Robert E. Margulies

I hired Robert Marguiles for my very simple divorce case (with one child). Robert was very knowledgeable in our initial "free" consultation (he later charged me for it in an invoice erroneously), we laid out a plan and everything appeared to be straightforward. Unfortunately Robert assigned a lawyer ...to work on my case who was totally incompetent. His name was Gerard Pizzillio. He could not even talk, his every other word was "you know," and I had to ensure that all documentation was correct. Over the course of a few weeks all the paperwork they sent me was full of spelling errors and they did not even perform a quality review on the documentation I sent them. Gerard was totally unresponsive and I had to send emails and call 2-3 times and leave messages and voicemails for him to get back to me. His constant excuse was "I was too busy, it was a holiday, etc" So I forewarn Robert that my wife is opposed to the divorce and that I want to serve her the divorce papers in a way that she cannot avoid her being served and what does he do?! He sent the divorce papers in the mail!!!! That means that in order for my wife to get served she had to voluntarily take the paperwork, fill it out, and mail it back (potentially notarize it too I do not recall). Totally insane!! I intercept the mail and have him properly serve her. The way the case was prepared was also very wrong. Then I proceeded to change lawyers. So the only thing he did for me was, serve divorce papers and review all the emails I sent him explaining to him all the mistakes he had made in the paperwork. What was the cost of that???? $3,500 !!!!!!!! Three thousand five hundred dollars to put together in error divorce papers and put me through a roller coaster for them to be served right. I then had to pay extra for the next lawyer to correct his mistakes and instead of him saying, "don't worry, you already gave me a $2,500 retainer and because I messed up you don't have to give me anything else", he is now chasing me for the extra $1,000!! I totally do not recommend this lawyer.