Nancy D. Kellman

I cannot recommend Nancy highly enough. I walked into her office unnerved by the divorce process, terrified of losing full custody, deeply worried about the asset division and feeling completely helpless. After just a few minutes of talking to her, Nancy not only understood my situation, but starte...d to make me feel better about it. I was constantly impressed with Nancy's skills as an attorney. She immediately grasped the situation, made the process readily understandable, came up with strategies to deal with the thorniest of issues, was prepared to fight whenever necessary and ultimately obtained a far better result than I had thought possible. Nancy is also a gifted drafter and efficient attorney who not only prepared flawless papers, but did so quickly (my spouse's counsel charged considerably more to make changes to papers Nancy drafted than Nancy charged for preparing the papers from scratch and reviewing the other side's edits). As thrilled as I was with Nancy's legal work and the result she obtained, they pale in comparison to the gratitude I feel for the genuine kindness and concern she had for me and my kid.

I interviewed 4 lawyers before I hired Nancy. I knew the minute I was in her office that she would be the one to represent me. In all fairness my case was quick. In those 8 months, Nancy was honest, responsible, thorough and reliable. She made good suggestions and always explained everything in great... detail as we were going along. We were rushed to finished the case and Nancy promised me it would get done. It got done. I told her I could only spend a certain amount, and Nancy promised me that I would not spend more (obviously this was based on my case) and we did not spend more. I highly recommend working with Nancy and her team. Besides being lovely people, they are sharp and want the best deal for their clients. It was always obvious to me in the work they did, and in the suggestions they made. You want to feel comfortable, and cared for, and Nancy and her team make you feel this way during this difficult process.

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest, Nancy is a 20. Nancy's focus on what was best for me and not what would result in increased billable hours for her was clear to me in all our interactions. Ironically, Nancy was recommended to me by an attorney friend who saw Nancy in action pre...pared, practical, articulate and real. Unfortunately for my friend, Nancy represented her ex-husband. Many year later, my friend saved Nancy's information and knew her skills would benefit someone one day. That someone was me.

I was referred to Nancy by a friend as being an exceptional divorce lawyer. While she may be good in as a courtroom lawyer, she was highly disappointing to me as a negotiator and advocate. My perception after the fact is that Nancy is not good at thinking strategically. I asked her several times t...o give me the best and worst case scenario in my divorce so we could plan from that perspective. She never gave me a clear answer. She was also very unresponsive at times. For instance, I wrote a draft of an email I was going to send my wife about issues we were disagreeing over and sent it to Nancy to review and she replied that she would not be able to review it for at least four or five days because she was attending the NY State Bar Association meeting for Matrimonial lawyers. There were other times when she was virtually unavailable for an entire month because of other client commitments. Towards the end I felt that she was more interested in getting the case done than getting me the best deal. We had a meeting towards the end to go over 15 items that that the lawyers were supposed to have discussed and come to a tentative recommendation on. During the meeting we went out of the room and Nancy told me not to waste money on each of these issues. I said that was fine but I needed to know how what the recommendations were going to be on the outstanding issues so I could pick out the ones most important to me.. She said she did not remember what the recommendations were going to be. I felt that her tendency, esp. at the end, was to cut the baby in half but that only encouraged the other side to make larger demands so that half would be larger. But as a result of this, there were aspects of the settlement that played out in ways that I never anticipated and which I am sure that Nancy did not consider as well. I did not bother to go back to her at that point because if I am going to reopen my case, I will do it with another lawyer. I understand that Nancy has seen this review and intends to write a reply. When I started off on the road to divorce I really did not know what I was in for. I had heard that all divorce lawyers were horrible. I don’t think Nancy is dishonest and I suspect that in the Courtroom she shines. But I think in the context of negotiating a complicated settlement that I would have been better served by another lawyer.