Julianne Marie Markiewicz

My ex-husband wanted to take me to court to change a few items in our divorce decree that I did not agree with. We were trying to reach a compromise over email but that did not appear to be working. I called J. Markiewicz Law Office to set up a consult. The day before my consult with her, J. Ma...rkiewicz called me on the phone and asked me to email documents to her so she could become better familiar with my case. I emailed them to her. At the consult, we discussed sending a letter to my ex’s lawyer with a potential compromise. I hired her and placed a $2000 retainer. She wrote a letter to my ex’s lawyer, but I didn’t want to send it because my ex and I were still emailing about a compromise which we did within a week. During that week, J. Markiewicz emailed and texted me to approve the letter which I said I wasn’t ready to do just yet. After receiving a text that she was uncomfortable with my waiting, and exasperated that I had to defend working on a compromise, I told J. Markiewicz that I no longer needed her services and asked for my un-used retainer back. Despite the fact that we met for a “free” consultation, and the only thing I authorized was the creation of a letter, J. Markiewicz only returned a little over half of my retainer. She unethically charged me $455 – over an hour of her time – for reading the documents that she asked me to send to her before I had even met and hired her, and a $117.50 charge just to “Open a new file.” I asked J. Markiewicz to refund the charges since she was the one to ask for the emailed documents before I had met her or hired her, and, because she gave no upfront information about the “Open New File” costs. She initially said she would be open to discussing this concern, but then ignored my email communications until I filed this review. She has since emailed and stated that she’d refund only $345 and that she’d consider the case closed. She mailed a check for this amount which is less than her unethical charges.

My fiance' and I recently engaged Ms. Markiewicz to help prepare a prenup agreement and had an absolutely horrific experience. It appeared that Ms. Markiewicz approached our prenup as a hostile divorce (rather than a loving marriage) pitting my future bride and I against each other, employing emoti...onally charged adversarial negotiation tactics and dragging out an expensive lawyer intensive process to...literally...the day before our wedding. She dismissed the process I had proposed where my fiance' and I would work together (doing much of the work ourselves) to craft a fair and equitable agreement through an amicable collaborative process with guidance and feedback from our respective counsel. She also ignored my request to provide an overview of the process, key milestones and timeline that she would suggest as an alternative. Instead, she just moved forward in a manner that lead to a drawn out, time consuming, resource intensive (read "lots of billable hours") process that dramatically increased our legal fees; created intense stress, conflict and emotional trauma; and dragged the "negotiation" process out to...literally...the day before our wedding. And to top things off, she billed us double the hours that our other lawyer did...even though he crafted and authored the multiple drafts of the proposed prenup and the key legal documents. This nightmare of a process resulted in prenup that neither one of us felt good about, legal fees that were 3-4 times what we had expected, a prenup that got signed the AFTERNOON before our wedding and an excruciatingly stressful...downright traumatic...process that led to my fiance' and I "breaking up" twice in the two weeks prior to our wedding (including 4 days before). P.S. This review features no embellishment or exaggeration (and I have the email audit trail to back up every word). I had never met...or even heard of...Ms. Markiewicz prior to this prenup process, do not work in the legal profession nor have any other potential conflicts of interests. I invested the time to write this review solely in the interest of helping others avoid repeating what was one of the most traumatic professional experiences of my life. One that came very close to aborting my wedding and costing me the woman that I love, adore and cherish with all my heart.

I could not be happier with Julianne Markiewicz! She has handled my child custody case for several months and has done a stellar job. Julianne genuinely cares about her clients, she undoubtedly has my child's best interest in the forefront of her mind. The second I retained Julianne as my attorney..., she called me and guided me through the process; she let me know what her goals were, what she needed me to do and how to proceed. She responded to my calls promptly and was loaded with helpful information every time. Her billing is very descriptive, honest and fair. Julianne's experience shines in the courtroom, she's bright, she's action-packed, and she's well-prepared for curve balls. Julianne is a winner and I'm blessed to have her on my side.

I was very nervous to file for a divorce, even though I talked to her about it 4 years earlier. It was something I had to do. She was so reassuring and kept me totally informed every step of the way. She returned my calls and emails very promtly and was/is friendly and seemed concerned about me. Divo...rces are expensive....but she was very thorough and made sure that I was getting all that I was entitled to. I felt confident that she would do a good job!