Alan Craig Haston

Craig Haston is the best family lawyer. His staff is professional, understanding and detail oriented. Our family had a previous lawyer and we would make minimal steps each time at court. Once Craig was on our team we have made huge strides into protecting the kids. Craig is a family man and it sho...ws when you communicate with him on the children's needs. He truly wants to see your family move in the right direction and not living in the court room. Craig knows the law...... he knows what to prepare for and knows what angle to use to ensure that you are not living with a decree that makes it difficult to follow. Craig has respect from his peers and the Judges when he walks into the courtroom. Everyone in the room knows who he is and looks up to him. If you are on the fence on who to hire for a lawyer, you need to look no further than the Craig Haston Family Law Team.

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.

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.

Overall, I am extremely disappointed with the services provided to me based on status updates, or lack thereof, throughout the entire divorce, several delays, along with miscalculated charges, double charges, coupled with the aggravated charge of my inquiry about my legal fees they charged for my cas...e; and meetings and phone calls in which I was charged for that included minutes discussing subjects unrelated to my case including his son and riding motorcycles. My experience with their office was poor due to the facts of the egregious misjudgment of the case costs referenced in the $300 initial consultation and their self-assertive and presumptuous approach they used to persuade me to choose them as my attorney to handle my divorce case and the trust I put in them. In the initial consultation, Craig Haston stated that my case should cost approximately $5,000 and take about three to six months to finalize. After finalization of my divorce, I was charged over $21,000 by his firm and it took over one year. His wife handled payroll and correspondence with billing and her attempt at calculating my charges were incorrect several times and her invoices were inconsistent throughout the months it took to finalize my case. I corresponded several times questioning charges in my bills, in which she could not prove and explain the inconsistency in the charges that they rendered me. I tried to speak to Craig about my frustration in the increasing charges towards my case, still thinking it would only cost approximately $5,000, and he ignored my inquiry completely and to add insult to injury, he later charged me for a meeting with other attorneys in his office to “discuss” my concerns in my fees. His wife ultimately could not or would not find her inconsistencies. By this time, I have paid $21,000 even. This firm charges by the hour so I would advise future clients to always double check your charges. I was double billed for the same services with different attorneys in his office, which, if pursued could be a form of malpractice. I was charged for services rendered weeks before I had even hired them, so future clients, pay close attention to the dates that they state a service was rendered. Also, I was charged for a restraining order statement in which I did not consent to nor gave out to my ex-wife. The poor business practice they reflected was based on the lack of correspondence in the first six months along with several delays in which I was also charged for, even though this was not in my control. I was not notified on a consistent basis of the status of my case and there have been times where I did not receive any correspondence at all in two months. This was especially evident between November through February. Of course, I cannot prove that this case would have cost any less than $21,000, but it is logical to assume that most divorce cases do not cost this much with only a house and a few vehicles and no children. The result was a 55-45 split in my ex-wife's favor. I did not win anything more than average or what would be considered typical for a divorce case similar to mine and it is disappointing that their office regards their services worth over $20,000 that was charged to me. Their poor business practice caused me to feel trapped and misguided throughout the divorce and the initial expectations were unfulfilled due to the delays and poor communication of updates with the case, and the few updates that I did receive, I got charged for. I came to this firm to explore an option and after my initial consultation, I was emailed and phoned several times with them stating that they would love to help me in my case and that they looked forward to hearing from me soon. They pursued me to hire them and I was sorely mistaken to proceed with hiring Craig Haston as my attorney. I could have done without the aggravation. After all, I was already going through a divorce.