Daniel Martin Copeland

Mr. Copeland had been my atty of record for several years. He did get an income deduction order written on my behalf, but failed to realize that only a few months later it was negated by other orders after the state prosecuted on my behalf for large delinquencies. Additionally, he never mentioned t...o me that new legislation was put into place that would not longer permit support deductions to be taken as he had worded the order. He was supposed to have filed a petition for reimbursement of un-reimbursed medical expenses for my special needs son. He never filed that. Mr. Copeland did bring to my attention that it was necessary to petition the court to determine the amount of extended support my special needs son would continue to get (it was already ordered that he would get extended support, but no amount had been determined) and that it must be filed prior to his 18th birthday in May 2015. Mr. Copeland had a hearing set, but missed so many other pieces of the process that the June 2015 hearing wound up being cancelled at the last minute (and AFTER I had booked my last minute flight). Fortunately, I was able to hire Shane Herbert from Combs/Greene, who was able to salvage the Petition (otherwise I would have lost the option to request extended support for my son) and Mr. Herbert helped us to settle in mediation so that we did not even have to have a hearing. Mr. Herbert did a great job at coordinating out of state expert witnesses and making sure that the method of payment on the continued support would not put my son's disability benefits in jeopardy in Virginia. These were two of many issues that Mr. Copeland seemed not to be able to understand and navigate, I called Mr. Copeland's office on many occasions to let him know of my questions and concerns, he refused to return my calls for months at a time and made many feeble excuses for his lack of effort when he would give me the courtesy of a return call. Mr. Copeland spoke as though he was going to ferociously fight to win my case. In reality, he never stepped up to the plate to help me at all. My $$ was wasted and my legal matter was a catastrophe. I would not recommend him to anyone that needed help with a Family Law matter.