Carolyn Andersen Cadem

Carolyn is the BEST Family Law Attorney in Minnesota. She was kind, compassionate, attentive, and extremely communicative. We were facing an uphill battle, and felt completely defeated when we decided we needed to hire an attorney. She was our last chance winning a battle that shouldn't have been a b...attle at all. She went above and beyond, and succeeded to win this battle with us. If you need a family law attorney, You will NOT Regret Hiring her! She is AMAZING! Thank you so much Carolyn!

My fiancé and I retained Carolyn after months of negotiations on our own with my fiancé's ex-wife. When he and his ex-wife divorced nearly 10 years ago they did not have a court order in place and his parenting time was being dictated by his ex-wife. There were times where he would go weeks without... being allowed by her to see his boys. By the time, we came to Carolyn we were defeated. We had spoken with numerous other attorneys. The struggle between our family and his ex-wife's had taken a toll on us individually, as well as our relationship. Carolyn listened - actually listened - and interacted with my fiancé as he described his concerns and what he was hoping to accomplish by hiring her. I'm not sure I can put into words the great amount of empathy Carolyn provides. We truly had to remind ourselves that she indeed does have other clients because it did feel as if we were always her only because of her level of support. She not only provided us with the legal support we needed, but also emotional support that things would turn out for the best and reassuring my fiancé that what he was asking for was okay and the best thing for his boys (a relationship with him, their dad). And when we did go astray with our thoughts or feelings, she would gently push us back on course. She was calm and careful with her words in court, and assertive at the appropriate times. I would recommend Carolyn to my closest friends and family - in fact I have! We could not have asked for a better attorney! Oooppss...I almost forgot the meat of why we hired Carolyn. She did get nearly exactly what my fiancé asked for in his court order. We spent our first holiday (Christmas) ever with his sons and we are now in the process of spending the first full Summer ever with his two sons! And enjoying every moment of it! Thank you, again Carolyn!

My initial review was much better, but this is restricted to 4,000 characters... Before Carolyn, I called all around and got free phone consultations which lead to them conveniently not knowing anything until I gave them money. Every lawyer I talked to made me feel like I was another routine crap...py dad trying to get out of child support with minimal effort. Feeling defeated already before starting several times, I decided to give up and not worry about legal things and try to work it out with my ex. Needless to say that didn’t work out so well. When I first entered Carolyn’s office, I was terrified. I had never been in a lawyers office before, I automatically assumed that since nearly every other separated dad I know out there has abandoned their family that this place would judge me as the same, and drag me through mud before letting “the system” teach me a lesson about parenting. I shook her hand and it’s as if she sent a wave of reassurance in that handshake as to say “It’s going to be alright, I’m here now” I told her of all my worries, fears, unknowns and it was like she snapped right to it as possibly the most empathetic lawyer I’ve ever encountered. My ex dealt the first blow by nearly crippling me financially. Right after that we went into negotiating time to try to alleviate some of the nonsense that was just passed by officials that are presumably “for the people?” Carolyn was so calm and was able to retain all that wonderful lawyer knowledge where I was blind with emotion. I went in guns blazing saying “She’s not fit to be the primary parent after all she’s done! Roar! *rampage* She's just after my money and doesn't care about my daughter! I want full custody!” Carolyn, more than likely used to this sort of reaction, talked some much needed sense into me. She helped me to get an evaluation where I had to sit down face to face and talk stuff out with my ex, I could tell the entire time she was mad at this entire thing she didn't want to give up any time to me. Our first negotiation didn't go that well, it was 5 hours and I was talking to a wall. My ex had barely agreed to what the evaluators had said. There were recommendations in there to quit my job and get a new one, put off school, all sorts of things I needed to do to my life and my schedule but she was fine as is as long as I bent to her schedule. Carolyn did a great job at keeping me calm and played hard ball with my ex and her attorney. Over the course of probably another 7 months, Carolyn and I would see what my ex's not sticking to grounds were still at, and made recommendations so I could see my daughter. Carolyn worked hard to get me every single extra hour. Slowly but surely we got more and more time, my ex was bending more and more becoming more civil and human in the matter. We got close to getting an evaluator (Carolyn won our Motion to appoint one) to hang out with us and evaluate us as parents. Once my ex and I saw the bill for that though I feel like something clicked with her where it was time to stop fighting over senseless garbage and just start focusing on “our” daughters future. My favorite part of this, when we got to the hearing to discuss who would be paying for a child evaluator if we got that far (I wanted to split the cost and she wanted me to pay 100%). We went to court, paid a good amount of money to witness some other odd cases only to spend 10 minutes for the judge to say that it was ridiculous to have me pay 100% and that we would split it.  Afterwards speaking to my ex, she said to me "I hate your lawyer, she's too good" Carolyn was such a mentor in this entire process, keeping me in check emotionally and financially. I can’t imagine any other lawyer caring about my situation and my well being as much as Carolyn was able to. Honestly, no joke, I am sad in a way that my custody battle is over as, I no longer will be working closely with Carolyn. Thanks for reading. A peacefully minded former-client