Daniel K Newman

This should be the most basic case for any lawyer when it comes to custody law in the State of New Jersey. Daniel Newman was an absolute failure. Broken down.. My ex husband/ my 15 yr old son's father passed away from a heart attack suddenly. My late ex and I shared custody of the child, keepi...ng the custody arrangement out of the courts the child's entire life with no problems. Everyone was happy. Upon his fathers death his grandparent petitioned for custody and parental rights. (The child and father lived with the grandparents in an apartment above there house prior to the fathers death.) I have been an elementary school teacher for the state of New Jersey for 14 years, I have a son that's 3 years old and have been married for four years. I own a house and two cars. I am a completely fit parent 100% of the time. I provided all the factual information to back this up to Mr. Newman and to the courts. I should have no problems in court right? WRONG. We get into court and somehow I lost my rights as a mother and a parent to the child's grandparents. The judge decides to make a schedule for myself and the child's grandparents to share time with the child. We never received any schedule even after repeatedly asking Mr. Newman to help us. We owed $300 on a $3,200 dollar bill so nothing was done. This was the first HUGE mistake AFTER LOSING the original case. Mr. Newman refused to help because of a outstanding $300 bill. (I never received a schedule from the judge.) After two weeks, I made a schedule so the child could spend weekends at the grandparents house. Every single weekend. From this point the grandparents were not satisfied so they had starting convincing the child they were going to get him emancipated and that the life insurance money left to him from his father was to pay for their house and living expenses instead of college. The child came home every Sunday night talking about these suggestions from the grandparents. It became clear quickly the child had no rules and was not even being checked on while in the grandparents care. The time he did spend with the grandparents was time plotting against me, his mother. He was free to do as he pleased 24 hours a day, which meant he was playing Xbox for as many hours as he could physically fit in. So I decided it wasn't good for the child to be there overnights. I cut his visits down to weekend days, every weekend. I cut out the unsupervised sleepovers. So they brought us back to court again. At this point in time Mr. Newman had already destroyed my family. My rights as a mother and parent were taken away at the first hearing. How a completely fit mother could lose her parental rights to the child's grandparents is beyond me. If the necessary time was spent by Mr. Newman doing his due diligence I would have my rights as a mother and parent. Next, the grandparents file another court date for more parenting time. I was never summoned to court and Mr. Newman never notified me (even though he was still under retainer for this case). He claims he was never notified either. So the SECOND HUGE MISTAKE of Mr. Newman's after losing the original hearing is not informing us of a court date. Followed directly up by his THIRD HUGE MISTAKE after losing the original hearing. After he and I were apparently not informed of the court date then the case should have been dismissed. It's straight forward. Why didn't he call for dismissal at this point? Now with another court date Mr Newman asked me to pay another $750 dollar retainer fee. I could not afford another retainer. I went without a lawyer and now the grandparents have him 2 hours every day and every other weekend. His lack of action has put my family in a terrible position and we paid this man in full for his services. Though he did not serve us in any form. I have been attempting to call Mr. Newman for a week with no return calls. This can all be backed up if need be.

I would recommend Mr. Newman to anyone who needs help in any difficult situation. From my personnel experience, my case was and still is very difficult and Mr. Newman never gave up to finding the best conclusion. He has been there since day 1 and I wouldn't know what to do without him. It's more than... a case to him, he cares about you too.