Shelley A. Kester

I went to Shelley based on recommendations from others. I went in there blind as to how the process of divorce/child custody worked. She took it all in stride, explained the process thoroughly and I felt very comfortable with her expertise. She was confident as to how to approach the other team and ...how to make it amicable as possible. And to move it along as quickly as possible. When my divorce was final, I was happy with her service, the smoothness of the process and the outcome of the settlement. Her support staff was great too - they were relaxed when working with me and very thorough as well.

Shelley Kester was amazing! She helped me with all of my child custody issues and handled my divorce. She was incredible in the courtroom and can stand up to any lawyer out there. She looks out for your best intrests and does not settle for anything less. Through this process she has helped me be...come a stronger person who with her is able to handle any situation that comes my way. I feel that says a lot about not only her as a lawyer, but as a person. She genuinely cares for you and your situation. I would recommend her and have to several people. She's great!

I believe that it was this site and her high reviews that made me make the decision to go with Ms. Kester as my divorce attorney. Overall I cannot say that I would have been better off with another attorney but I did have some issues with this attorney. Interestingly her secretary at that time told ...me they were not taking new cases but they changed their mind when I told them about our assets of about $500K. One of my first problems was when I dropped off two copies of about 1000 pages of documents that related to my wife's attorneys 'discovery'. Those documents were to be sent to my wife's attorney immediately. Three months later I found out from my wife's attorney the documents were never provided. The secretary told me that they had had some change over in personnel and that the documents were misplaced. I had to provide additional copies of documents that were already provided and it made me look poorly and uncooperative to the opposing attorney and my ex wife. Another issue I had was when Ms. Kester billed me for scanning and emailing these documents at her much higher service rate, when a secretary could have done that at half of the cost. Again these were documents that I had already provided once and had to again and that were late going to the opposing attorney. The next problem was that I was being double billed by their billing person, interestingly there were charges for the exact same service that were on the end of one months bill were then being billed on the beginning of the next months bill. I brought this to their attention and corrections were made. There was a changeover in the billing person as well that probably led to confusion but some of these errors being made were just sloppy accounting as far as I could see. I also noticed charges for looking at emails were made for emails not sent and I was charged for a telephone consult that never happened. Again these corrections were made in my bill but not until after I brought these to their attention. Putting me in this position as a client is not at all comfortable and I was concerned it would negatively impact the lawyer client relationship so I decided to wait on making further billing complaints. This was a mistake as I didn't realize it but there was a clause in the contract I signed with Ms. Kester that stated I had a certain number of days to contest any charge and if I did not contest it in the proper time then I would have to pay it whether it was correct or not. That is what happened in the end. Another problem that cost me over $2000 was in regards to my Michigan Teacher retirement account. Ms. Kester failed to file the correct paperwork with the judge and consequentially what went to the Michigan Office of Retirement Services was not acceptable. As an attorney specializing in divorce cases I assumed she would have experience with that and if she did not she would investigate it properly. The information was easily accessible online at the ORS website. This cost me in several months of reduced pension benefit, plus the attorney costs in correcting this in having the judge sign the proper paperwork. All in all my divorce experience was miserable. On the upside Ms. Kester did not do anything dishonest or counsel me to do so, though this seemed to be no problem for my wife's attorney who was also from Traverse City. She is intelligent but needs to be more conscientious about her individual client and make sure she is correctly wording documentation going before the judge. She also needs to check on her staff to make sure they are doing their job properly. She seemed to have a high turnover rate in staff which would make me apprehensive about going with this attorney. I cannot recommend this lawyer but she is probably better than most. My best advice is to find someone experienced and knowledgeable that will help you mediate a settlement and have in place before one of you even files for divorce and include the settlement with the filing paperwork.

My fiancé and I went through an ugly break up and to ensure my rights to be an active father figure for my son I knew I'd need a family law firm to represent me. I heard decent things about shelly being a good attorney so I contacted her office. Upon arrival at her nice office I was nicely greeted an...d taken into a board room to discuss my case and details about myself. I was given an incredible sales pitch by Shelley as she told me she was a "pitbull" and doesn't back down from anyone and that she would get me the 50/50 custody I was seeking. The initial cost of service just to discuss my case was expected as it was around $200 for me to talk to her. I had some financial help from my family to be able to pay for everything. My initial retainer fee was $3500, which I thought was average and it is, however two weeks later(after approximately 6 documents were filed) I was told my trust was diminished and that I had to put another $3500 in. I was shocked, not only had I NOT seen Shelley ONCE, but the 6 documents cost me $3500. This continued to be the case the rest of my experience with Wilson/Kester. I was never represented one time by the attorney that I was paying premium rates to, instead I was represented by a new understudy of Shelley. I didn't see any real results, instead I was told to settle over and over for results that I couldn't accept. I learned that in the process of child custody, its all about paperwork, just because an attorney charges insane rates doesn't mean that they are better then another. Just because an attorney "talks the talk" doesn't mean that she is better then any of the others in town. I ended up signing off on her firm because the results were not even remotely close to equaling the financial burden caused by her firm to be represented by an understudy and not the person I SIGNED to have represent me. After a 5 month custody battle, in which I was represented in court 4 times(none of them by Shelley) and $10,000 dollars(literally) in expenses my ex and I came to a mutual settlement and later reconciled, two months after the case was closed and I had already paid $10,000 for a case that should not have cost more then $5000, I received YET ANOTHER bill for $3000. I will say, Shelley is probably a very good divorce attorney, but if you are looking for a representation for child custody, look elsewhere because there are 100 other attorneys that can file paperwork just as effectively, and for less then half the cost.