Elaine M Diamantides

I would not recommend this "attorney" for any reason. She told me things that were not true, causing me to lose a large sum of money, on top of her retainer. She failed to provide me with court orders and documents. She refused to provide the monthly invoices promised, and when she did send a final i...nvoice, it was padded to the point where she claimed I owed her money. I am still trying to clean up the mess she made of my case. Very lazy and just doesn't care.

To begin with she makes promises that she cant keep. I got 2 moving violations a few months ago and tried talking to the prosecutor at the court house first who would not reduce the points at all, so I went to this Elaine and she made a definite promise that she was able to get me a better deal by t...alking to the prosecutor. Well that was one big lie because she got me no better deal at all and I gave her a bunch of money in order to avoid points. I asked her why she couldn't make a better deal for me as she said she would she just copped an attitude and said that the system doesn't always work out like you expect it to. My big mistake was paying her the fee before the court and I should have kept it based on her promise to get me a better deal, that's the way the real world works. I just wasted my time and money with her. You really don't even need a lawyer for traffic court in NJ anyway you can make a plea bargain with the prosecutor yourself and my deal was just the same after having wasted my money on hiring this lawyer. I really didn't like the way she made it appear that she could definitely get something done when she couldn't and I just wasted my money.

I hired her after the free initial consultation. She was polite and seemed interested. She asked me how much I had to spend on my case and I told her. After giving her my money her work was not good at all. She charged me over 3k for a two page motion that was only about a dozen sentences and co...ntained no law precedents to support the facts. It was only facts and the only reason it went to two pages was because of the party names and the name of the Court. I could have done that myself. In hindsight I realize why she asked how much I had to spend on the case. After my money was gone from the bills she just lost any interest in my case. On one occasion when we had to be in Court she was 2 hours late. On the next occasion she didn't even show up. She is a lazy person. I left messages for her and she doesn't return them. She doesn't have a secretary so there was no one to talk to. I could have just handled this matter by myself as the Judge was very nice and basically called it a draw which was fine with me. Ms Diamantides will show interest and pretend concern and when my money was gone she just didn't care. I would not recommend her.

I do not want to get into specifics because I would rather her not know I wrote this but she is only attentive to your questions and needs before you pay for her services. First of all she is always late. She tells me to meet her at the. Courthouse early so we can talk about my situation but doesnt e...ven show up on time. In addition in civil court there is a long wait and I could be wrong but i think the people with lawyers go first. On the last day of court she didnt even show up and said she was busy. I was pissed because paid her 700 and she came late every time and didn't even show up the last day. So basically on the last day I waited for 4 hours but if she would have showed up it might have taken an hour or two. This is my take on lawyers you cant paid them in full because if you do they wont care anymore. Therefore I think people should pay half in the beginning and the second half after everything is finished. Im pretty sure all lawyers are not this but I was shocked by her actions. I hired her to get my case dismissed but what she did was absolutely nothing. If i could go back in time i would save my money and just represent myself. I am in no way trying to talk bad about her however i believe people should know what they pay for.