Shannon Leigh Kowitz

I think she tried as much as she could...but I was very disappointed at her time & scheduling management capabilities. One big surprise was that she completely forgot to arrange online meeting way in advance with a Judge for my 1st settlement meeting and I did not know any Zoom meeting information un...til the very last minute. The meeting started out in confusion on the Judge side as well and the Judge was unaware of the change from in-person to Zoom meeting, either. The Judge showed up late by 20 minutes because of the last minute notification, then my STVX was unable to turn his webcam on for good 12 minutes so there was another delay. The supposedly an hour settlement meeting was shortened into less than 30 minutes meeting....of course, nothing productive came out of the meeting. Secondly, she missed an important meeting with a DCFA and I and the DCFA were on hold for about an hour without any follow-up and she did not even apologize in person. Thirdly she did not inform/cascade the important court date to me or my new lawyer so that it caused major rescheduling on our ends to show up on my court date. I had to take an emergency leave from work and my lawyer had to rearrange his schedule until the very last minute again. I realized that she did not care/value about my time and effort to adjust to her uninformed and sudden schedule changes. Also, I do not forget when she said, "Are you in dire straights?" when I wanted to talk about what I am possibly entitled to receive from my STVX. Then she made an insensitive joke with her co-worker when we were going over my expenses on dining out.

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.

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.