Timothy Colie Houck

We hired Mr Houck back in 2010 to handle a time-sharing modification, our case ended in mid-2013 (the length of the case was not due to him). In this time, we have paid him a total of eight thousand dollars - well above the agree amount. There is no communication from Mr Houck even if you send a mill...ion emails, and leave numerous voice mails. When requesting phone conferences, he forgets and only gives you 5 minutes of him time and in the end says "email me the details", and then never responds to the emails until you physically sit down with him and he then reads and goes over the emails. The first time we went to court, he never showed up and had to phone in - which the judge thankfully allowed. His excuse was that his PA didn't put it on his calendar - which tells me he was not preparing for the hearing in the first place. He does not return phone calls or emails, and he is not informed about our personal case until we give him a brief review. I give him a 2-star because he did find a loop hole in the opposite Attorney's paperwork and he did win our case, but we did a lot of the paper work and research ourselves, he just had to file it and review so he knew what to argue. I called him after 11 months of not hearing any update on our case because I saw online there was a hearing on the judges calendar. 4 weeks later I finally got a hold of his PA and she informed me that they would have let us know the week prior - not considering that I have to arrange to take off work to attend the hearing. At the end of last year we advised him we will need to set up a payment plan to prepare for trial - a year later and trial now over with we were sent a bill payment due in full immediately. When we reminded him that we agreed to a payment plan his response was "payment plans are usually paid prior to trial, and since the trial is now over, payment is due immediately". If we thought we could pay a few thousands dollars at the drop of a hat I wouldn't have asked for a payment plan! I do not recommend him for any matter. He is not considerate of anyone's schedule, anyone's personal finances, and he does not stick to his promises or prior commitments.

I hired Mr. Houck to modify my divorce settlement (to amend vague language for time sharing). I paid him up front the amount which he assured me would cover through the trial. In over a year he called me twice and this was after I called and left multiple messages and emailed repeatedly asking for ...a phone call. As we approached the trial date he was less responsive. One week before the trial was to begin I emailed that I needed to speak with him. That was on a Monday with trial to begin the following Monday. His PA emailed that he would call me on Thursday. I responded that this was not acceptable and she said that he was busy. The next day I emailed again that I must speak with him. I was told he would call me that evening. He never called. On Tuesday the PA informed me that I owed $1500 in order to go to trial as they had used up my original payment. My ex-wife began saying she would settle so I emailed Mr. Houck that I would wait to see if she would sign the settlement before paying the trial amount, which was above my original agreement with Mr. Houck. His PA then emailed me that the amount was past due and needed to be paid before further work was done. This was communicated to me FIVE days before the trial was to begin. That hour I hired a new attorney who is excellent! Upon hiring the new attorney I discovered that Mr. Houck had done nothing except file for my court date. No documents were filed with the court, no witnesses, no depositions. Prior to hiring a new attorney I received the settlement documents and there were seven typos in the document. I informed them that there were typos and his PA emailed me back to please identify the typos. Quite frankly the worst lawyer experience I could imagine. He was non responsive, never called me unless I sent harsh emails, he was completely unprepared and he misrepresented his fees. Under no circumstances would I recommend Mr. Houck for any reason.