Joel David Katims

We hired Mr Katims to represent us during a real estate transaction through a recommendation of a family member that had used him for real estate transactions and estate planning. Throughout the process, he failed to communicate effectively with us, the seller's attorney, and the HOA and their lawyer...s. He worked very slow and at times claimed to have done things (like reaching out to the HOA) when he really hadn't. All in all, he delayed the closing by about a month due to how inept he was at following up with the other people involved in the transaction. He was not prepared to attend the closing, which meant we needed to go to a nearby bank to secure checks to make payments that he had failed to disclose to us, and it was incredibly apparent that he dropped the ball because the seller's attorney had printed out emails that he had responded to agreeing to this. He would schedule us to come into his office when a simple email or phone call would have sufficed, which felt like a waste of our time and a disregard for the value of our time. He required an undue amount of prompting and follow up on our part to do any work, which was exacerbated by the fact that he regularly took off from work without notifying his clients, he doesn't have any paralegal help, and his receptionists don't seem to communicate with each other well or with him. He continuously missed small details, such as repeatedly sending documents to the wrong address or email address and he needed us to notice issues because he simply missed them. Lastly, he would regularly give questionable advice, such as advising us to schedule our final walkthrough a week ahead of the closing date. Save yourself the headache and find a different, more professional and capable lawyer.