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.