Russell Arthur Pelley

Chip Pelley met me in person one day, while I was an absolute ball of nerves. Embarrassingly, I even started to cry in front of him. While Chip was reading through my divorce papers, he made me feel much more calm, and I felt confident in hiring him. Chip embodies the "still waters run deep" adage. W...e were later introduced to Chip's paralegal, Mary. Throughout the year-long process, Mary never took more than 24 hours to answer emails, and often times, she would answer my phone calls right away. Mary is thoughtful, professional, and very courteous with the clients. I never felt rushed in anyway whenever I would talk to her. On the day of the mediation, I did not sleep the night before. Once again, seeing my attorney Chip, made me calm again. At one point during the mediation, Chip was calmly reading through the paperwork, and he unveiled a small, but very significant detail that nobody seemed to catch, which changed the landscape of the entire litigation resulting in my favor. The outcome was that I actually ended up with MORE than what I was expecting. On a side note: use Chip's mediatior! He's not the most friendly man, but he is direct, and will streamline the process; he was highly effective. On billing: in aggregate, the standard operating procedure for billing is to charge a client the going rate per hour, notwithstanding the minutes used. For example, if you talk to your lawyer for 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 45 minutes, they round up to the hour. But Chip bills in increments of 1/6 of the hour. Most of my interactions were with Mary, and her rate is ¼ Chip's, and she too, bills in increments of 1/6 of the hour. I found this to be a refreshing difference, which other attorneys should follow suit. Do your homework. Interview. And when you do, you will happily choose Chip Pelley.