If you are suffering from mental health issues as a result of an abusive marriage, & have been diagnosed with ptsd, depression, anxiety, etc., I implore you to not use this attorney. If there is anything about you or your case that isn’t cut-and-dry or easy, she will put you on the back burner but s...till take your money. Any abuse you have suffered at the hands of your stbx will not matter to this attorney.
I was coming out of a psychologically and emotionally abusive marriage. My mental health issues made it hard to get back to work after being a stay-at-home mom for several years. I was essentially broken, but still needing help moving forward with my divorce.
After our second in-person meeting, I was made to feel as if my mental health issues were a burden to her and that she wasn’t experienced in working with clients that have been diagnosed with depression, ptsd, etc. Besides my ex-husband, I have never had another individual make me feel as ashamed about my mental health issues as this attorney did.
Overall, Amanda treated my case as if it were unimportant. Weeks would go by with zero correspondence. After failing to communicate critical correspondence between opposing council & myself, which resulted in an expensive and pointless mediation, Amanda flat refused to take accountability for her negligence.
When asked point blank why she dropped the ball in my case, she resorted to blame shifting by telling me that she was “hesitant to take my case to begin with because she didn’t think i would listen” (to her). She was specifically referring to the fact that i couldn’t immediately find gainful employment. Had she listened to me or agreed to talk to my mental health providers as I’d suggested numerous times, she might have understood the challenges that I was facing. She might have been able to grasp that you just can’t “shake off” debilitating depression, anxiety & ptsd. None of this mattered to her.
I spent about 10k with her firm and absolutely nothing moved forward in my case.
She will overcharge & pad your bill. You will send emails with important information, receive zero reply, but still get charged.
Among other things, I was also told by Amanda that the assigned judge in our case “isn’t going to care if your daughter is lgbtq”. I was told the judge “Isn’t going to care about your husband’s sexual addiction” (& how it has effected me & my daughter). I was told our judge would “chew me a new one for being unemployed”. It was like being told to fit a mold or you won’t stand a chance with this judge. Backstory: my daughter spent a week in a mental hospital due to the issues she was experiencing in middle school at that time.
She ultimately made me feel helpless, stupid & the entire experience was retraumatizing. In the end, I had to ask several times for my case file (which completely tracks).