Mary Elizabeth Van Orman

Just like the title states. In February 2020, I paid her 10k to help with immediate help in my custody case. A few weeks later the pandemic hit, everything stopped for 6 months, no ones fault. It’s now late may of 2021. She doesn’t return my calls and claims to have filed paperwork 4 months ago for a... case I don’t even think she did. This woman is not a lawyer. She’s a crook

I see you are still in business. That is great. How about making a payment arrangement for the business loan that has not been repaid! We have given you a signficant amount of money and want to be paid back. This is not the way to do do business. Please call us immediately. A business loa...n is for growing your business, not taking the money and not paying us back.

I hired Mary Van Orman to take over a case and went from bad to worst. She was a disaster and all the other negative comments on Avvo are confirmed by what I experienced. Staff turnover, no show court appearances, not filing documents we requested, no meeting to prep for trial, to name a few. It was ...a horrific and stressful experience that I would not wish on my worst enemy. Oh one more thing, she can't even type!

I just found these reviews online and wish with all my heart that I had done my research into this attorney BEFORE I invested all of my time and money. I found Mary through a professional contact; the initial consultation went very well. For that meeting she was focused, articulate and very passion...ate about representing me so I hired her. She felt that as a professional black woman, I was historically underrepresented and she wanted to be an action of change. I felt a little uncomfortable at the time that she brought my race into the matter but gave her the benefit of doubt; she was the licensed attorney. After she cashed my check, however, it became a completely different story. My calls and emails went unreturned and when her office staff did decide to answer the phone they had no clue whatsoever where she was or when she would get back to me. During the time that I employed Mary as my attorney, she went through multiple para-legals in her office. I went into trial completely unprepared, frightened and confused. She arrived late into the courtroom and when I tried to question her about her behavior she said something about a sick child. I waited outside of the courtroom until Ms. Van Orman came out and confronted her about it. That’s when she told me that she would need more money if I wanted to continue with her services and when I told her that I wouldn’t give her a dime she said “Well, you can’t afford me anyway”. I terminated her as my attorney and found someone else to handle my case which was settled weeks later. I am only writing this review so nobody else gets hurt like I did.

She took my money and never returned a call. I had a court date and never showed up. Her office didn't even know were she was. Than when I tracked her don't she said her child was sick. Come to find out she dose not even live with this child. The child is a adult in California. To this date she has ...not returned my calls.