Jeffrey Van Hawkins

In my three-year long divorce/custody case, the final hearing was rescheduled seven times, the last four times were while Hawkins was my lawyer. The last two rescheduling were to allow my ex-wife's primary witness to testify. The final hearing was scheduled for two days. Per my conversation ...with him (on day two), Hawkins had "car problems" on his way home from work the day before the first scheduled day of testimony in my case. Rather than take his car to a professional repair shop or make other transportation arrangements, he took his car to a "buddy" and they tried (and failed) to fix it themselves. Hawkins was a no-show for the first day of testimony. The Judge cancelled the entire day outright. I was required to pay my ex-wife's witness to reschedule for the following day of testimony. FYI, during conversations over the time he was my lawyer, Hawkins told me that he owns two cars personally, and his firm owns multiple cars. Rather than reschedule an eighth time, the Judge simply refused to allow my two rebuttal witnesses to offer any testimony... and my own time on the stand was limited to less than an hour (by comparison my ex-wife had four hours, and her primary witness had three hours). Hawkins failed to object to any of this. Even during the time I was on the stand, I had given Hawkins a list of issues I wanted to raise... he ignored it. My own testimony was limited to little more than "who are you? what is your background?". All throughout the second scheduled day, Hawkins refused to really discuss anything at all with me during the breaks... even when I demanded to know why he wasn't objecting or asking to reschedule so that my witnesses or myself could actually testify. The only response I could get out of Hawkins the second day was "we'll address the remaining issues in closing arguments"... and when the Judge decided against allowing oral closing arguments, Hawkin's response was "we'll do it in written arguments". A week later, I get a one-line email saying "Judge isn't accepting any further briefing / arguments". This was after paying him over $20,000 to represent me.

Mr Hawkins gave me poor and wrong advice through my whole divorce. 1. Advised me I could go through a different facility for assessment. Ultimately judge was very upset . 2. Forwarded several emails between me the client and Mr Hawkins to my ex husband's attorney clearly a breach of clientt attorney ...Confidentiality. Through custody trial he was looking at my notebook for questions to ask. You would think he should have been a little more prepared. An hour waiting in conference room before trial with my witnesses he was looking at a magazine talking.g about dogs. When he should have been prepping my witnesses. The court did not get nearly any facts of the case. Everything was all one asides one my ex s side. His lawyer was clear detailed. Do not use this attorney u will lose your house your child and he would not have a care in the world. Several more instances happen. I could write a book on how poor this atty was. Filing a complaint with the bar.