Gail A Balser

After giving a sizable retainer Gail seemed to do everything she said she would do. Somewhere in the middle of the divorce she stopped replying to my messages, showed up late for court hearings, and would not give me information unless I made an appointment at her office. when I terminated her empl...oy she informed me that I had a balance! Do yourself a favor unless you are a bankruptcy client ONLY don't hire this greedy person. I was shocked, amazed and honestly insulted. who needs this handed to them on top of a nasty divorce? really?!!

I retained this attorney for a loan modification originally, fees $3,100. Due to fluctuations in my income, this ended up being a bankruptcy case in tandem with the loan modification. I had to repeatedly fax documents previously sent. I had a change of date for a hearing & she was a no show. I'd even... called to reconfirm but I wasn't provided the courtesy of notification. Converted chapter 13 to a 7, another $4,800.00. When I received an accounting from the Chapter 13 trustee, I noted that this attorney listed herself as a creditor & was paid yet another $2,500. Under threat of not appearing in court she demanded another $500, that I was told needed to be delivered THAT night before court the following day. This meant a 4 hour drive at 830 pm. She showed up late to hearings. I found her condescending & rude. So, she instructed me to make my mortgage payments to her directly. I explained that I felt uncomfortable with that, however I'd have the money orders made payable to the bank & then forwarded to her for an escrow fund. I hadn't received anything from the bank at tax time the following year, so I called the bank only to learn that nothing had been received. When I confronted Ms Balser, I was advised that the money orders had been forwarded to the bank immediately upon receipt by her office. I knew this wasn't true because I'd seen them in my court file during a hearing earlier that year & the judge had also asked about the payments on the record & Ms Balser advised him that she had them right there in the file if he cared to view them. After numerous calls, emails, etc to the bank & her office I decided to put a trace on these money orders. I felt shocked to see that this attorney had added her name to the pay to the order of line, endorsed them & placed them in her own account. When I confronted her regarding this I just got more of the SSDD. Basically I assumed that if they'd been placed in her account, that providing me a copy of her check to my lender would be easy peesy. This wasn't the case. I kept "hearing" they'd been sent to the bank yet no solid proof that they had. So there goes another $9,000. Basically, I believe that's a criminal offense, but I've not gotten that far yet. I filed a formal complaint & I'm awaiting the outcome. I'm furious on so many levels. Unprofessional, fraudulent?, often rude & definitely insincere service. So once again, 2 words: DO NOT use this attorney. She's awful.