Alan Craig Haston

While I have no doubt that Mr. Haston is very qualified, and his staff seems very nice, I hired an attorney to accomplish something. Like many have said here, my initial consultation was full of hope. Once I paid my retainer though, my case was transferred to an associate that I can only assume was i...ncredibly overworked. I hung in there for a year, hoping we would accomplish something towards what should have been a fairly simply divorce (short term and no children), and spent a lot of money. I changed attorneys, actually got to communicate with the attorney I hired, and wrapped everything up in a few months. I wish I would have wised up sooner...

I engaged with Mr. Haston to handle my divorce with a child case. Initially, the case was contested, after which the ex-wife and I decided it would be in our best interests to come to terms and settle on an arrangement that we both agreed with. I do not question Craig's legal abilities, but his... business practices are unethical. My case ended up costing $15,000 with still no final divorce decree filed. After reaching out multiple times to his office to ask if a Settlement draft could be completed, all I received were vague responses. However, during this time his billing personnel reached out to me several times asking for more money, completely ignoring my plea for completing my divorce. When I eventually escalated the situation, Craig became defensive and tried to say that I was "threatening" and "bullying" him, when all I was doing was exerting my right as a paying client and a citizen. He mentioned that sometimes it's hard to balance what the client wants with reality. The reality is, my wife and I ended up finalizing the divorce ourselves pro se, within our agreed terms, and the process was extremely quick and smooth. Also, during the initial consultation where I was billed for an hour, he used some of that time to talk about his personal family life, and even cut it short by a few minutes. Sounds petty, but when you are being billed $400 an hour, every minute is valuable. His office also failed to send me invoices that were requested multiple times, and then tried to charge me interest on invoices that I never even received. It is clear that Mr. Haston has the interest of his firm collecting your money firsthand over actually being a good humanitarian and representing you diligently. I have no reason whatsoever to speak anything but the truth or spend my time writing a review for something that means nothing. I'm sure Craig will come on here trying to defend himself, but facts are facts and if you do end up using Craig as your family attorney, be prepared to have more emotional strain added on top of what you are already going through.

Nice guy, who I think meant well. However, for a board-certified family law attorney, he missed out on some nuances in family law (that were enacted over 9 months prior) that would have been beneficial to my case. When I confronted him with some of the issues, of course, he was defensive then blamed ...me for sub-par results. As a result, I did not pay him for the last billable hour of service (mind you, I paid well over $7K in total services). I ended up hiring another attorney to finish up my case.

This law firm has cost me nearly $100k and has proved to be incompetent. Craig Haston negligently drafted and had me sign a settlement agreement that awarded all items in the marital home including my personal property, heirlooms etc. to my wife. He then tried to blame me for this! His assistant poin...ted out that the original draft of the agreement had a carve out whose intention was to allow me to retain such items, but Haston ignored it. The State Bar, remarkably, excuses such acts of omission and negligence from its disciplinary process, so I have no comeback against a lawyer I wish I had never appointed and who has been a huge let down. I recommend taking your business elsewhere. I agree with Susan: this firm takes on more work than it can handle competently.