Anthony Bennie Marchese

We hired Mr. Marchese to help us rectify an adoption that had gone terribly wrong (we are the birth family). He was the only lawyer who agreed to take our case, so we had no choice among attorneys. Mr. Marchese explained on the phone what our possible avenues of redress would be. He required $15,000,... nonrefundable, up front and drew up an agreement stating all the things he would do. We said OK despite the big price tag because we were desperate to help our grandson, whom we were convinced had been placed in a very bad home. After our first phone conversation, Mr. Marchese immediately called our adoption agency to ask what the situation was with our case and get some specifics. A couple of days later I had some questions for him and was hesitating a little about hiring him (had not signed an agreement yet). But he insisted that, with the phone call he made to the agency, he was already representing us and we were obligated to hire him. He insisted the $15K be overnighted to him. The day after we sent the money, we found out that the whole adoption situation had changed. The adoption agency called us to say that the boy was no longer with that family, but had been handed off to a new family. They, in turn, had their own lawyer, who told us within a week or two that if we used Mr. Marchese's services they would shut down any possibility of working with us or letting us ever see our grandson. So we had to tell Mr. Marchese to stand down--we had to somehow go it alone. Even though Mr. Marchese put in only a handful of hours on our behalf, and even though the entire situation we had hired him to address had immediately changed to make legal remedies impossible, Mr. Marchese chose to keep the entire $15,000 fee. To enforce the "nonrefundable" nature of the fee in this case seems to take advantage of desperate people This was all very painful--we now had no lawyer, no assistance, no grandson, and no $15K. I sent Mr. Marchese a couple of letters and emails asking him to consider a partial refund, since basically none of the things mentioned in our agreement letter ever got done due to the vastly changed situation. He never responded.