David Jeffrey Hark Coale

I found Mr. Coale to be concerned, ethical,and extremely knowledgable in representing me. He was concerned for my wellbeing, His counsel was straight foward and honest. He performed his duties above board and gave honest opinions on various courses of actions that we considered. He maintained co...mmunications with me to the degree necessary to get my case presented and adjudicated. I hope I never have to use his services again, but if I had too, he would be my first choice to call upon.

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.