Deborah Gail Matthews

Ms. Matthews was handling the estate for my husband and me. I was the caregiver for my mentally and physically disabled husband. She got our legal/financial affairs in order so that I had the ability to manage them. She at first was kind and compassionate and competent. A few years in, I met with... her just to update some contact information. She then sent me a review of what we discussed; there were errors in this, and also a question was raised in my mind about if I died before my disabled husband. I emailed her and called and she would not answer my question: finally she called back and said it compromised her ethics to answer my question: I just wanted to know what the law said about this issue; I was not trying to do anything unethical. She put me in contact with another lawyer who would have charged me $900 to answer the question. I dropped it; Matthews stopped sending us the yearly birthday cards, etc. ...Last month, my husband died. I called her office to see if she was willing to handle the legal details. She NEVER returned the call after a week. MY HUSBAND DIED, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, AND SHE IGNORED ME. Luckily I'd used a previous lawyer who had gotten ill which was why we went to Matthews; the first lawyer was in practice again and was happy to settle the estate for me. He called Deborah to have our file emailed to him; she said she would need my permission, but never contacted me for my permission. I got to my lawyer and had to bring him my huge file so he could copy it himself. What is wrong with her???????

I hired Ms. Matthews after the unexpected death of my mother. I have no siblings, she was not married at the time of her death. Ms. Matthews was my attorney for approx 1 month before we determined that my mother's estate was likely to be insolvent. Since that meeting, Ms. Matthews blatantly ignored s...everal phone calls and emails from me. She did not respond to me for two weeks, so I made the decision to terminate her. I notified her, she did not respond. When I showed up at her office to retrieve my documents, she walked in the front door as I was in the lobby. I asked her what was going on. She said she was sorry but she had other clients in crisis, one had just had brain surgery. Ms. Matthews has a staff of at least 3. Why did she not direct her staff to contact me, and let me know she was unavailable due to emergency? Furthermore, how is another client's crisis a legitimate reason for ignoring mine? Why would you want to hire a lawyer who does not reply to any of your outreaches for 2 weeks?