Pamela Ann Vandel

I went through several attorneys in my home town of Ames before exploring the options in Des Moines, and then was sorry I had not discovered her earlier. Finally, a lawyer who returns phone calls, listens carefully, and has the intelligence to understand every nuance of an ugly family dispute. She ha...s two PhDs and a law degree, and for my situation, she was pure gold. I was up against a vindictive, cunning ex-wife who would stop at nothing to get revenge, including harming our own children. In court she was convincing, strong, reasoned, and she won, setting new precedent in child support law as she did so. As I see the reviews on this web site I am reminded of how easy it is to blame the attorney for the outcome of any case. Or praise them to the sky when things swing the right way. If you ignore all that, the takeaway is this: Pamela Vandel is a very intelligent and principled person who knows family law better than any of half a dozen Iowa attorneys I've worked with. And she returns phone calls.

Pam lost $7,500.00 in payments we paid to her. She double charged us for mileage, misadded time to her financial benefit and changed statements after she sent them out to demand more money. Any time we had a credit balance on our statement she'd claim there were errors in order to eat up the credit b...alance and make it so we owed her. She provided incorrect court dates. Failed to attend a mediation hearing due to serious illness but her office did nothing to contact us about it. We had to contact her office to find out why she was a no show. She was VERY passive and just sits there and doesn't say anything in trial court. AND she has horrible hearing loss and can't hear testimony in corut. She didn't ask any follow up questions or question witnesses to help our case. We would have done better to represent ourselves. She didn't research or have us research judgments that would have proven the other party was lying on the stand. She accused us of only going to court because of money. Pam acted like we were the bad guys eventhough we had proof the mother was writing pornography with photos on Facebook that showed up on the childs Facebook page. The mother discussed my 13 year old childs menstrual cycle on facebook . The mother allowed her friends to call my 13 yr old daughter a b!*ch on facebook and accuse my daughter of having STD's . On the stand the mother said my 13 year old daughter thought it was funny. Pam didn't ask questions to cooborrate other witness testimony. We had proof the mother and husband were having drug parties and the husband was charged with 2 counts of armed with intent , and a count of arson all pending. But at trial she focused on an issue that we didn't have documented proof of. Pam was also stunned that the other party lied on the stand. She has no idea on how to present social media evidence and doesn't seem to want to bother with it. After the outcome she accused me of being bitter about the case. Losing a case is never ideal. But my sole bitterness was her unprofessional and passive conduct, lack of initiative and borderline fraudulent client billing and payment statements. She also said our case would not pass the 20,000 mark and by the end we paid 30,000 to her. And she urged us to take a settlement deal that created a huge payday for the drug addict, porn writing deadbeat of a mother. It seemed that she was truly representing the interest of the opposing party instead of us. She did the minimal amount to get by and fleeces her clients for everything they have. She also would make a payment arrangement and then increase the payment amounts or demand immediate payment and accused us of being late and threatened small claims eventhough she was changing the agreement she had with us. We paid her everything she asked for. We were idiots. She is VERY hostile if you question her statements or call her out on not following her own contract or arrangements made! If you want to lose your case and lose all your money, hire her. If you want a chance to win a case hire anyone else. I am reporting her conduct and fraudulent billing statements to the state bar association.

She represented us in a custody issue. We had a teen (diagnosed with oppositional defiant behavior) who was able to convince DHS that he needed to be made a CINA (Child In Need Of Assistance) . DHS made the child seem like a victim when in fact he was causing great disruption in the home. This a...ttorney did not even fight on our behalf. She was very passive and gave minimal advice. She allowed very damaging subjective lies to be stated about our character in court, and she did nothing to defend us. I would never recommend her to anyone. We would have done better to represent ourselves.