Melissa M. Pehl

In my opinion, Attorney Melissa Pehl caused disappointing representation in our guardianship of the estate case. Attorney Pehl's office was in ciaos with a lack of office staff, which greatly reduced efficient work in my case. Attorney Pehl should have stepped up to meet her own responsibilities a...s a professional who needed to meet deadlines, and sadly this did not happen. The attorney made comments to me about arranging the court date around her own vacation and others in the court, but never thought to ask me about my possible summer vacation time and when might be a good date to schedule the case. Additionally, Attorney Pehl, was asked on the phone and via email to send me an itemized billing statement and it was never sent. The worst of her work, in my onion, was her lack of meeting statue timelines and how she sent private court documents. Attorney Pehl, did not send out necessary required notices to others in a timely manner. The notices were to be sent with a ten day notice, prior to the hearing date, unless a waiver was signed. One person received the notice less than 20 hours before the hearing and the second person received notice less than 30 minutes prior to the hearing. Additionally, a notice was sent with non encrypted email and was not faxed, or sent securely. Due to her last minute gathering of documents, she was very late to arrive to the hearing. After the hearing, Attorney Pehl, reminded me that if I withdrew from the petition that I would be billed for the entire case, rather than the Ward's trust. This was something that I already was aware of. I found Attorney Pehl's verbal and written attempts of persuasion to be extremely unprofessional and close to crossing a line of almost harassing. I personally, felt that her reminding me of the billing responsibility was a rather unethical way to try to convince me to continue working with her. Attorney Pehl, verbally said she would not charge for some of her mistakes. After six months, she mailed out a bill that was never itemized and there was no way to determine if I was charged for the time that she verbally said she would not bill for. Again, I phoned her office to ask for an itemized billing statement and never received it, nor did I receive a return phone call. Also, Attorney Pehl, told me the morning of the hearing that she forgot to check off an identified item on the initial petition paper that was an important part of the petition. However, she said that she wrote it on, but missed checking it on the newer state form. If Attorney Pehl, would have taken time to review the documents with me prior to sending them to court, this error may have been noticed ahead of time. I fired Attorney Pehl, and decided not to proceed with the guardianship of the estate, due to her multiple problems. Her careless work left me feeling uneasy about proceeding with a life-changing action for my family member with an attorney who was so negligent.