Barbara J Gislason

It has been over two years since we hired Barbara. I still get upset when I am reminded of her. In 2016, we had a pet-related issue that needed legal representation. At that time, Barbara was the only Minnesota animal law attorney we could find. We initially met with her for a long and very expensive... consultation at a cost of $350. A majority of the consultation was Barbara interrupting our story, bragging about a book she was writing and talking about matters unrelated to our immediate concerns. We were distraught and desperate at the time and foolishly, still pursued her representation mostly due to a shortage of animal law attorneys. While building our case, she had a lot of unnecessary banter with the city and us, often bragging about herself, and sometimes double-billing because she did not listen to instruction the first time. I want to clarify that BARBARA IS A HORRIBLE LISTENER AND LACKS SELF-AWARENESS. She never seemed to care about the details of the case we expressed to her and took direction poorly. However, we were always billed promptly for her time. We kept hoping that despite all of the concerns we had about her, that her performance at the hearing would make it all worth it. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The morning of our hearing, she asked me and another supportive witness to bring copies of evidence we had already given to her because she did not have it. Imagine hearing this from your attorney on the morning of your hearing. Barbara ultimately did not address all of our concerns at the hearing and oftentimes appeared to be "winging it." She also admitted to us that she was unprepared because she expected a settlement. Again, imagine hearing this from your attorney on the day of your case. I was so disappointed by her arrogance, unpreparedness, negligence, poor representation and failure to listen and understand our case. I subsequently asked her for a full-refund, which she declined in a difficult-to-follow, 4-page diatribe letter (please refer to her response to reviews for color). I also contacted the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board regarding her conduct. Unfortunately, they do not handle fee disputes, attorney negligence, poor quality representation or malpractice and deferred me to the civil courts. The bottom line based on my experience, I strongly DO NOT recommend Barbara and her services. She lacks self-awareness and oftentimes seems unable to listen to her clients' concerns and needs, and her behavior and conduct should not be accepted nor tolerated by anyone.

I hired Barbara about 10 years ago for a situation, and I had to hire an attorney for a somewhat similar situation of late, and it reminded me of just how bad of a job she did for me. She did not listen, and kept interrupting me as I tried to tell her my story, which she needed to know in order to r...epresent me. Then, in court, without my prior approval, she stipulated to the matter that I had hired her to beat, even though the plaintiff had no evidence, and was not able to make their case. When I asked her why she did that, she said that it was a part of "a larger legal strategy." I had not been apprised of this earlier, nor did I approve of it. She then asked for more money for a retainer. I later realized that this was all that she was about: finding creative ways to bill me more money. One very annoying thing was she kept losing information that I had given her, or so she claimed, and she called me multiple times, leaving me voice mails telling me that she had misplaced information that I had given her, and she needed me to fax it to her again. I was billed for those phone calls, and for the receipt of my faxes. It was like she did not care for client information, losing it (or so she claimed), however, the client is going to be billed for her mistake. In the end, despite her "services" I managed to work things out with the other person. She actually resisted that. Then she sent me a large bill asking for more money beyond the retainer that I had paid her. I complained, and eventually she agreed to drop that, and seek no more money. I should have continued my complaint, and asked for a refund of what I had paid her, but perhaps I just wanted to be done with it. When I contrast her "services" with the exceptional service that I received recently, I decided that I needed to post this review. My experience is that Ms. Gislason is NOT a good listener, seems to almost be contemptuous of her clients, and is about finding ways to increase the size of your bill, NOT about trying to represent you zealously. I was sucked in by her claims of being named a "Super Lawyer," as well as some other claims like that, however, her representation of me created far more problems for me, cost me much more money than was reasonable - I ended up paying her around $4,000.00 for her "services" that made matters significantly more difficult for me - especially given how poor of a job she did for me, and left me believing that I would have been far better off representing myself than I was with hiring Barbara. My recommendation is that you stay far, far away from Ms. Gislason. That being said, I can give you the name of an amazing attorney in the Atlanta, GA area, and another great one in Ashland, WI.