David C McFarland

My husband and I unfortunately had to go cheap on a lawyer for bankruptcy, so we picked the cheapest we could find. How bad can you mess up a cut and dry chapter 7, right? Wrong. We met with him, felt confident enough, and paid a retainer. He said if we get everything to him and filled out all th...e paperwork we could be filed in as little as 2 weeks; this was Janurary. It took me about 3 weeks to get everything done and I turned it all in. The next week he called us and told us we were missing this piece of paperwork. I swore I put it in there, but it was a lot of leg work and maybe I over looked it, so I got it to him. During this month I finally got a job, which I had been without for over a year with no unemployment, so we knew we had to hurry a little. I didn't hear from him for almost 2 weeks so I called to see what was up. His paralegal was out of town and couldn't do the paperwork, she'd be back in 2 days. I got a call from her saying she needed more paperwork that was in there. I again drove it down to Mcfarland's. Then he needed my check stubs and I needed to do the worksheet over. We were now into almost 7 weeks since we paid the retainer and a month after we turned in the paperwork. I figured we were set until again I didn't hear anything for almost 2 weeks. I called to see what was up. David called me back and told me he had his Email hacked and had to switch emails after I just scanned in a ton of paychecks and sent it to him. No one informed us, to this day I don't know who got to see my personal info. I had to physically drive them down from Clinton again inbetween working 5 days a week an hour and a half away from my house. Then the missing paperwork began again and needing things updated with checks because he was taking so long. Then the week we should have been filed I don't hear anything, so I call again. I find out his paralegal is in the hospital, it'll be next week. Next week comes, nothing, I give it another week. I call and find out she's had a stroke now and won't be returning. Now we're in this too far since it's April so I don't want to drop him to start all over. I start calling every two days to see where we're at. Finally on May 5th, we're filed, 3 1/2 months after our paperwork was turned in. Then we have court in the middle of June. He tells us to dress poor and don't look nice. My husband and I are educated people, my family are all police officers, we were taught you don't disrespect the court, ever. We came in non expensive, respectful clothes and he was angry. Well, we didn't get granted our 7 right then and there. The trustee wanted to dig through our entire life and was going to take my measley $3500 retirement I had in a 403B from a job I had 2 years prior. David wrote the most pathetic letter to the trustee on our behalf, not begging or adding that I'm now pregnant, or how we still make $50000 less than we used to combined, just a "my clients would not like to go to this second meeting" (I can't remember the # name of it). I wrote the trustee on our behalf. The trustee let us have our 7, but it wasn't because of David. So let this be a lesson, read reviews, spend a little more when it comes to lawyers.