Bert Whitehead IV

Bert Whitehead

This person did not provide a name, and I am not sure who this is or how long ago this was. We have not had "trials" for months now due to pandemic, and I have never showed up to any "trial" with no documents. Without knowing who it is, it is difficult to properly respond. However, clearly this client was not happy with the results of his case and for that, I do regret. There are always two sides to any story, but I can't actually give any more details without knowing who this was. Even if I knew who it was, I wouldn't use this as an opportunity to criticize a former client. I do acknowledge that sometimes mistakes have been made, and perhaps there were mistakes in this case, such as with not entering our appearance timely or putting his or her first hearing on our calendar so we could attend the first hearing. I can assure that if we did not attend, then we also did not charge for the hearing. I can only say that this person's experience was apparently not a good one, and for that I do apologize. However, this person's experience is also clearly NOT the experience of 99% of my clients who have loved our services, felt that I was an extremely knowledgeable and competent family law (and other type of law) attorney, and most of our business is based on referrals. I will continue to try to do better, improve our services and capability to serve clients, fix mistakes, ensure new clients do not experience any of the problems of prior clients, and will continue our mission to provide free legal advice and affordable legal help to lower- and moderate-income people. That is our mission, and I do not agree at all that I take advantage of the low income who are at their lowest; quite the opposite. And although this person likely did pay substantially less for our services (generally 40-60% less costs than typical legal services), he or she clearly did not get the value that he or she expected, and for that I'm sorry. I do hope we can help this client again and make it up to them, and that other prospective clients will give us a chance to give them the kind of experience, value, and professionalism that thousands of our other clients have experienced, including hundreds who have given us very positive reviews. I do appreciate the feedback, though, and have shared with my staff so that we can ensure that we are doing everything we can to give the best service possible, be the most prepared for any hearing or trial, and to help our clients achieve their legal and personal goals in life. I wish this client the best in the future, and I do personally apologize for any of our failures; we will do our best to never repeat them. Thank you.