Carl O. Gunnstaks

I engaged Luke to help with a child custody case after dealing with former spouse who fought dirty. The initial meeting with Luke was promising, he pointed out things that needed to be clarified, however Luke never took action. 3 years (and $85k later) nothing had materialized. Beware of expensive l...awyers who claim they can help. Big disappointment to Luke’s “services” is an understatement.

Carl Gunnstaks (aka C. Luke Gunnstaks, Carl Otto Gunnstaks) was hired as my divorce attorney in August 2016. Gunnstaks misspelled my name on his Gunnstaks Contract for Services. A Limited Power of Attorney had my name misspelled and listed 3 different ways in this one document. My driver's... license was not requested in order to officially and legally notarize said document, had it been, these errors would not have been made. The date was changed and I was not requested to initial change. I revoked this Limited Power of Attorney (LPOA) to which Gunnstaks responded that he could not have any communication with Opposing Counsel unless I gave him explicitly and approved authorization/instructions to do so. When I forwarded a message with explicit, easily understood and approved instructions, I received an email from Gunnstaks stating that I had to reinstate this LPOA before he could have any correspondence with Opposing Counsel. I had to remind him of his first instructions to me, “the explicit and approved/instruction authorization etc.” Only then did he begin to comply with his own instructions. Opposing counsel wanted changes made on the final divorce decree. Gunnstaks made this change to my Divorce Decree without my knowledge, consent or approval and forwarded said changes to opposing counsel. I had to be “Pro-Active” in order to get information to the Opposing Counsel on a timely basis. An example is: Gunnstaks Office told me Gunnstaks was out of town from October 18th, 2017 to the 25th, and would not be reading or answering my correspondence that I forwarded to him on the 19th, until his return on the 25th and only in the order to which his emails were received. When I questioned Gunnstaks about this on the 25th, as there was an item that was to be returned to the Opposing Counsel's office by the 23rd, his response was that Opposing Counsel had a copy of the Schedule filed with the court of when he was absent from his office and Opposing Counsel was aware that he, Gunnstaks, was out of the office from the 18th – 25th. Gunnstaks then forwarded along with that email a copy of this Schedule he was in reference too. It showed that he was only out the 18-20th. I then emailed him to point out that Opposing Counsel would not know of his absence until the 25th because it was not on the Schedule. Gunnstaks forwarded the wrong final divorce decree to me after other changes had been made and did not review it before sending it to me for my signature. It was sent to me with these instructions: “Please forward your signature to our office for entry of the Decree with the Court.” This was not forwarded to me for “Review.” I had to hire another attorney to proofread all final Divorce Decree documents to make sure all matters of the Divorce Decree were correct and legally written. Changes to my personal real estate property descriptions had to be made or would become an issue for a title company should the property be sold in the future. I have learned that 5 Star Reviews can be made by employees. I wrote Gunnstaks and told him that I did a Review Search for him before I made my first visit to his office (under the name of C Luke Gunnstaks, unaware that he has used Carl Gunnstaks). I also stated that I felt 5 Star Reviews should only be made by a Client, not employees. Gunnstaks denied that any of his employees have ever left a review for him, however, I have found two reviews that have the same names as his employees, one current and one that is no longer with his firm.

I have been in a high conflict abusive custody battle for over 12 years now. Luke came to me through me through a friend that knew my situation. My ex fled with our son to another state and had abducted him and alienated me. I've had supposed "good" attorneys before but Luke is beyond "good", he's e...xcellent and exceeds in his field! He is a hard worker, and looks for the truth of the matter. He is genius in the courtroom, and a perfectionist on any and all court documents that are drawn up. His staff is extremely helpful, professional, and have it together. He his well known, and is one of the best that does what he does. Although, he's hard to get ahold of and that's just because he's always busy. He always answers and is responsive, to my questions and concerns, through his staff. I've had attorneys that I had to educate, not him!! The only thing is that he can't do the foot work that I can do, as far as, documentation and filing out things that are of my knowledge and experience. I don't want an attorney, I've had them, that will do things like charge for filing out discovery. He is a man of integrity, brilliance, and a heart of gold. If you need some poop cleaned off your shoe from courts and exes, he's the one who shows you how to get it off without getting it all over yourself. He has done what I thought was not possible and got the work done, and cares.

Gunnstaks was my attorney in a child custody case. He was unresponsive to our requests for assistance. An example is when we were asked to fill out lengthy forms of discovery, he just told us to fill them out to them entirely. We did not agree and thought they were asking for information that was n...ot pertinent to the case. We actually had to hire another lawyer to ask for advice on how to fill out the forms. He was not knowledgeable or prepared. When we went to mediation, he showed up without any of our documents, and asked my husband to go get our copy from home, which my husband did while Gunnstaks ate snacks from the opposing counsels fridge. He was of no asssistance during the entire meeting. He was expensive, did not keep us informed, did not represent us well, and I would never recommend him to anyone.

Luke, where do I start? We threw a very complex and ugly custody case at him and he did not flinch or miss a beat! He's sharp, confident, talented and probably the one and only true fathers' rights lawyer in the state of Texas!! Luke and his team were very professional and comprehensive in the way th...ey took care of us. They went above and beyond in preparing us to be the best people we could possibly be. After going through 3 lawyers before, who did not understand our case, were just going through the motions while counting their money, we almost didn't believe Luke was for real. We expected that we were going to have to spend a lot of our time training him, briefing him, reminding him, and just handing over all our money. This was not the case at all. He understood the dynamics of our case, better than we did! He's enabled my husband and I to sleep at night and live a much greater quality of life. We got what we wanted out of the legal proceedings and didn't even have to go to court!! Now, whenever we have a concern about anything, we just call Luke and we know he has our back. The other great thing is that he doesn't just disappear after the case is over. We know he's still there because he checks up on us.