Teresa Lucia Fiore Hatfield

I had a deeply disappointing experience with Teresa. I recall going to court with her, and she did not have her facts together, which reflected poorly on my case. She is not thorough and comes across as very disorganized. One of my biggest frustrations was her lack of communication. She only provi...ded updates when I specifically requested them, leaving me in the dark unless I reached out first. It felt like she was more focused on getting paid than truly advocating for me. Additionally, she was not receptive to being questioned about her thought process. As a client, I expected to feel like a part of the decision-making process, but instead, I often felt dismissed. Overall, I would not recommend her services to anyone seeking a proactive, organized, and client-focused attorney.

I hired Teresa in 2016 to handle my case against my child's father in a dispute over where to send my daughter to school. It cost me $2000, which she marketed as a bargain because it included "ALL" the work she was going to do from the date of hire until the hearing. She doesn't charge hourly like... other lawyers, and she makes it sound like a great deal. Well, she did not tell me that the hearing was a week after I paid her. (I knew I had to go to court in a week, but did not realize the $2000 I paid her was going to last only a week. I don't know what a "hearing" is, that's something your lawyer should tell you) and yeah, it takes me a month to make $2000 so that was a bit mind boggling. We had ONE consultation at her office for about an hour, and that was the day that I met her and gave her the check. I emailed her the info she asked for the next day, and asked if she needed anything else from me. (In her paperwork that she hands out to everyone, it says about 500 times, DO NOT CALL OR TEXT ME. EMAIL ME. So I never called. I assumed the information I emailed her is satisfactory.) She calls me Friday afternoon and says she needs this, this, and this from me. Really? I thought a family lawyer would have some resource on how to look up school ratings. Also, I had an entire weekend planned to relax, because I had to go to court on MONDAY. I tell her that I emailed her the info days ago, that if she needed anything else, she should have let me know before Friday afternoon. Her excuse is that she had been in court all day every day that week. Monday, court day, comes. My ex's lawyer is on top of things, and Teresa has absolutely nothing to say. Zero, zilch, nada. I certainly would have been more prepared if I had not had an attorney. There is nothing that she told me that was not common sense. There is absolutely nothing that she did for me. She did not look up any information in the week that she was my lawyer. The illusion that I had someone on my side to stand up for me only made my position weaker. I would have said more in the hearing had I known she was going to say nothing. And then, I had no idea that I was in "THE HEARING" until it was over with. Judging by the lack of preparation of my lawyer and the amount of money I gave her for the work that was done, I thought that we were just doing a preliminary meeting in court to talk about things before a final decision was made. She kept saying, "oh, it's informal, just me and you and him and his lawyer and a mediator" Court day was there, it was THE HEARING, the decision was made, no do-overs. I had no preparation, and no warning. It was horrific. She did not seem to think so, tho. To her, it seemed like business as usual. She had no comment as to, "oh, usually I do more work than this," or "I'm so sorry to let you down." She did have the courtesy to tell me that the decision that was made probably could not be reversed. In fact, that was the most solid piece of advice she had.