Holly Margaret King

I spent a year and $13k+ trying to file a motion for contempt against my ex, who began violating our custody order immediately after it was issued. My ex filed a motion to modify custody in 2/23. We paused the contempt to draft a motion to dismiss the custody modification. The motion Holly drafted wa...s great, but useless because she never filed it. In 3/23, my fiancée and I specifically asked her if we could proceed with filing the motion. Holly said yes and claimed she filed it after I sent her my approval letter. She said our motion would be heard before my ex's and that we'd be able to ask the judge to order my ex to pay my attorney fees since her motion was frivolous. I repeatedly stressed to Holly that the fees were a priority for me because I was borrowing money from a family member, and she told me not to worry. We got a court date in 6/23 (for my ex's motion, not the one Holly claimed to file), but my ex dismissed her case the day before court, so the judge never heard our request. Holly basically said, "oh well, there's nothing we can do," when I asked if there was a way to get the attorney fees. I found out she never filed my motion when I got advice from a lawyer here on Avvo in Jan. (2024) who told me to call the court and find out when things were filed. When they pulled up my case, they said the only things filed since the custody order in 10/22 were my ex's motion to modify in 2/23 and her motion to dismiss in 6/23. Just to be sure, I asked if Holly or her firm had filed anything on my behalf, and they said no. I requested a copy of my file for confirmation. After a fight with the firm regarding Holly not filing the motion to dismiss and motion of contempt like she said, they dropped me as a client. In their disengagement letter, they claim Holly filed the motion in 3/23, even though I told them the court has no record of it and that I had my court file for proof. For my motion to dismiss, Holly claimed she filed that in 7/23 and said we were confirmed for court that month. When we didn't go to court, she said it was my fault because I didn't send the verification letter back fast enough, even though she waited a month after I approved the motion via email (I approved it the same day) to send it to me and said it was for her records. We missed July court, but after that, she led me to believe that we were just waiting on the court to schedule us and blamed the court for the delay. I called the court twice because Holly never responded to me, and then I got an instant response both times, with her calling to rudely tell me not to contact the court. Eventually, I got a tentative date from Holly for 10/23, which came and went without explanation. Then, she said she would ask them to add us to the 12/23 calendar, which was confusing because we shouldn't have to be added on if our motion was filed in July. I wanted a new contempt draft in 10/23 because my ex had continued violating the order every month, and Holly said that would be a quick update. After not hearing from Holly, I finally asked for another attorney, who drafted a new motion, which Holly claimed to have reviewed (and billed me for). The new motion was missing information from the original motion and had errors and question marks with info that Holly was supposed to fix. When they dropped me as a client, they said I never went to court because I never responded to multiple drafts. I got a draft in 6/23, which I approved that day, and a draft in 12/23. Holly was trying to get us on the schedule for Dec. 4th, and the new motion was sent to me on Dec. 13, but somehow not approving that version meant I couldn't get into court from July-December. I have emails proving I responded to everything, and I asked the firm for the "multiple drafts" Holly had written twice, and got ignored. Due to my ex's violations I've spent 3 weeks with my daughter since the order issued in 10/22, and I still haven't gone to court since I can't afford a new lawyer.