Jeffrey Paul Santoro

I was a client of Mr. Santoro. Mr. Santoro was assigned to me through the assigned council program for my custody and visitation battle. We spoke for a half hour a couple of weeks before our first court date. He then immediately went on vacation til the day before said court date. He showed up at tha...t court date 25 minutes late and had me re-tell everything I told him two weeks earlier as he ran from floor to floor checking in for his other cases. His lack of attention led to him miscommunicating my schedule to the court and thus setting up a month of difficulty in picking up my son while we awaited the next court date. I also have to mention how oblivious and tone deaf Mr. Santoro is. Keep in mind, at the time, I had a low income that qualified me for assigned council. Mr Santoro showed up late and immediately commenced to talk about his two weeks in Cancun, to someone who he should've had the presence of mind to know wasn't going to be affording similar trips any time soon. If he had dedicated half as much attention to the details of my case as he did to telling me about his vacation, maybe he'd be getting a better review right now. I went out of my way to prepare Mr. Santoro every week for the shenanigans that my ex was pulling. She is a borderline personality case and while her behavior is hostile, it is also predictable. Every week I informed Mr. Santoro of the obstacles she was manufacturing to prevent my access and every week he acted surprised, like it was the first time he heard any of it. He would wait til the last possible moment to address her behavior with her lawyer and his lack of action cost me access to my son on multiple occasions. Finally, the week of my son's birthday, my ex was in rare form. She wouldn't let me talk to my son on his birthday. She made him hang up on me the next day when I did get to talk to him and then she denied my pickup at the end of the week, causing me to get the police to come and enforce the order. I had been leaving Mr. Santoro messages as her actions unfolded and he would send the auto-reply text saying he would call me back as soon as he was available. Well, three days of this finally led me to leaving him a voicemail asking if he was "ever going to return a f*cking message." It was at this point that Mr. Santoro showed the first ounce of action in the 3 months I had known him. He went from being the tough Brooklyn guy who assured me his "30 years of experience dealing with this" would prevent her from pulling such stunts, to a pearl clutching debutante who was too offended by the F word to do his damn job. He filed a motion to be relieved as my attorney and I gladly let the judge know I was happy with that due to his sub par efforts. I should also note that about 3 weeks before this, I got a great new job that knocked me out of the assigned counsel program. I told Mr. Santoro this and hoped that the possibility of him getting paid would cause him to step his game up. I was wrong. I met with him the week before the dam finally broke and I thought he showed a base level of concern but I was wrong. I should have fired him then. Mr. Santoro exemplifies the worst stereotypes about lawyers. He is lazy, inattentive, pompous, condescending and only cares about himself. Don't hire him.

Jeff was my attorney for both child custody and divorce. He was upfront about what to expect with each process. He took care of everything. He kept me in the loop and answered any questions I had quickly which relieved stress on my behalf. I highly recommend Jeffrey Santoro to anyone who is in need o...f representation.

Mr. Santoro did not effectively listen to my concerns and needs involving my case. Attorneys who truly have a passion for what they do and therefore, who they represent, will not handle your case as if it is not important. Mr. Santoro did not even recall the phone conversation we had involving my ca...se (my question would be why didn't he make note of it?). He was also rude and abrupt when we spoke for him to obtain information about my case. When I informed Mr. Santoro that I would no longer be moving forward with his services his reply was that he took "offense". One indicator of a great attorney is one who can handle their emotions that may naturally follow a client ceasing their services. He did not handle me politely informing him that I would not be needing his services with grace. He appeared agitated and to an extent prideful when I informed him I wouldn't be using his services any longer as I did not feel he would adequately represent my concerns.