Daniel Kaighn Perlman

I hired Daniel Perlman in June, 2014 for divorce/custody case, and at first he was helpful, although I should have suspected something was amiss when I wrote 90% of the affidavit myself. For the next 20 months, he went missing for 2-4 months at a time, completely ignoring my calls, texts, and emails.... It did not matter how urgent the request—such as the most recent, wherein I needed a visitation change because the schedule my ex had insisted upon was so erratic and unstable that it made me unable to find childcare--he ignored my messages completely. Earlier in the process, he would arrange a call or a meeting and not call or not show up. After months of completely abandoning the case, he would briefly surface on occasion and do something small such as send a short letter. However, the resurfacing was completely unpredictable and had no logic. He ignored urgent matters involving my child’s most basic well-being and occasionally responded to minor matters that required little time or work on his part. After the first couple instances of what became a pattern, I requested that he draw up a document committing to a time frame and reasonable responsiveness—and simply doing his job, but he did not respond to this request. Nor did he respond to my requests for invoices, refunds, and the return of my documents. This pattern of negligence has occurred 5-6 times over the past 20 months. At the moment, it has been 2 ½ months since he has responded to requests for specific actions such as writing a letter regarding my ex’s inappropriate references to the case in front of our child (a letter Mr. Perlman said he would write and then disappeared), my urgent request for specific changes to the visitation schedule so that I can find stable childcare, updating me on the case, and, of course, finally filing the custody motion. For months and months I have begged him to file the custody motion that he originally said he would file in August, 2014. He ignored my requests despite the urgency--the fact that my child is suffering. He refused to respond to my requests for him to simply take this crucial and obvious fundamental step that needed to be taken 18 months ago. Now, his failure to do the most basic part of his job has resulted in the complete sabotage of my case because the amount of time that has passed will make it look to any judge as if there is no cause for a change in the informal custodial/visitation arrangement. Further, Mr. Perlman is also aware that I suffer from a progressive neurological disease that is exacerbated by stress, and he has done little but make me literally sick from anxiety and helplessness regarding my child's well-being. I hired him in June, 2014; it is now March, 2016, and not one single step of progress has been made since the divorce papers were filed almost two years ago. He has still not filed the custody motion, and he has merely ignored my attempts to end the miserable arrangement by requesting bills and a refund of my retainer fee. I am a single mother with a disability, and this is how Mr. Perlman has treated me, presumably working under the assumption that I am powerless to secure basic professional and humane treatment. I can document everything I have written here, and I want to do my part to warn other clients, especially women of modest means with children, to avoid this attorney at all costs.