Catherine Zamora Cartee

If a zero rating were possible, that's how I would rate this lawyer. I hired Ms. Cartee to represent me in a long term marriage of almost 40 years, based on her reputation in the community. She knew from the beginning it would be complicated because my Ex is a controlling, emotionally and financial...ly abusive, convincing liar who is familiar with the court system. She makes tough sounding statements: "We're going to make him jump through some hoops." "If he lies, he'll have to answer to it." Unfortunately, there is nothing to back up these one liners and the only one jumping through hoops was me. I provided the all of the discovery, including documents requested by Ex's attorney of which he had full access-another way to keep me jumping through hoops. He lied about money and although I provided her with a money trail showing over $100,000 of community property cash that disappeared-he was never held accountable even though she filed documents with the court to prevent "Dissipation of Assets." In truth, all of the motions filed with the court were just a way to pad her bill. When interviewing her, she told me "I charge $300 an hour for my service." I expected her to be much more involved with the case, except more time was spent communicating through her assistant or an associate attorney...what she failed to say was that she also charges $300 an hour for work done by her minions. Since I was paying top rate, I expected that kind of service. I contacted the office when I had new information or needed legal advice, although weeks could go by before getting some sort of reply to a phone call or email...and these were not frivolous topics. There seems to be a horrible lack of communication among her and her staff. The attorney I dealt with the majority of the time appeared to grasp the situation I had been dealing with. I laid the groundwork, with irrefutable evidence, for a court trial to get a "fair and equitable" settlement, but that never happened either. She tries to simplify things that are complicated and will decide what is fair for you, using flattery to "sell" what she wants you to accept, if you don't "buy" it, she will resort to abusive and coercive tactics. I suggest looking elsewhere if you value your time, resources, health and welfare.

When interviewing, she promised to 'make him pay'. Him being my husband of 24 years who had an affair and moved out and into 'her' house 20 minutes later. He left the mortgage, utilities, taxes and insurance to me, bills he had been paying prior to moving out. She told me until the divorce is final..., he is responsible for all bills he was paying before he left, and I have that in writing from her. Every time we went to court, I ended up with more of the bills. Her response "You can afford it". After $12,000 and numerous discussions regarding the reporting of his finances, we had a final conversation where she finally admitted that he had hidden over $80,000 in assets (and this was after our court date for the divorce and numerous attempts on my part to get her to review the paperwork she supplied and the updated paperwork I demanded of his attorney) I stopped paying her. When she demanded additional payment I told her when she delivered what she promised she would get paid. She said she was paid to get me half the assets. And when I said "And did I get half", her response was, "you will after we go to court again". This was 3 months after the original 'final' court date for the divorce and my proving to her that he had intentionally hidden the money, even had a taped conversation where he admitted it. I had to constantly check and recheck everything with numbers that came out of her office and found errors every single time, sometimes over $100,000. I had to call to get my court dates, to get paperwork, copies of letters and communications with his attorney, etc. She spent more time on her vacations than on my case. I should have fired her a year before I did. My next attorney worked for me and when Ms. Cartee was asked for my file, I was told by the new attorney, there was hardly anything in it and what was there was of little value. Don't hire her, especially if the opposing attorney is her friend Dave Cunningham. You can't win against both of them.