Carol Eileen Ryder

I have been so happy over the years with Carol. I originally hired her years ago for my parents, who needed an Estate Plan, including what she called 'Medicaid Planning' just in case something happened and one of them needed to go into a nursing home. Naturally, my siblings were nervous about me hiri...ng the attorney myself but everything went well. She told us we could get Mom help with a home aide to take the burden off Mom caring for Dad, and the aide was approved quickly even though we thought they earned way too much to quality (she set up Trust). Then, eventually, because she had suggested we think 5 years ahead, to get another Trust properly set up to move the house and stuff, Dad was covered for the nursing home. That was a God-send because Mom couldn't afford the $14,000 a month it cost and he could no longer stay at home even though we had a live-in aide. In the middle of all this, I was served, sort-of unexpectedly, with divorce and custody papers. I was mortified to make the call but she was so sweet, she hugged me when we met to go over the papers I was served, she didn't judge me, listened to me crying on the phone, and more, without billing me for all that (my best friend's attorneys billed her for every second and messed up her cases anyway-I had Carol take over and that got fixed). Then, got the house and a nice settlement but I lost my job and went into foreclosure so again, I called her, crying as usual. She came over, appraised the house, and far more, didn't bill me to do that part, listened, asked me to give her summaries and things to save billable hours, unlike my GF's and other attorneys people I know used, and it turned out well. We received notice that the bank dropped the case after years of legal battles and now I can sell it or stay in it, which comes in handy because now that the kids are off in college, and, by the way, they got to live with me and stay in this top school district at least until high school graduation, our sole original goal, this place is probably too big anyway but at least NOW I can breathe. I have a lot to think about but at least now I can calmly figure out the next step.

Carol got unbelievable results. She not only saved our house from foreclosure but got us a mortgage payment 1/3 of what we were paying, or actually, couldn't pay when our interest skyrocketed. She got us a 40 year mortgage at 2% and a principal reduction of $120,000. We were amazed-to get all that fo...r $3,800 up front was amazing and worth every penny. She tried to keep the Retainer at that price, and did things like have us photocopy documents on file at the County Clerk's office and scan things in and e-mail them. She even picks up the phone on Sundays-the other guy, we couldn't even get him to call back during the normal week. Our previous lawyer messed up really bad and Carol fixed it. He filed an answer to the summons late and the lender's attorney sent it back as late and filed a motion behind our backs to foreclose on us. This giant stack of documents came to the house and we freaked out and asked around for a lawyer and she was recommended. Carol promptly made a motion and included her own answer, which had something like 37 affirm defenses and a bunch of counterclaims ,to have the judge force the other side to accept the answer she wrote. So, if we didn't reach an agreement on the mortgage modification, she was well-prepared for a fight, and she included something to toss out the whole mortgage, I am confused at how that works but it is in the paperwork she gave us copies of, and I think that is why we got such a great deal on the modification. She also works for a bankruptcy firm and that name came up in us asking around, Roy Lester and Associates, and has an office there so if something went wrong, she had a back-up in bankruptcy so we felt secure for the first time in many, many months,

We are so happy we hired her and keep coming back. Originally, we just wanted to do our wills and such, and someone said to call her because she does pet trusts also, so we did. Then, my husband became disabled and we went into foreclosure. We didn't know she did this so we went to this other man who... said we should just let the house go since we were so underwater, that it would take years anyway and we could save money. Instead, we called her, she said it was true but she could probably do something to save the house and get rid of the underwater money. She took care of everything and saved the house plus got us a large principle reduction, 40 year term and 2% interest, which only goes up to 4.2% in 5 years, shaving our monthly payments down to 1/3 of what they were. While she did the foreclosure case, the attorney she recommended got him his SSDI on the first try so we would also qualify for the mortgage modification as well. However, whatever she put in for our paperwork (I think an answer and some sort of motion) with the court made the lender all of a sudden start cooperating and they OKd the mortgage modification even before he got SSDI. She told us we could grieve our property taxes because of the disability and the town took a couple thousand off, looked over our homeowner's insurance so we could save money. She does disability law but was honest and said we should have a super-specialist for that and sent us to another attorney she recommended to handle the case against his former employer and that case is going really well. She did something to make sure we didn't have to pay taxes on the principle reduction either, which someone had said we have to be careful about. Then, she did some sort of Medicaid planning thing so if one of us needs a nursing home, we won't lose the house and we are covered. I normally don't recommend too many contractors and such because when something goes wrong, they blame you but we give out her name now. I just hope nothing else goes wrong feew years but if it does, at least we know who to call.