Holly Davidson Schuttler

After thousands of dollars over many months, I can think of few if any positives from my experience with working with Ms. Shuttler. Unfortunately, there are many negatives. She appears bright, and is probably effective in a cooperative, respectful divorce. When it comes to dealing with a contentious ...spouse and lawyer, she was largely ineffective. She never really developed a strategy or gameplan. She was reactive and continuously left me on the defense. She made some very large errors that were easily avoidable and were very costly in terms of money and stress. At one point, the opposing attorney sent a letter intended for me with complex questions. Ms. Shuttler never forwarded the letter to me and the opposing lawyer filed a Contempt of Court motion against me for not responding. Ms. Shuttler billed me for reading and responding to the letter; however, despite numerous requests, she never sent me her correspondence. She obviously never replied to the inquiry and unethically billed me. Overall, her communication was woefully inadequate. During some weeks, I emailed her three times without a response, sometimes literally begging for a reply. It once took her over two weeks to respond to my multiple email requests. I seriously believe she has too many clients and cannot adequately keep track of them all or provide sufficient attention to any one client. The only emails I received in a timely manner were the biweekly bills. Speaking of bills, there was continuous churning with no gain. There were many charges for "cursory reviews" of documents or letters, or discussions with other parties that added nothing to my case. On several occasions, she discussed an action that she intended to take and she never followed through. Other times, I instructed her not to take an action and she did the opposite. She charges $450/hour, but the service really is not worth $200. Divorce is stressful enough...to have an attorney that is only adding to the stress level is not worth it. I finally fired her and my stress level dramatically decreased and more was accomplished in a couple weeks than in the previous half year with her.