Shannon Leigh Kowitz

I have had the pleasure of working with Shannon over the past few years on several occasions. Shannon has always been thorough, focused, and is an exemplary attorney. I have always appreciated the time she has taken with me to explain every situation and option. She comes with the highest recommendat...ion I could possible offer!

Highly incompetent attorney. Shannon Kowitz cannot manage court deadlines, gives poor legal advice, ignores emails or phone calls for weeks when she does not know something. I hired her to represent me in my divorce case. Shannon made such a mess of my case, I terminated representation with her, hire...d another attorney and had to spend thousands of dollars trying to undo the damage Shannon Kowitz caused. Don't trust Shannon Kowitz with your rights especially if you have children.

I have worked with Shannon for a few years now with regards to 3 separate issues and she has been highly effective with her execution and clear with her advise. 1. I have 50/50 legal/physical custody with my 3 kids. The first issue was me trying to get either full physical custody or for my x-wife... to actually spend time with the kids when they were in her custody; and for her to stop abusive behavior. Naturally my x-wife made many false counter claims with no evidence and asked for child support (despite being a high income person). Shannon did an excellent job asking the right question to my x-wife during the pre-trial disposition (which resulted in answers that would make it difficult for her in court); also Shannon did a great job explaining to me the law and what we can do to get the results I wanted. We built a solid case for court, however she was honest with me and the reality is it takes many incidents (and not just a handful) for my x-wife to lose physical custody. The end result was that we got my x-wife to sign some papers that said you can't do X, Y, or Z and I got the result I was looking for; a better mom. 2. Situation number two was a crazy x-girlfriend that said she was sad that we broke up and because I returned her stuff to a friend during a 5 second visit of just dropping it off she claimed I caused her to go into emotional distress, even though I haven't seen her in 6 months and just texted her to pickup her stuff (that she asked from me) from her friend. The first time this went to court I thought it was such an easy case I actually tried to go against her lawyer. I almost won, but my x-girlfriend was talking about how sad she was, her life is meaningless, she shakes all the time in sadness, going to therapy, crying in court, etc then the judge said she would grant a protective order, despite there being no legal basis. So I called Shannon and appealed. This went to court and Shannon blew it out of the water and the judge within the 1st minute of court said this should be dismissed and for the remaining hour or so just dismissed my x-girlfriend. Shannon did a great job being clear, compassionate, and focused on the law. The lesson learned here is to use a lawyer in court even if the case seems simple to win; it's difficult to cross examine someone as the defendant. 3. The last and most recent situation was drafting up a pre-nup for me and my fiance. It was written amazingly well front the first draft and without argument my fiance agreed.

Shannon is an outstanding Lawyer. She represented me in my divorce and custody case. Shannon was always a phone call away no matter what time I needed her. When things got rough during the times I was denied seeing my children, she was always there to give me sound legal advice. I’ve always been fear...ful of being in court hearing horror stories about men not having a chance when it comes to being awarded custody. With Shannon’s help we where able to totally turn my whole custody situation around. I was awarded full physical custody and I have joint legal custody with all tie breaking authority going to me. Shannon I will never forget what you and your firm has done for me and my family. We will forever be grateful. If you need a reliable caring Lawyer, Shannon and the Mulinazzi Law firm is the way to go.

This review is for Shannon Kowitz of the Mulinazzi law firm, and to lesser extent, Thomas Mulinazzi, the firm’s namesake. My wife left me in April 2018, taking with her my only child. We had few assets and the vast majority of our disagreement was over our then seven year old son, who my wife wa...s limiting me to occasional day visits. I hired Shannon that June, seeking joint legal custody and 50% physical custody. After our initial meeting and hiring her, I had little communication with Shannon that summer. I think we talked twice by phone in which she counseled me to spend more time with my son to establish grounds for physical custody but gave few details on how to accomplish this. In September my wife got aggressive, saying she would deny my offer of joint legal custody and offering only one weekend every two weeks. Shannon’s strategy to counter this was that I should pick up my son from school and from cub scouts without telling my wife and have overnights to establish custody that way. My wife is highly strung and very combative and I did not like this advice at all, fearing angry confrontations and possible legal ramifications. Shannon, and later Thomas, would not deviate from this plan or offer me any alternatives despite my repeated requests for a different strategy. During one of these frustrating phone conversations, I cursed, not at Shannon but about the situation, caught myself, and apologized. Shannon laughed, said she dealt with much worse regularly, and that my bad language was the least of her concerns, or something similar. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I resisted Shannon’s advice throughout the fall, but she still insisted it was the only way to reach my goals. Finally, in January, after much prodding, I picked my son up from scouts on a weeknight and instead of taking him to my wife’s home as usual, I took him to my home where my wife soon appeared, frantic and angry, banging on the door incessantly. Eventually she left in tears, but my son and I were both shaken. Shortly thereafter my wife’s new law firm sent me a nasty threatening letter over the incident, that Shannon said was proof that her strategy was working. February brought my first time in court, a scheduling hearing. Shannon never showed up. I sat in shock as my wife grinned at me throughout, flanked by her two lawyers. Shannon later called to apologize, and promised she was putting something in the mail that would make it up to me. Two days later, a $5 Starbucks gift card arrived. Shortly after this, Shannon and Thomas summoned me to their office for an important meeting. It was only the second and last time I met her face to face. I was hoping for a new strategy, but they doubled down on the same ”just take him” strategy and spent much of the meeting bragging about their prior record against my wife’s new firm. A few weeks later, in mid-March, I was very frustrated with the lack of new ideas while in another phone call, and said something to the effect of “Shannon, right now I think you’re a shitty lawyer, and you probably think I am a shitty client, but I need a new strategy from you”. Although the conversation had been moderately heated, she didn’t seem bothered by it at the time, and we continued talking for several minutes and got off the phone cordially. The next day, Thomas called me to say that Shannon didn’t deserve to be called a shitty lawyer and that the firm would no longer represent me and that I had a week to find new counsel. The happy ending is that after a few rough weeks, I did find competent counsel, and did eventually get joint legal custody and improved physical custody with an understanding that 50% custody will occur in two years. Due to a lack of communication and strategy, as well as abandoning me at a crucial time in my case, I would not recommend Shannon Kowitz or her firm to anyone who wanted a positive experience in a divorce proceeding.