Michael P. Haddock

Michael Haddock

Thank you for the review it is always helpful to see all perspectives especially from customers east of the Jackson/Lansing area. We are sorry you are unhappy. Generally, it is not the involvement of children that makes a divorce simple or difficult, instead it is often the reasonableness and communication abilities of the divorcing parties. A party can pick up a copy of their certified divorce judgment at the court. Our records show you called after the entry of your divorce judgment and demanded Mr. Haddock drive to the courthouse to obtain a certified copy of the divorce judgment for you. Mr. Haddock suggested you could pick up a copy or wait until the next time he was in court and this made you upset. Maybe it was a mistake, but we try to be efficient as a way to keep our expenses low. This case was filed in Jackson County Circuit Court and readers can go on-line and see the docket entries in both Probate and Circuit Court. After 18 years of doing divorces yours is certainly not the first but may be the last divorce of this nature our firm will engage in as we are moving towards more of a collaborative based divorce practice. Divorces can be emotional and those who have communication and other difficulties driven by decades of anger often incur years of stress and expense in the traditional litigation process. Unfortunately, in those cases 14-15 months is not uncommon. As part of a collaborative process we take out the litigation and provide the opportunity to team with mediators, counselors, psychologists, accountants, therapists, and other professionals improving communication. Mr. Haddock, a mediator since 2007, finds value in resolving the underlying issues that lead to a protracted divorce. Our records show you received months of free legal services between September of 2017 through the trial date and entry of a judgment in March of 2018. Mr. Haddock, an attorney and mediator, worked for free for you because he thought your husband was acting unethically by delaying your divorce with wasteful probate court petitions attempting to challenge competency. In some respect you are correct, Mr. Haddock treats every divorce as if it were is first even to the extent of working for free when the system/process fails his client. While our firm put well over $9,600 in time into the case we did not receive the $9,600 total you alleged to have paid because over $3,000 of that amount was unpaid (free) legal services. We hope you find peace and are sorry you are unhappy even after your divorce. Most of our clients are appreciative of months of free legal services in exchange for simply driving to the court to pick up a certified copy of their own divorce judgment. But after nearly 18 years of divorce experience (as both an attorney and mediator) this case was a good reminder that each case is as unique as the emotions and the people involved. Mr. Haddock appreciates the feedback and will review the handling of your divorce case and seek to improve processes and communications where the need exists and apply the improvements to future matters.