Andrew Thomas Richmond

I originally hired the most senior partner of the law firm Andrew (Andy) is with and he was very supportive of my case. Then he became ill and my high conflict child custody case was passed along to the junior partner Andy. It was not until after I dismissed Andy and hired another attorney from another firm, that learned that Andy had failed to inform me that the Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) who was appointed by the court, has to provide a final report to the Court. This was very crucial information that I did not have early on in my case, and it unfortunately resulted in a significant missed opportunity to reach out to the GAL soon after initially meeting her in Court. When I brought this to Andy's attention in my final meeting with him, he dismissed the GAL and her credentials as insignificant, when in fact, the GAL's report was extremely significant and ended up having a major (negative) impact on my case. The opposing counsel, however, did reach out to the GAL early on and it apparently helped to bias the narrative in favor of the opposing side, while I remained in the dark for several months before hiring a better attorney. This put me at a disadvantage and was a key piece of information that Andy should have shared with me in my very first meeting with him. Furthermore, Andy was often dismissive of my reasonable requests and at times appeared to be more of an advocate for my children's mother than for me. Instead of even trying to ask opposing counsel for reasonable visitation requests, he would initially respond that my children’s mother would say, "she'll never go for that" until I pushed him to convey my requests to opposing counsel. He was often caustic, criticized me, and demonstrated a lack of empathy for me. He also submitted written documentation to opposing counsel without asking for my review and approval of it first. It was evident to me by his aggressive, matter of fact, and sometimes critical demeanor, that Andy thought very highly of himself and his credentials. Andy came across to my wife and I as thinking very little of others, except when I hired another family law attorney, who he praised as being extremely capable.