are available. 3 lawyers were primary counsel on my case due to turnover at the firm. I was billed $45k PRIOR to a final hearing, which is either corruption or incompetence in action. I hired another law firm who, starting from square 1, got me a better deal than Albers was proposing for less than 1/4 the money.

Initially the service and communication was great. After we contacted the firm for a second issue, things did not go so smoothly. The attorney charged our card after speaking with my son (not a minor). With the first encounter, they called to confirm the amount with us as the amount was significant. When we decided to go with another firm bc the amount was higher for a similar traffic issue, we called the office to let them know and asked for a refund. We were told they would send a partial refund as they had already started work on the case; which we thought was fair. They gave us a number over the phone. The refund check came and it was addressed to our son, not the person who was actually charged and the amount was less than discussed during the phone call. We have called the office to remedy this several times. No one has time to speak with us but always promises a return call. After a week, no return call and no resolution.