Shawn H. Heffernan

I hired Shawn H. Heffernan on a friend's recommendation who was using him for her post-divorce proceedings. Originally, I went to Shawn to seek help with a court order entered in Dallas, Texas, concerning my child's Social Security Benefit. That issue was never resolved. Instead, my ex decided to ...try to get custody of our child, so that he would then get our child's entire Social Security Benefit for his use. Shawn Heffernan would not return my calls, texts, e-mails when I so desperately needed to get advice from him. We had our day in court, which was supposed to be for a status hearing. Instead, Shawn Heffernan advised me to enter an agreed order, since I could not pay my balance which I owed him and also give him a retainer of $10,000.00 to continue to represent me with our child custody battle. He did tell me that I would probably win, if I continued with the battle, but he needed all the money first. Since there was no way I could come up with the money, I felt like I had no choice but to give up my child and enter an Agreed Order. What Shawn should have advised me, I realized after I hired another attorney to help me get out of the Agreed Order that was entered, was to let the Judge appoint a Guardian ad Litem who would then take over the legal part of the battle. The Guardian ad Litem would make a recommendation to the Court, which would then determine our child's custody. My second attorney was not able to get the Judge to change the Agreed Order, even though she was brilliant with her arguments(including a note from my child saying that moving to Dallas was not something she wanted to do anymore.) My child has since moved to Dallas. I know that if I had proper counsel, my child would still be living with me. When it comes to our child's well-being, we parents really need to research who we hire to help us. I am so sorry that I ever started with Shawn H. Heffernan. He was not an attorney who cared about what was best for me or my child. Clearly, the money was the most important thing to him!