Monica Rathke Savidge

Wish I could give less than one star. She is a DISASTER with clients, judges, and cases. She misses deadlines, gets your details mixed up with other clients details, does not answer your phone calls or emails, calls you last minute the day before your hearing or trial to prepare, she is sloppy and ot...her attorneys and the judges know it, and she has been convicted of embezzlement, fraud, and theft of Social Security disability clients funds by the State Bar of North Carolina. She shouldn’t be allowed to practice again ever in any type of law in any type of office, whether she’s handling client funds or not. She certainly shouldn’t handle matters of life and death. So if you care at all about the legal case that you’re about to put into somebody’s hands, keep looking because you can do a lot better by closing your eyes and pointing to somebody in the yellow pages (if they still existed) then to ever let her handle your case. And if you have a case with her, whether it’s with Legal Aid or otherwise, I suggest you demand immediate reassignment of your case. I now live my life and fear thanks to her. Don’t be her next victim.

Hired to represent me in a SS Disability case. She only returns phone calls after leaving several messages. Does not prepare her SS clients for hearing; i.e. what to say, what to wear, what happens in the hearing. It appeared she had never read the contents of my case file and showed up to the hearin...g ill prepared. After the hearing, she does not follow up to explain any aspect of the proceeding. I was very disappointed and frustrated with how i was represented in my case. I feel certain the SS Judge knew I was poorly represented as well yet ruled with a favorable decision. I would not recommend hiring Ms. Savidge for representaion

Personally I think my ALJ hearing went good but Monica told me she was not optimistic about it , allow me to explain ,,,, one of my diagnosis is agoraphobia , and my sister with whom I live testafied truthfully that it was very hard to get me to come out of my room. Well the judge found out via my ...testimony that at the time of the hearing I had a pending shoplifting charge (later dismissed) and he asked my sister , well what about the shoplifting ? And she said she didnt take me to the store that my brother did , ok so what's the big deal? Agoraphobia is defined as becoming scared on the outside if alone , I only went to the store and the manager accused me of stealing , but she lied on me because I was acting panicky because of agoraphobia and it was dismissed for lack of evidence a month later after the hearing , well i've not been back to any stores period , only to doctors appts etc , well after the hearing I called Monica's Southport office several days in a row only to get voice mail, I left 3 different messages to please call me but a week and 3 days past , I did get anxious and leave a message with anger in my voice and thats what promt her to call me and tell me not to keep calling leaving messages everyday , with anger in her voice also , well i asked her what did she think about the hearing and thats when she said not optimistic, so I've been waiting on a denial letter because i had lost all hope after fighting over 3yrs until I found this site on here called avvo , and told my story about how the hearing went and received possitive feedback , comments like ( very promising) and ( sounds like youll get approved , now I have hope again, now I'm going into week 6 havent heard nothing yet and monica hasnt called either, and to scared to call her , so i guess I will call ssi if i havent heard something by Friday 03/02/2018.