Abby Rose Rubenfeld

I was devistaed the day I found out my husband had a girlfriend. I had known him since I was 15yrs old. We were married 33yrs. He was 54, I was 51 and his girlfriend was 35. I had worked throughout our marriage and we had raised 3 successful children. The youngest had just finished college and all o...f them were on their own. I always assumed this would be the stage in my life that my husband and I would start to travel and enjoy this new chapter so his affair totally blindsided me. After my discovery I was in shock for a few days. My cousin recommended Abby because she was so pleased with Abby’s representation during her custody case a few years earlier. I called and got an appointment for two days later. I’ll never forget walking into Abby’s office that first day. I have friends and family but when you go through a divorce you do it alone. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I had no idea what to do about my home, bills, taxes, dogs, bank accounts, and the list goes on. These were things I had worked decades to build. Abby was caring and listened to my situation but she made it clear that her job was to represent me and make sure I was awarded what was rightfully mine. I could not see past the moment and Abby was already thinking about my future. When the appointment was over I walked out of Abby’s office and onto the office front porch. The sun was shining and I did not feel alone anymore. I started thinking about my life going forward. In the months that followed I always felt like a priority to Abby and her team even though it is a busy practice. Kim and Joan were amazing! Everyone was great about communicating with me. When it was finally over I was beyond pleased with the outcome of our settlement. I was financially secure and hopeful for the future!

Hired Abby for my divorce which should have been settled very quickly as neither myself of my spouse were fighting over anything. She would never contact the other attorney and only time I ever heard from her is when I needed to deposit more money into my account. She will not communicate by phone ...and every email is charged as 0.1 hours. At $350 and hour, this can easily add up very quickly and still nothing gets done. I finally terminated her as my attorney and self-represented....I negotiated a settlement and my divorce was final in less than three months.

I hired her for my divorce and custody case. She charged the consultation fee and a retainer that seemed to good to be true. But then once my case was active I rarely heard from her, she always had "staff issues", going through numerous receptionists and paralegals, she ignored my emails and her staf...f was rude and actually said "Abby doesn't communicate with her clients by phone, you'll need to email". Her paralegal Kari was the only helpful one and the only one that seemed to know what was happening in my case but she too always made excuses for why I didn't hear from Abby.

This attorney represented me (or should I say misrepresented) in 1999 when I was splitting up with my partner. I felt that she would do a better job than most given that my situation involved a gay relationship and being in Nashville, which isn't exactly accepting or workable when it comes to gay iss...ues. When I met Abby, she was extremely rude and questioned my version of things. Given it had taken several weeks to meet with Abby since she was out of town when I initially tried to secure her services and I was being harassed at work by my ex's attorney, I was desperate for action at that point and went ahead and hired her. Time went on, and nothing seemed to be getting done. Her office staff was rude, even yelling at me once (no lie), whenever I called for a status check. I was ultimately told that she was in contact with the other attorney to arrange a time to recover my belongings, but I later found out that was a lie. When I caught her on it, she quit, leaving me to find another attorney. I think Abby's strategy is to take on as many cases as she can and only put effort in the cases that financially mean the most to her. She'll take any case to make an extra buck hoping she can get away with the lack of effort and expend them if the client gives her too much trouble.