Karen Schaefer Buck

I went to Karen for help from an extremely trusted source. Karen at first was very confident in my case and told me that she would help me for a very specific amount of money. Before moving out of town, as was communicated in our meeting and acknowledged, I tried calling to drop off the payment an...d the paperwork as discussed but she never returned my phone call. After repeated attempts of calling I had given up trying to communicate via phone and sent her emails. She responded to an email a month later and told me that she was going to pass on my case. I had been depending on her help to get my case taken care of as she had stated that she would do. I had wasted 2 months of case time on her word and it may ultimately destroy any chance of finding another lawyer before my case hits court. She was very judgmental, opinionated, and blunt towards me. During this extremely difficult time in my life, her opinion of me that was based off of a 10 minute consultation was not requested and highly unnecessary. After some time I had called and begged her to reconsider going back on her word. She told me that I SOL and hung up on me. It disheartens me to know that I was referred to her through the Catholic registry and felt I could trust her because of it. Please, do not trust her and give someone else your business. You would receive more empathy from a rock.

Ms Buck appeared to do everything in her power to actually purposely sabotage my case, whether that was the intent or not, from filing papers at the last minute so I had no time to review them (often with serious errors that my opponents jumped on), to completely neglecting to challenge or contradict... incorrect and/or negative information presented by the opposing party, allowing it to go on record against me then and stay there to this day, to rushing the final hearing due to a personal scheduling conflict. Clearly whatever was occupying her attention, it was not my best interests, unless she was merely completely incompetent. I honestly can't say. The heartache caused by these proceedings and what she allowed to happen haunts me to this day, years later. The court's decision that Ms Buck facilitated hurt me and my family, and my children have to deal with having the horrible things said about me (that she failed to in any way even attempt to address, contradict or have removed due to utter lack of evidence or accuracy though they could have easily been disproved) being brought up over and over still, ongoing, used against them as well. If the decision reached was actually "in their best interests" they certainly never thought so, even now as nearly-adults - and in fact the court report stated plainly that "the wishes of the children are unknown" when they both assure me they made their wishes perfectly clear at the time. The other attorney just typed it up that way, and Ms Buck happily let it go through as fact, like everything else in the final decree. She had something to do on the day of my final hearing and admitted that she was going to rush it to get it done early. She thus failed to follow up on, contradict negative or outright wrong claims against me, or do anything remotely useful for me in any way. Some of the papers she filed even contained [mis]information that was harmful to me, her client! The other team had a field day and I lost spectacularly. I may have lost either way, which is tough to say, but with her help they made sure to drag my name thoroughly through the mud and write a stack of nasty, often inaccurate documents about me that may be used against me in further court proceedings. The one thing I was awarded was attorney's fees, under which she was to refund my initial deposit of over $2500+ and the other party was to pay her. He paid in full, and possibly then some (he told me later she never billed him or provided a statement, he just followed the court order for payments and the checks all cleared her account) and she never returned my money. When I called to ask her about the refund or just a statement she told me to have my lawyer contact her and not to call her directly again. Please note I hadn't said a single nasty word to or about her or otherwise provoked this response in *any* way - other than, apparently, by seeking out a second opinion to try and appeal my case (civil matters do not get appeals, btw, only criminals get a 2nd chance - so use it well!) after which she said she was no longer my attorney since I'd hired another and as such had no further business with me. I'm not sure if the other party continued to pay her after that, as I warned him that she did not refund my money and thus he didn't owe her, but I have no way to know if he followed up on this warning. I suspect she was paid in full for her painfully harmful "legal counsel" - twice. Talk about adding insult to injury.