Robert Terhune Stewart

I thought I found a diamond in the rough with Robert who is an attorney, accountant, and marriage and family therapist all in one with a relatively low hourly rate to boot, but he failed in each of those roles during our mediation.  As an attorney, he inaccurately claimed the court would not expect m...y wife to work, that litigation would cost more than mediation, and that I should agree to forfeit custody of my son to live with his maternal aunt in another state near my wife who abandoned us, while mediation was still proceeding and before we even agreed on any other terms.  This was also an example of the bias he had and failure as a therapist, advocating for one party and advising me to do something that no one would advise their own client to do.  This was consistent with his pattern of almost exclusively pressuring me to make unilateral concessions like giving up custody and not challenging my wife, ending every session with a backhanded but false warning that litigation would cost more than mediation.  As an accountant he failed by changing our bill so many times it was difficult to know what was accurate.  One practice in particular he used was to collect the standard session fee and much later claim more money was owed since the session took longer than the allotted time even though I paid him at the end of each session or even a day later once.  Even though his hourly rate was relatively low, I felt like I was being nickled and dimed, especially with all the billing/accounting errors he made.  In the end, his biased advocacy for my wife emboldened her to unsuccessfully litigate for custody of our son in the middle of mediation, destroying the mediation process and completely wasting the $10,000 I paid for it.  I found a good attorney in the local court system who advised me as I represented myself which only cost me $3,000 total and ended with my son staying in my custody and me paying 2.5 years of alimony rather than the 7-10 Robert advocated.  Litigation is not always cheaper than mediation nor vice versa, but Robert was clearly a failure.