Heidi Cochrane

I was recommended to this attorney by my legal insurance- the first conversation with her she seemed very attentive, said that it would be a quick case and asked for me to send her my basic details of case after signing retainer. After this, I did not hear from her for over 2 weeks, as she went out o...f a week on vacation- had no idea until after that she was going to be gone. Then a week later she had gone out for a medical situation (100% not faulting her for this- just gives timeline)- she then emailed saying she would be back in the office. Asked for one more small bit of info and said she would be sending over my papers- again, I did not hear from her. I emailed her to see status and got an automated message that she was again out of the office for over a week. Over 4 months after that initial contact, she did not file anything with the court and only the basic paperwork was completed- which she blamed me for taking so long because the "formatting was off" when she received them back- despite me opening them through Adobe in Google Docs- and this hardly seems a reason to not be able to file paperwork OR get in touch with your client if it needed to be edited. I said I was unhappy with the fact that this case she said would be quick was now drawn out this long with no timeframe of completion- or at this point, even a view of initiating the divorce. She emailed me back saying she does not need to disclose the "inner workings" of her office (as in- the fact her support staff apparently quit within this 4-month period and she doesn't need to to tell her clients she will be out of the office---) and then blamed me for the papers being too hard for her to go through. The page breaks were maybe different than she thought? I didn't edit anything- so it was exactly how she had put them together. She then said I was fine to seek alternate counsel. I replied that I wouldn't if she could tell me she would be able to file the completed papers as she had had them at that point for over a month. She sent an email back saying she was terminating attorney-client relationship and refused to return my paperwork with my information. I am now having to find another lawyer and start the entire process over. This time is stressful enough, and her incompetence just made things that much harder.

I had a positive experience with this attorney. She explained her fees clearly up front and was very persistent in going after what was important to me in my divorce. Although the divorce took longer than I expected, I was more than satisfied with the result. After we reached a settlement she also ...represented me in my real estate closing. I thought her charges were reasonable and the process went very smoothly. I would not hesitate to use this attorney again and actually recommended her to my brother-in-law when he was going through some family court issues.

We needed simple paperwork filed. She gave us a verbal estimate. Completely unresponsive to our many phone calls and emails for months. Not sure if she's a good attorney because she was unable to accomplish the task and does not communicate. My experience was that this was a waste of money and tim...e. I do not recommend working with her. We discontinued working with her and coincidentally, her hours added up to exactly what we prepaid, yet our issue was not resolved.