Seth Walter Arkow

Do not hire this person to represent you for stark county family court! He was always unprepared. He had his secretary retype anything I provided him as evidence. What would have taken me 15 minute to edit, he had her rewrite charging me extra hours of time for the effort. I brought up the subjec...t of switching attorneys, but he said no one would take my case due to how far along into the divorce process as we were. He was a total con artist, promising me success and resulting in devastating failure. My ex got everything she wanted and more. I was awarded less visitation time with my children after the divorce was final than what I was receiving during the separation time before it was final. Financially, I was ruined. I'm embarrassed to say how much money I ended up paying this joker over the course of my case. Lastly, this guy made disparaging sexual references to me about various women who came up in our coversation. I politely changed the subject when he did. For example, he talked about the legs of a female professional involved in the case, and how he would totally bang her. This discussion was unprovoked by me. I never talked about such things.

Seth did a terrible job for me in family court. Honestly, I would have fared much better without an attorney. His incompetence cost me plenty, and not just the $10,000 I paid him. When it came time for court he refused to mount any defense at all. He missed one hearing altogether and showed up ab...out ten minutes before trial and told me he wouldn't discuss his strategy. I see why. He didn't have one. He made no effort to defend me. He then came out and told me the judge had basically made up her mind and it wouldn't be worthwhile to go ahead with the trial. He seemed more interested glad-handing with the opposing attorney. I'm so sorry I trusted him. I can't be more emphatic. DO NOT HIRE THIS CLOWN

I cannot emphasize enough at how utterly terrible my experience with this man was, I don't even want to call him an attorney. I went to him for a divorce and subsequently a QDRO filing so that I could receive my settlement. For the first month or so, he was responsive to my questions yet, generally... untimely and seemingly uninterested. I had to call in with multiple corrections on my paperwork on quite a few separate occasions. Upon confronting him with these issues he blamed his paralegal. He was not present for my hearing (after assurance that he would be). The worst part about my experience came after my divorce hearing as Seth assured me that he was knowledgeable and willing to file a QDRO for me so I may receive my divorce settlement. I paid that man for the QDRO immediately following the hearing. Seth said I should expect the paperwork within a couple of weeks. SIX months later I had called multiple times and left multiple messages through every possible means of communication! Not ONE word to me regarding my paperwork, nothing. Finally I was forced to set a new client appointment under a false name just to be able to have a conversation with him about the paperwork I paid him for! Once he realized it was me he had the tenacity to be angry with me! He proceeded to tell me that I could take my paperwork elsewhere. All because I wanted an update. The paperwork that he KNEW how to do and would only take a couple of weeks was still sitting in an untouched pile because he DID NOT know how to do it. I gave him another chance (because I was unsure on the process of contacting another attorney) to finish what he said he would finish. Again, he said by the end of the month he would have the paperwork finished and sent to me for review. A simple document that he needed to plug information into, this was to time consuming and difficult for him to complete. After this meeting I never spoke to Seth again, and not by choice. Again I tried to communicate with him in every way possible on a daily basis with absolutely no acknowledgement. EIGHT months I tried. I finally did contact another attorney, Seth was uncooperative with him. On top of this the newly hired attorney found that a portion of my filing fee from the actual divorce was returned to Seth on my behalf and never made its way into my hands. My new attorney filled out the paperwork AND had it filed in the courts within EIGHT DAYS of my retaining him. I waited almost two years for a divorce settlement which should have not taken any longer than ninety days from that date of my hearing.