Steven Smith McKenzie

Mr. McKenzie appears to be a nice individual and seemingly helpful. I liked the man and he made a good impression. I was religiously married in Illinois. The marriage was NEVER legal - not in Illinois and not in South Carolina. I contacted Mr. McKenzie to represent me in a "divorce" case. My e...x-partner served me with divorce papers, claiming we were common law spouses in South Carolina. Now, folks, this was certainly news to me, seeing I had never lived in South Carolina. My ex was using the divorce as leverage to claim jointly-owned property. By the way, my ex was eligible for a pro-bono lawyer from South Carolina Legal Services. So being failed by Mr. McKenzie was doubly painful. Mr. McKenzie filed a Motion to Dismiss, claiming there was no common law marriage. At the hearing, my ex's attorney presented an Illinois case from 1953, where Illinois recognized a religious marriage. The judge delayed his decision to allow Mr. McKenzie time to locate a case study that overturned the 1953 case. Mr. McKenzie advised me to hire an Illinois lawyer to research the case. Excuse me? I had already paid Mr. McKenzie $2,500. I could not afford another lawyer. If he felt I should pay him more, I would have. Whether Mr. McKenzie researched case studies I will never know, but I suspect he did not. Within the next several days, the judge denied our Motion to Dismiss. I was forced to go through a divorce, though I was not legally married and I never lived in South Carolina. Furious doesn't even begin to describe my feelings. I am not dismissing Mr. McKenzie's skills. I do feel he knows his stuff. However, in my case, he dropped the ball which was devastating to myself and my future.