John E. Witanen

John was my attorney for a divorce 5 years ago. I had never worked with an attorney and didn't know what to expect. My fairly simple divorce still ended up taking a full year. In part, due to stall tactics on the other end but partly because John was very slow about responding to even simple easy req...uests or revisions of the MSA or Parenting agreement. After I was already divorced, he continued to represent me (if you can call it that) in dealing with some child support issues. I would often have to correct his work as he was not careful about listening to my issues or the matters we were trying to fix. I would have to spend a lot of time going over facts we had already discussed again and again and I would always have to doublecheck his work as he rarely got the information correct the first time. This caused me to pay excess fees for his time back and forth with the other attorney even when he was at fault. Emails and calls went unreturned constantly. I foolishly stayed with him over the years because I thought there was some advantage in his knowing my history but I wish I would have searched for another attorney much sooner. I didn't feel that he cared about me or my situation and the lack of professionalism just got to be too much.

Divorces are obviously really stressful. John and his team always told me when I could expect to hear from them. He knew my budget was limited because I was going through some financial hardships at the time, as a result of the divorce. My bill was very low because John valued my time an my mone...y. I pretty much got everything I wanted out of the divorce including my children. My recommendation when working with John or any lawyer would be agree to set clear expectations of communication. Court systems move slow. He'll send you news as he gets it and calling the guy 1000 times in between is not going to get you the information any faster, but it will drive up the bill. Know that the court systems move slow, but they do move. John is a solid attorney in comparison to the horror stories I've heard about other attorneys. I have recommended him to several people who also were very happy with him.

Never returns phone calls. Always late to Court appearances. Unorganized, sloppy, incompetent and completely got schooled by opposing counsel. Only cares about keeping his billing current. He has no business practicing law. Save your money & your sanity, hire one of the dozens of other lawyers in Chi...cago.