Stephanie Jeanne Kogut

I retained Attorney Stephanie J. Kogut in April 2025 for representation in both divorce and PFA (Protection From Abuse) matters. At the time, I was a displaced domestic violence survivor, forced to travel from New York to Pennsylvania because she never once offered phone or Zoom options. despite know...ing I had an autoimmune condition that made in-person travel burdensome and medically risky. She later claimed I never disclosed the “type” of autoimmune disorder I had, which is irrelevant and a violation of federal disability privacy protections. As an attorney, she should know better. During our in-person consultation, I provided her with my PFA documentation. She failed to tell me the order was missing my husband’s legal identifiers (which made it harder to enforce), never advised that I could request a civil standby to retrieve my belongings, and never mentioned that I could request a modification. These are basic protections that should have been explained to me as a DV survivor. I did not bring her any divorce complaint. Instead, she emailed me a falsified or unofficial divorce complaint that was never served properly, had multiple factual errors (including our marriage location and marital history), and had not even been filed with the court. She never asked me to sign anything, never throughly reviewed the complaint with me, and failed in her legal duty to verify whether a divorce case had actually been filed. Had she checked the Unified Judicial System, she would’ve seen that no complaint was filed. The only action Attorney Kogut took during the two months I retained her was to withdraw my spousal support filing which I had submitted myself on March 21st. She discouraged me from attending the hearing by saying, “You’re not going to get anything,” then unilaterally withdrew it without notifying me or giving me documentation. (She had made numerous other statements on other requests that I should “go to the self help center and do it myself”) I did not learn what did she had done this and the fact she was supposed to provide a copy of the withdrawal form; until months later, when I personally went to Domestic Relations and found out. Even after I formally terminated her on May 28, 2025, and instructed her to file a praecipe to withdraw as my attorney with the court, she never filed it. As of this writing, the withdrawal still does not appear on the docket. She also failed to tell me that my husband’s PFA order signed on the same day as mine explicitly stated that I had agreed to give him exclusive possession of our marital home. I had no idea I had signed any such agreement. This was a critical issue with long-term consequences, and her silence was inexcusable. This silence cannot be dismissed as oversight. Attorney Kogut had both PFA orders and multiple opportunities to inform me. I believe her failure to act and her failure to disclose was intentional. And when taken together with the actions (or inactions) of other attorneys I encountered, Attorney Dana Juliet Green of MidPenn Legal, and others; it is difficult to believe they were not acting in coordination. The omissions were too consistent, too patterned, and too harmful. As a 43-year-old Black woman, first-generation immigrant, survivor of domestic violence, and someone with no legal background, I depended on Attorney Kogut to act ethically, inform me of my rights, and protect my legal position. She did none of those things. This experience caused profound harm to my emotional well-being, physical health, and legal security. The trauma I experienced in my marriage was severe, but what these attorneys did afterward under the guise of professional help was even more damaging. It was institutional betrayal of the highest order. To this day, Attorney Kogut has never contacted me to acknowledge, remedy, or apologize for the harm caused. Neither has Dana Green or any of the others. I do not recommend Stephanie J. Kogut.