Alexandra Van Der Zee

Miss Van der Zee was hired by myself & my custody attny for the purpose of having a professional looking out specifically and only for the best interest of child(ren) stuck in the middle of a very long nasty custody battle drug on for years. To put this in perspective,my child’s other parent is: narc...issistic, angry, alcoholic/substance abuser, boiling temper, DUIs, probation, drugs, etc. He tells our child things like “you look like sh*t” - emotionally abusive things. This all would lead one to think this child needs protected. In summary, Alexandra spent maybe 6hrs over the course of a year 1/2 on my case. She did not do her job. She made reports late or mere hours before deadline, creating a frustrated magistrate. (After rescheduling 3x) She did two 30-45min visits at each household - 1 with child home, 1 without. She basically sat on my couch and looked tiresome; clearly she wasn’t invested, was just there to get the job done &off her plate & not think of it until the day before her report is due. After her late reports got exposed to the magistrate, she immediately became 100% unavailable to me after my attorney took appropriate action to address her lazy careless late “report”. I had serious concerns my child was telling me about that she needed to be made aware of; but she would NOT reply to my DOZENS of texts/cals/voicemails/emails. I didn’t understand it. She was retaliating perhaps since my attny brought her lazy work ethic to light. I NEVER got a word back from her with trial ahead!…AFTER trial she wanted more money & was chatty cathy. I also discovered she was consistently in contact often with my child’s dad, while she fully ignored me. She then shifted her report to reflect negatively on me (nothing about me for her to use, so she went after my family member instead whom she never met, &hadn’t even seen my child for nearly 6 months - my child told her they’re close & have a great friendship.. nothing she did made sense!) then glowingly positive about my child’s abusive father. My child told her in confidence about his dad’s temper, yelling/hitting, being scared of him & HUNGRY, but too afraid to ask for food OR even leave his room in fear of bumping into his dad: 3 DUIs, court ordered rehab, stalker, harasser, bully to me & my family, stalks people I get acquainted with, gossips, lies & smears my name all over town for years, manipulates my relationships with family members/ friends… I mean this guy is just bad and very troubled. And this woman heard these things, yet gave my child NO help. His confidence in her was wasted, his trust for adults like her wrecked. Because of her disregard of ethical & moral duties for children she is sent to protect &give a voice to, he is with his father now so much more that it has changed him entirely and maybe irreparably - his school counselor even reached out to to ask about him. Van der Zee helped give my child’s dad control & time over our son & his well being / safety when he should be back in rehab, take anger management, intense therapy, etc. No child should suffer in their own home. Thanks to Alexandra’s incompetence, one of my worst fears as a parent came true and i live it daily, worrying for my child’s safety & well-being. So, no, do not hire this particular “professional” unless you want your child to be totally ignored, & later hurt & struggling with a parent who doesn’t know how to express/process emotion, show love or care, and harden his young heart. Kids shouldn’t have to be in these situations. Shame on her for failing my child - what she’s done is a disgrace & a crime against a pure normal honest sweet innocent big hearted kid. This gal should be away from vulnerable kids until she can do her job correctly & effectively, with CARE, investigating both homes unbiased, thoroughly, coming to a valid conclusion being fair and mostly in favor of a “child’s best interest” - (family court’s favorite phrase).

It would be difficult to express how awful she was. My husband and I went to her with a very simply uncontested divorce. We were in agreement on everything and, although she could legally only represent one of us and we chose him, he made it clear to her that I was to be looped in on everything and t...hat this was collaborative. She continuously created problems where there were none, sent messages to him only, and asked me to leave the room when she spoke to him. When I called her out on it, she said that she was just "serving her client" even though her client was instructing her differently. She simply refused to consider this process collaborative. Even though we needed little more than paperwork done, she drew this process out for over six months without even filing a single thing. Her responses would take weeks and would simply say that she was "working on it" when there was nothing to work on. I got very upset at her several times during this process and it didn't change anything. Finally, she got the documents prepared for filing. My husband went in and signed and I went in separately. After signing the second to last form, she decided that she didn't like the tone I had with her and that she simply wasn't going to file it. Over six months of back and forth with this woman, Lord knows how much billing, and nothing but attitude and excuses from her, and she decides to simply not continue when I went in to sign the last document and told me to leave her office. I called my husband and told him what was going on. He called Alex and attempted to resolve the matter with her and she refused him as well, telling him that she wasn't going to "deal with me". Imagine refusing to file your client's divorce when everything was agreed upon because you "didn't like the tone" of the opposing party. We only chose her because she was a participating attorney in a legal insurance policy that we have. My husband was dumb enough to use her simultaneously in the process of legally adopting my adult daughter and she completely screwed that up as well. They got all the way to the final hearing and she didn't do her job so the case was dismissed. TLDR: My husband hired her to file an uncontested divorce and an adult stepchild adoption. He is neither divorced nor the legally adopted father.

Bad experience overall she’s a nice person but .. “lack of communication” did not care about my case. Also came to a hearing unprepared Which caused a delay in my case and charged almost 400 bucks for an 1 page doc that was LATE. Also charged an outstanding price for little to no work done. My ca...se was very simple. She also charges whatever price she feels like charging and does not have a price list.

This lawyer was hired by my son's father while in custody court with him. She went to his house once with out our son being there and once with our son there. Although she was not supposed to know which party asked for her, it was very aparent that after sleeping with my son's dad she was very biased.... She would email, call, and have in person conversations with my x and his mother, and have no communication with me, she didn't even give me a copy of her decision like she is supposed to do. I found that out the day she was to read it in court. She also does not care about the children involved, my son and daughter have spent their whole lives together, and now my daughter only gets to see her brother for less than 24 hours every other week. Do not hire, and if given this attorney by the courts, request a new one.