Jamie Leigh Allgood

I hired Jamie after our hour and half consultation, in which we discussed my fairly simple child modification case. I felt as if I was in good hands with her and the law firm Smith Strong PLC. After sending her a draft letter that I had already written myself, she made minor corrections to it, but le...ft out some of the details we spoke about, when I asked her about those she stated, “I must have forgotten.” I forget things too, but this is not what is expected of an attorney, and then still charges for HER mistakes. I only spoke to Jamie ONCE on the phone and that was the initial consultation. Other than that I had to call to check the status of my case, and I only received updates from the two paralegals in the office, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Swenson. The most troubling thing was, even when I did email her for a quick status update, she emailed me back, with one or two lines, then I received a bill for 20 or 30 minutes costing me sometimes up to $100 for the email she sent me. . I understand the contract states, “email correspondence", but this is not good business nor is it very comforting knowing that I cannot simply call or quickly email my lawyer, because I will be charged for speaking to her. I have paid over $1,000 already and the only thing I have gotten in return is one initial consultation, and one letter, which I wrote most of myself. I did not have any faith, trust, or confidence in Mrs. Allgood which are three things that you should always have in your legal representation. I did however, hire Mrs. Karen Leiser after Mrs. Allgood and Mrs. Leiser was a superior attorney who always made sure my needs were met and I always felt confident about my work with her. Jamie Allgood, these feelings were never met! All I felt like I was getting was (for lack of a better phrase) "Nickled and dimed."

I hired Ms. Allgood under the impression she was going to help me as she assured me she would. Between the hire date and the date of court we exchanged emails regarding the case and she did her work supposedly. In the end however I did not win my case in fact it was worse than if I didn't use a lawye...r at all. In the court room she didn't bring up any key factors we had discussed and looked very over matched. In addition to this my 2000 dollar retainer fee ended up not being enough and my total came to over 3500 dollars. now she already knew I had no money because she lost my case, yet her law firm then sued ME when I couldn't come up with that money and garnished my wages to get it. I would steer clear of her and even if you don't have many options, you might be better off representing yourself for free.