David Jeffrey Hark Coale

Jeff Coale reduced my reckless driving ticket (63/45mph zone) to improper driving. It was a speed trap folks. Before I found Jeff I contacted numerous other local attorneys. Many were never available or never returned my calls. Jeff was completely different. He was very responsive, courteous, walked ...me through the process, laid out what I needed to do etc. I felt reassured from the beginning. Can't recommend him enough.

Great direction and advice. I followed it exactly and the results were better than expected. He was completely reliable in every sense of the word. Jeff even answered his phone while he was on vacation in Mexico to help me out! I am fully confident in his abilities to successfully fight court cas...es, especially traffic violations like mine! I highly recommend him!!

Driving through Smyth county VA, I was pulled over for doing 86 in a 70Mph zone which, I found out later, is a reckless driving offense. I am from out of state and I did not want to travel back for the court appearance as it is over 800 miles. I decided to hire an attorney to represent me. After... a good search, all reviews lead me to Jeff. I called him the next day, explained the situation and we came up with a good strategy. Executing on that strategy was a white glove affair. Jeff took care of everything up to and including all the necessary reminders to send him the information he needed to properly represent my defense of the charges. Because of Jeff's long standing history with the court system and the execution of a good strategy, the ticket was reduced to a non-moving violation which will not count against my insurance or towards points on my license. Jeff is a good attorney with the knowledge, understanding of the VA judicial system process and relationships that make a difference.

This man is completely incompetent. I asked him to handle my divorce. He charged me a $5000 retainer fee to start with. This is considerably higher than other attorneys in his general area who would have handled the same divorce for $3000-$3500. The price is not the reason for my dissatisfaction with... this attorney...the fact that he does not know what he is doing or how to do it concerns me greatly. I requested to review the papers before he filed them and thankfully I did because he was getting ready to file them in the wrong county. He also had pertinent information inaccurate or completely incorrect due to lack of research. I am sorry to say but for the price this husband and wife team are charging, there's no room for mistakes and especially not a mistake that would set my case back as much as being filed in the wrong county! This attorney is also not concerned in the least for the well being of his client. He was asked whether or not he would seek spousal support given the fact that I had left a job to relocate with my husband immediately prior to the filing of the divorce. He said he would definitely seek spousal support in an amount that would represent at least a portion of my lost income and financial hardship. Once the retainer was signed, he done nothing but absorb retainer fees making 3 copies of each document I gave him and asking me to sort through marital items such as plates, forks and spoons, counting how many of each item we owned so that the entire value could be translated to a figure on paper. I did advise him that I did not care if my ex had most of the marital possessions as most of them belonged to him to start with. Mr. Coale was not interested in the least in the return of my personal items to me or a court order that would compel my ex to return things like my winter clothes, shoes, medications, cellular phone, and car keys. I had to wait over a year for the return of these items that were clearly mine, not his. When I fired this attorney and showed him my market up copy of his documents, he thought I was joking and did not want to refund the retainer fee. Just for the record, I got ALL of the retainer fee back, all 3 copies of my case file that he made and left him sitting on the blister. Ladies, don't hire this man if you want help with a divorce.He won't give it to you.