Susan Klueppel

I needed to get a 20+ year old Domestic Relations Order Modified before I could retire to provide financial security for my current wife. I went to a number of different lawyers as well as the Massachusetts Teachers Retirement Board to try and get an answer as to whether this was possible and, if so,... how to go about it. It seemed like I got a different answer with every inquiry I made, and none of them were definitive or optimistic. Once I contacted Susan, whom I had hired previously for divorce-related matters, she made the right contacts to determine how to proceed and got the matter resolved in relatively short order. As it turned out, the lawyer who Susan uses to write her Domestic Relations Orders is the same person who reviews and validates them for the Massachusetts Retirement System. When I came to Susan and told her that I had met with a number of different attorneys over a period of several years, trying unsuccessfully to get this matter resolved, it got her attention, especially when what I was looking to do seemed reasonable and fair to all concerned parties. She accepted the challenge with confidence that justice would prevail. That was not my experience with the other lawyers that I had consulted with on this matter. Most said that it was not very likely or, "a crap-shoot," at best, regardless of how reasonable my request was. Susan is not cheap, but she knows the law and is very good in dealing with the human dynamics of dealing with judicial personalities, and she likes a challenge.

I actually saw this lawyer stand before a judge and tell him she did not know the tax consequences of unallocated child support and alimony. She took my case, which should have been fairly easy to handle on a "friendly" basis, and made it highly adversarial between me and my ex. As a result, my cas...e became unnecessarily costly and lengthy.