Rosemary Gross Rubin

This attorney provided representation in our divorce; our marriage was under 4 years with no kids. I am semi-retired; my business is in real estate; we acquired our marital residence and a rental home, and 2 used cars during the marriage, which is essentially all the significant assets that should h...ave been at stake. We have similar middle-class incomes, so there were no spousal-support claims. Wife filed the divorce, and husband did not counter-sue her, but simply defended his assets; wife brought no financial assets into the marriage. Wife sued husband for close to $100K, representing her perception of real estate equity of husband's investments along with her attorney fees to be paid by the husband. Although Rubin subpoenaed all real estate mortgage documents, Rubin missed the obvious that substantial mortgage debt was originated during the marriage, negating any assumed positive real estate equity, and instead leaving each party liable for half of the actual negative real estate equity of over $90K; Rubin had used her own appraiser for valuations but that did not help; she just didn't do the simple math to subtract marital mortgage debt from appraised property values when the appraisals came in over 6 months before trial. Rubin dragged the case out to being 15 months long, ending in an absurd 3 day trial, instead of a simple 1 day trial, designed primarily to run up attorneys' billable hours for their clients. To increase her in-court time she even had an "expert witness" attorney appear in trial strictly to support her attorney fees, a tactic that may have ethically worked against the best interests of the client. Rubin failed to research appropriate real estate case law to support her case; the bill from Rubin was over $20K.