Steven Craig Goddard

After reading some of the reviews posted on this website, I only wish I had read them before I hired this attorney. Everything that has been said is true. I have waited months for answers to questions about my case and I am still waiting for him to reply. But I no longer wait. I only call the State o...f Florida and the Florida Bar when I need answers. Why is he still employed, I just don't know, it is a question of the ages.

You almost expectant to be ignored, lied to and victimized by your employer & work comp insurance adjuster. But by your own attorney whom you hired to look after your best interests? This is exactly what happened to me after I made the mistake of hiring Stephen Goddard to handle my work comp case.... He definitely said what I needed to hear during a point in my life where I was out of work, in pain and had no idea what to do next. The funny thing is, here I am a year later and still in the same situation. Not one time has he advocated for me in my time of need or even pointed me in the direction I need to go. Emails go unanswered. Questions are flat-out ignored, if you are "lucky enough" to get a vague cookie cutter response. Phone call back? LOL Yeah, right. Then I find out they have completely undervalued my case, as I questioned him all along, but was told I was wrong. No explanation why. Just told I was wrong. They don't even bother to keep your contact information up to date, even though you have copies of the ignored emails that were sent with new address and phone numbers. They keep sending time sensitive deposition and mediation notices to old addresses. Don't bother asking what is going on or for someone to explain anything, because it won't happen. Stephen didn't even bother to show up to a deposition that I drove (well....spouse drove) 7 hours to get to, because Stephen Goddard didn't keep my address updated. Oh....but the letter telling me of the deposition did get to me 3 DAYS before (after letter was dated and then postmarked 7 days after) What a joke. I am getting away while I can.

Just like the other client reviews on here, I had the worst experience with Steven. When I first hired him he promised to keep me informed of anything and everything going on with my workers comp case and that I was safe in his hands, that ended up being the biggest lie ever told to me. Not only ...did I have the hardest time getting in touch with him as he would not supply me with a direct line to contact him, whenever I spoke to his assistant Javier or Denise to have him contact me he would either not call me back or I had to follow up over a week later to which he would blame his assistants every time stating they never told him I called. After exchanging emails with his assistant Denise regarding getting all my paperwork updated and making sure he received everything I let her know over a month in advance that my back surgery had been set and that I would like to set up an appointment to meet Steven so we could make sure we were on the same page (I still did not receive any confirmation from him that he had any of my paperwork). After receiving no reply back a day before my surgery I got a text from Javier asking where I was because there was a mediation for me that day...was news to me. After speaking with Javier I let him know how upset I was that no one contacted me about any mediation (no email, mailed letter, or phone call), they blamed the assistant Denise and told me good luck with my surgery. Two days after my surgery I recieved another text from Javier asking where I was as there was a settlement meeting ( we had not even discussed any settlement terms or even had a face to face to prep me), again I had to call in tears and ask what was going on, more blaming each other and they even tried to blame me...that's when I finally knew Steven and his team were now a danger to my case. I had now missed two mediations with no knowledge of them, given them dates for my surgery which none of them remembered and no call from my Lawyer Steven Goddard to follow up on this enormous miss of theirs. I should have ended everything right there but was alone and scared and in physical pain so I just didn't know how to handle all this. More incidences like this accord in the following month and I had finally had it. I contacted his main law firm to speak about receiving a new lawyer to represent me. I was promised a follow up call from the head of his Ft. Myers office, when no call came I called back again a week later with the same complaint, I want a new lawyer from you guys. Their response was to send me a letter almost two weeks later saying I was being dropped as a client AND btw we set up a mediation date for you so good luck with that...in the year and a half I had to deal with Steven he had done absolutely nothing to aid me in my case but as soon as I asked for a new lawyer he managed to get himself removed from my case and set up a mediation in a matter of hours. Just shows you where his accountability and client care really stands. I will not speak ill of the major law firm he works for as I can't speak for the way they do things, but I will say if you are ever assigned this man from them if I were you I would think twice. He is rated 3.2 out of 5 on his own companies website by his own peers and is even lower here on the client reviews list. He showed no interest in me or my case and left me with to suffer alone.