Lorenzo Lee Bean III

Mr. Bean is tall, very - well over 6 feet tall. He has a firm handshake, he uses it to get you out the door when you are scared that you hired a SHYSTER lawyer who is taking you for a ride. He says I WILL FIX THIS (his latest mistake/oversight/tragic error) and he shakes your hand firmly. But he... doesn't fix anything, when you call he is WORKING ON IT AND WILL GET BACK TO YOU. He never calls back. I gave him $2000 to help me charge my ex with contempt and a side issue: get a simple child support increase I was owed. After 17 months, the contempt charges were never even addressed, we had a court date his office just "forgot to file or just lost" they weren't sure at all what happened, never gave me a real reason why we had to reschedule it, we "negotiated" with my ex's attorney the night before the second court date - Bean was late and hadn't even looked at the documents even once - he was shocked when I was looking over the thousand page doc myself and I pointed out my ex claimed he paid $150 a month expense for "babysitting" - my daughter was 14 at the time - he made a deal on the phone (my ex's lawyer said the "babysitting" was a clerical error) and Bean promised my ex's lawyer said it was the best deal I would get - an extra $128 a month - but he did not document any of this phone settlement conversation. (Later when we needed this documentation he asked his secretary to bring him the notes from the conversation, any emails, or follow up docs - she shook her head while I sat there and said there were NONE.) My ex's lawyer wrote the proposal (Mr. Bean later said this was to "save me money") and put in a couple things we had never agreed to LIKE my ex could stop paying me child support through the court and just pay me himself. (The first child support payment my ex owed me he NEVER paid because he knew I wouldn't go to court for the money - the only reason I get paid is it is deducted from his paycheck each week! So that was scary to think I could have signed away having payments go through the court.) Bean sent that doc to me and told me to read it and sign it. He had not even looked at it himself - when I called IRATE he met me (no charge he assured me for the umpteenth time) and shook my hand and said I WILL FIX THIS and pushed me out the door saying he would "write the proposal himself!!" Two months later when he was still working on it, I asked for a bill, asked for my money back, and FIRED HIM. I never got a bill, I never got my money back ($2000! I had to borrow some of that money) and this single Mom never got a child support increase either! He did nothing but shake my hand (firmly) and take my money. Ironically, this was my second case with him. The first I hired him b/c my ex wanted to keep my daughter's passport, Bean made a deal with my ex's attorney via phone call in his office a week before the court date and said we did not have to go to court. He called me the night before the court date and said things were messed up, somehow the deal he made was confused by the other lawyer's office, the court case was still on, and I had to SUDDENLY take off work and go to court the next day. I was a preschool teacher and getting a sub last minute was difficult. I was upset bc I had told Bean I had no money to go to court, so if that were the case I would drop it and just let him have the passport. Bean said I had no choice, we were required to go to court now. We settled outside the courtroom - Bean assured me it was the other lawyer's fault - and to be "nice" he would ONLY charge me an additional $300 for "going to court." I thought that was so nice I rehired him for the contempt and child support case a year later. I did not know that he had been the one who screwed up the first case, costing me an extra $300, and that he would go on to literally rob me and my daughter with a firm handshake and reassuring smile.