Lukas Abraham Lawrence

I hired Mr. Lawrence to represent my business interests in small claims court to recoup money unlawfully used by my ex-business partner. I paid a flat fee of roughly $500 for what we assumed would be a quick case as I had collected vast amounts of evidence. Initially, I was relieved to have an attorn...ey working my case. However, my experience quickly took a downward spiral. First, we tried sending letters to try to reconcile out of court. I spent hours writing a draft of the key information. When I presented it to Mr. Lawrence, he charged me another $100 to put his letter head on my draft and covered the cost of shipping after I corrected some mistakes he made. After another similar letter, we hired a constable to physically deliver the court papers. Mr. Lawrence coordinated everything and sent me the bill. My ex-partner had fled with no trace and we couldn’t confirm that papers were served. So, Mr. Lawrence placed an ad in the local newspaper to meet the requirement. Again, he coordinated everything and sent me the bill without consulting with me on the price beforehand. A few months quickly turned into a year with seemingly no progress. During this time, it would typically be a month or longer before receiving an emailed update on the status of my case. He would usually respond after I emailed, sometimes multiple times, to check in. About a week before the one-year mark of beginning this effort, I received a call around 3:30pm from Mr. Lawrence that I finally had a court date scheduled for early the next morning. I had less than 24hrs to coordinate time-off, arrange lodging, and drive over 200 miles away to appear for my hearing. I had no warning. While in the court room waiting for my case, Mr. Lawrence took a phone call and walked out. The bailor called me up before the judge, but had to leave court to retrieve my attorney. When presenting my case, Mr. Lawrence seemed very much unprepared to represent me. He did not have a clear approach to present the evidence and didn’t seem to know how much I was requesting, as he told the judge a number that was about $4K less than I was claiming. Fortunately, I had bought all the evidence I had collected because Mr. Lawrence didn’t appear to bring any deliverables for the judge to review. I felt like I had presented my own case alone. Ultimately, despite expecting a default judgement, the judge pushed my case to next level of authority. Mr. Lawrence had not made it clear to me that there was a limit to how much could be requested in small claims court and we hadn’t strategized prior to the hearing to keep my case below that level. I left court incredible upset and disappointed that I had wasted a year and a significant amount of money, when Mr. Lawrence could have easily guided us to a reasonable default judgement, to be told to start over. I had already considered firing Mr. Lawrence from my case multiple, this situation didn’t help, but I gave him one last chance. We discussed what went wrong, how we would reapproach at the next level, and how he would do better communicating with me. Unfortunately, after another few months, nothing changed and no progress was made. God put it on my heart to forgive my ex-partner and no longer pursue my case to recoup my losses. Fortunately, I think Mr. Lawrence recognized how fed up I was with this process and when I asked him to cancel my case he didn’t charge any more than he already had to close it. Very frustrating experience. I will not be returning to Mr. Lawrence or recommending him to anyone I know. However, by the end, I think he recognized how awful my experience was with him and agreed not to charge me anymore than I had already paid. This one redeeming factor is why I’ve given him two-stars.