S Maria Shiloh Averill

I had the WORST experience with Maria Averill. Maria Averill was very good upfront with selling me on her experience and ability to help. She was prompt and courteous before hired. She asked for a large retainer and then failed to communicate with me, emails and requests were just ignored, she billed... me for more than half of the retainer within the first 6 months, in which nothing but a piece of paper had been filed. She was rude when I did speak to her (I spoke to her assistant most of the time as she seemed to constantly be on vacation when I called). She was combative and very unprofessional at times (tried to prove me wrong when I pushed about issues with my case or my account). Getting any statement of account was nearly impossible and she created billable hours for anything to burn through the hefty retainer she requested. If I had not continuously persisted to get answers I am not sure she would have ever pursued any legal action in a timely manner. The work completed by her office is sloppy and often full of typos. She is either overloaded or she is just lazy. I don't know if any lawyer is decent and divorce is so difficult but do not hire this lawyer.

Maria Averill is dishonest and mishandled my case. She stated she would file a motion in court for a specific day- and she never did. My little children were known to be in danger and she did not even bother to request an emergency hearing. Maria and her legal assistant Savannah, at times were very r...ude as well. Maria took the entire 3000 retainer and charged for services she had never rendered. I will file a complaint with bar association and notify every group she is a member of. Maria's competence and due diligence was severely lacking. There were many, many thing that were mishandled including: a large issue with the way a domestic violence situation was reported to her, yet it got turned around on me! Many, many email from opposing counsel carelessly forwarded to me with no comment or question. Countless documents were produced with errors. Every time I pointed out errors I got stern emails from her office defending the quality of their work. In every case I would end up getting charged for correcting their errors. She also did not actually perform work she told me she had done. The billing situation is a mess and lastly, she never, not once discussed with me how the changing tax laws in 2019 would effect my case and how to strategize. There never was a strategy. After all of that I got fed up and fired her she ignored my requests for arranging to get my client file back.

I hired S Maria Shiloh Averill to represent me during my contentious divorce. I had the WORST experience with Ms. Averill. As if divorce isn’t emotional and difficult (especially when young kids are involved), Ms. Averill made my experience 10 times more difficult and painful. I found her to be very ...emotional for an attorney (not to be confused with being “passionate”). For example, she would get worked up over little, routine litigation matters. She was combative and very unprofessional at times (e.g., communicating with me via text messaging, meeting at her office, etc.). Moreover I complained that she kept creating unnecessary billable hours and failed to supervise her paralegal. This ended up in increased legal fees and associated costs. All said and done, Ms. Averill failed to provide the type of counsel and “capable service” one would expect from a divorce attorney. I wouldn’t recommend her at all.