Steven Mark Garver

A number of years ago, I hired Mr. Garver to represent me in my divorce, which included the legal service of filing a document on my behalf, about two pages in length, with the Fairfax County Circuit Court. A few days afterwards, I phoned him and asked if he could please send me, for my own refere...nce, a copy of this short document he had filed with the court for me. It was a document that could have been photocopied and faxed to me within a few minutes. Mr. Garver reacted with mocking sarcastic irritation to my request, stating "Is it critical?" as if he were speaking to someone utterly beneath him. He then informed me that he was too busy that day to fax me a copy of this document. At that point, he did not tell me when I might expect to receive it. Mr. Garver acknowledged that I had a right to receive a copy of this document from my case file. However, he would not give me a time frame for when I might expect him to fax it to me. I then asked him if he could confirm that he would be able to fax it to me the following day. But he would not confirm that either. Since Mr. Garver was apparently too busy to fax a copy of this document to me that day, and also would not provide some reasonable assurance that he would fax it to me the following day, I asked him by what day I could expect to receive it. Even then he still would not provide me with a firm date by which I could expect him to fax me a copy of this document. That is how our phone conversation ended with regard to a simple request to receive a copy of this short document from my file. I did not appreciate his evasiveness when I asked him for a simple estimate of how long it would take him to get around to faxing me a two-page document. I faxed Mr. Garver a letter soon afterwards, notifying him that I no longer wanted him as my attorney because of this behavior and requesting a refund of any unused portion of my retainer. It took him about one month to provide this refund, after I followed up with him about it. Shortly after I notified him that I no longer wanted him as my attorney, he did then manage to fax me a copy of that document.