Richard G Kent

I interviewed Richard and hired him for two reasons: 1. I am a parent who is impacted by Parental Alienation Syndrome and have not seen my child in 5 years. 2. I was in need of counsel to help me navigate through educational support post judgment. After a protracted duration with my case, I r...ealized what a huge mistake I had made hiring Richard! During the interview he spoke confidently and said things that made me feel like he understood how badly I was affected by the alienation. He also said he could help me with the educational support matter I was dealing with. He was a good salesman, claiming he would take the case because of the alienation aspect. After all, Richard did write a book on the subject, so who would be better equipped to handle this situation, right? My ex (the plaintiff) hired a bully of an attorney that Richard was ill-equipped to deal with. Richard actually had to retain co-counsel to deal with the plaintiff’s bully attorney because he could not handle him, or make progress with him. I actually was billed $495 for Richard to send emails to opposing counsel asking him to “back-off”. Richard just continued to rack-up billable hours with little progress to show for it! As a result of Richard’s shortcomings, I was coerced by him to agree to pay for numerous unreasonable claims made by the plaintiff and the educational support settlement was poorly negotiated. He had me paying for things that were outright unsupported lies made by the plaintiff threatening that it would cost me thousands to argue those things away if I didn’t just agree to pay them. Almost immediately, Richard recommended we drop our contempt charge against my ex for the alienation because it was too difficult to pursue. On several occasions, Richard became hostile and confrontational towards me, and I had to remind him that I was paying him to counsel me, to guide me through the forest that I could not see through the trees in front of me! I ended up with attorney fees in excess of $12K, $2-3k of which was for reading email. It's not like I have a lot of money to begin with, and he knew this from the start. When his practice had invoiced me for the equivalent of all the available cash assets I had disclosed in my financial affidavit, the case went quickly to a settlement hearing. I should have dropped Richard the first time I felt like I was not being satisfactorily represented, but I thought to myself “do I really want to start all over again with a new attorney?” Richard is clearly on cruise control at this point (the downside) of his career, not wanting to deal with any case where he actually would have to do some work and fight for his client’s rights. He is looking to file a few motions, have some pleasant conversations with opposing counsel and come to an amicable agreement…. Heck, I could do that myself without an attorney! He may have been good in his heyday, but those days are long gone with this fellow. After the hearing concluded, Richard verbally offered to me that he would take care of any issue arising from the new stipulation - free of charge – for which I was grateful. When I took him up on his offer to do so a month later, he requested a new retainer. I promptly reminded him of his verbal offer and he denied ever saying it to me. How convenient for Richard! Sadly, I wouldn’t recommend Richard (the attorney who poorly represented me) to anyone for anything.