Stefan Kane McBride

Mr. McBride lies and if you don't have an attorney he writes an order and puts things in the order that the judge did not say and does this not for the best interest of the children but does it because his client benefits from it and actually is not in the best interests of the children. He has a re...putation within the lawyer community as playing dirty and I have been told this by 7 attorneys/law firms. And it's about to get him into some serious trouble legally and his clients will be getting in trouble too cause the client knows what he does and let's it happen. So I'd think twice before hiring this guy especially if you value your children and want what is best for them, McBride is not what you want.

I hired Stefan in an emergent situation: my abusive ex husband had accused my new husband of abusing my children (which he never did) and was unjustly granted temporary custody for around 5-6 days. Prior to this, I had sole custody of my two precious children, and their father was almost completely u...ninvolved in their care. Although Stefan came highly recommended, my time with him was an absolute NIGHTMARE. I worked for hours on a document, refuting the false allegations made against me and my husband; Stefan never even READ this document, let alone include it in any type of response to the court. As my court date grew closer, I was terrified about the lack of preparations, no witnesses, etc. He kept assuring me if I threw my new husband “under the bus” (which I was willing to and agreed to do), this would be simple, I had nothing to worry about, etc. He told me I needed to “come up with something” against my husband and instructed me to file an order of protection against my husband—so I did: I lied saying my husband had hurt me during a certain timeframe (when he hadn’t) and filed the order of protection. My one and only appointment with him was on the morning OF the court date, and he was absolutely terrible, even becoming vulgar with me at one point. After we were in the courtroom later that day, he asked me quietly if I’d be willing to say I was planning to legally separate from my husband and divorce him—I agreed, because I would have done anything to keep the CUSTODY OF MY CHILDREN!! (Even though, again, all of the accusations were lies—and there was never a single word of fighting for the truth, believing me and being on my side, etc.) The entire hearing was supposed to take 20 minutes—my exhusband’s lawyer had him on the stand for at least 15 minutes where he had plenty of time to paint himself as a meek, nervous, apologetic person (which he is NOT)...Stefan maybe had me on the stand for two minutes, tops. I had no witnesses—my ex husband had several. The fact that my exhusband had been abusive to me for 17 1/2 years never came up, the fact that he was uninvolved in their care never came up, the fact that he has a live-in girlfriend never came up... I wish I were joking when I looked over at Stefan’s phone during the hearing and saw him googling something about objections. I cannot begin to express what a nightmare this was...AND I LOST. If I would’ve had a more competent (or CARING?!) lawyer, I believe with all my heart I would still have custody of my children. NOT ONLY THAT—but when the other lawyer brought up that I should have SUPERVISED VISITATION, Stefan said NOTHING to try to fight this. Therefore, I not only lost custody of my children to my abusive exhusband (and his GIRLFRIEND, who shouldn’t even be living there but is basically raising my children), but I was also ordered supervised visitation. Not a single bad word was said about me—it was all about the new husband, whom I was willing to forsake—but this is the situation I am in now. This is my life, and I walk around feeling like I’m in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Immediately after the hearing, Stefan was extremely lacking empathy in ANY way. I actually reached out to a former lawyer (no background in family law), and even he told me how sorry he was about this situation. Stefan? Didn’t even HEAR FROM HIM. He wouldn’t return my calls or emails. When I finally spoke with him at the end of the week, he was rude to me over the phone—claiming he had been “busy.” He actually ended up YELLING AT ME and telling me he didn’t think I EVEN CARE ABOUT MY CHILDREN. Little did I know, he was one day away from quitting his current firm (without notice, maybe?) so he obviously wouldn’t have cared in any way about my case, regardless of the circumstances. I cannot believe I had to pay for this. If I had money, I would have already begun the process to try to take HIM to court. I honestly don’t know how he sleeps at night. DO NOT HIRE HIM.

I consulted with Stefan about a year and a half ago and wasn't ready to file for divorce but was looking at options because I didn't know if I could fix the issues with my wife or not. Well instead of being for the divorce Stefan agreed with me and said he would be glad to help me with the divorce bu...t would rather see us work it out for the kids sake and then he tried to help me. He told me he could put me in touch with counselors or whatever we needed. After a year I came back to him for the divorce and told him it was inevitable that the divorce was going to happen and we started the divorce process. He told me what he needed from me and I listened word for word. Once I had everything together we filed and have been on a rough course with my daughters mother but we won the full custody. Throughout this whole process Stefan has agreed with me on wanting to keep our integrity throughout something that is such a nasty situation and we have. Now we are about to start the divorce process and hopefully move it along pretty quickly since there isn't any kids to fight over. I've wanted to take the high road through this whole process and do what I felt God was telling me to do and Stefan has made that so easy because that's the same way he has looked at it. I would highly recommend Stefan to anyone that is going through a divorce or custody battle based off not just his knowledge for the law but for the type of person he is.