Kathleen P. Ryder

I would not recommend hiring Kathleen Ryder for a high-conflict divorce or custody case. During our initial consultation, she presented herself as confident and capable, and I believed she was the right attorney for a difficult situation. That assessment proved to be a serious mistake. After mo...re than ten weeks of waiting for Attorney Ryder to initiate mediation with opposing counsel, I was hit with a restraining order based on false allegations. Instead of aggressively addressing the situation, she attempted to pressure me into accepting a deeply lopsided deal: two visits per week with my children in exchange for the other side dropping the restraining order. In other words, she wanted me to sacrifice my custody case to resolve a restraining order that should never have existed. When I refused to trade away my parental rights, Attorney Ryder berated me over the phone. She told me I was making a “huge mistake,” claimed the offer was only available because she was friends with opposing counsel, and described the deal as "not a homerun, but a grand slam!” When I continued to disagree, she told me I should be ashamed of myself and informed me that she had “175 other clients” and did not need me. That conversation made it abundantly clear that I needed new representation. After hiring a different attorney, the restraining order was dropped, and I now have more parenting time with my children in a single month than I would have had in an entire year had I followed Kathleen Ryder’s advice. In hindsight, her conduct was a blessing in disguise. But if you are facing a high-conflict case and need an attorney who will fight for you rather than pressure you into surrendering, I strongly suggest looking elsewhere.

My experience as a client of Attorney Kathy Ryder was very negative. I found her to have poor communication skills, to be always late for court hearings and frequently not responsive. She also didn’t get along well with opposing counsel and this caused litigation to take longer than necessary. Att...orney Kathy Ryder is clearly quite calloused in her work and acts unsympathetic towards her clients. She also doesn’t take the time to work collaboratively with her clients.