Anthony R. DiFruscia

Attorney DiFruscia is smart and charming which is great, for some professions. However, he does not follow through or follow up on issues and has to be reminded time and again to do so. He reprsented my disabled sister to get visitation rights with her children and to get the retirement benefits ...that she was awarded in the divorce settlement. I went with her to every visit and she never got visitation, nor did she get the divorce settlement. She passed away in 2008 and Attorney DiFruscia handled her estate (and I was Executor). He seems kind and compassionate. However, one has to look at actioons as well as words. My sister's estate had a problem with hospital bills and Medicaid. I told DiFruscia that I saw a letter from MassHealth that stated she was eligible for benefits after an offset, and that the hospital should not have been billing her estate. I spent more than an hour discussing this with him and left thinking that he would take care of that. He did not. Nearly 8 months later the hospital sued the estate. He did not respond to the lawsuit (I didn't get notice) until it was completed and a lien put on my sister's condo. One of his staff members wrote a motion (which I had to edit because the writing was so bad) addressing the lien.... apparently he didn't follow up on that either because months later there was no word on the outcome. I have a friend who is a lawyer and went to a meeting with Attorney DiFruscia and me. DiFruscia felt threatened and said he would put a lien on my sister's property (which he did) for charges for the lawsuit he filed that didn't need to be fired. My friend suggested I get a new lawyer who handled estates which I did. The lawyer worked with the hospital and I worked with MassHealth to resolve the problem. Within 6 weeks MassHealth took over the hospital bill and the lien was lifted from my sister's condo. When I look at the bills from DiFruscia dealing with my sister's estate, I see thouosands of dollars that would not have incurred had he worked with MassHealth and the hospital in the first place. I say if you need a lawyer, look elsewhere.

I felt Attorney DiFruscia was very misleading on the actions he would pursue on my divorce case, stating we would file temporary orders immediately.I was open and honest and communicated what was important to me, including my financial burdens. He decided to pursue an amicable approach and send a dr...aft agreement (that I help draft) to opposing counsel only to get a offensive retaliation by my spouses attorney for temporary orders delaying any action on my case for 7 months until we went to court. Despite his many years as an attorney, he clearly underestimated opposing counsel's actions and should have followed his initial instinct to file temp orders immediately and move case along. I had to live in a stressful and contentious enviroment with my spouse and four kids, pay all the bills and there was nothing he could do for me for 7 months. Following the offense from the opposing counsel , he included another attorney on my case charging me double for the work of one attorney. After many months and only one court date, I incurred $15,000 in legal expenses and was still not divorced. I could not wait any longer due to my financial situation and many lapsed court dates that were rescheduled, and a huge IRS laibility because my attorneys could not negotiate agreement on a joint return with opposing counsel, I had no choice to file for bankruptcy. After a lecture from my attorney on filing for bankruptcy to which I was very clear to him about and kept his staff updated and had also disclosed my monthly obligation to my attorney on my petition, he threatened to withdraw from my case and file an adversary position and then reconsiderd if I reaffirmed his debt. I elected to accept his withdrawal as I had no confidence he had my best interests at heart and within 30 days he filed his adversary position based on fraud when I was very clear from the beginnning of my financial situation and that I would ultimately need to file. I held out as long as I could on the bankruptcy so I could get divorced but he didn't have same urgency. The irony is I signed with him to help me get divorce and his position to sue me for fraud has further delayed my resolution of my financial issues and also prevented me from getting divorced at last court date. Even judge upon hearing my status on bankruptcy laughed and said "good luck to him". I paid him half of what I owed more than enough for the work I contributed and the charges of the additional attorney that I should not have incurred. I feel Attorney DiFrusicia is a prey to people in vulnerable positions and has no genuine desire to help people in difficult situations. I found him very patronizing telling you want you wanted to hear but doing nothing about it unless it impacted his bottomline.