Anne B. Darring

Attorney put her own needs before the client. Attorney failed to satisfy her end of the contract. During time attorney represented me, she was consistently distracted by her judicial campaign. Attorney's staff was unorganized, unprepared, and incapable of providing proper litigation support. Atto...rney verbally admitted that she and her staff "dropped the ball on me," but never really accepted responsibility for her lack of preparation, nor her staff's errors. Ultimately, attorney is responsible for handling client's case, not the staff. Attorney blamed staff. Attorney did not attend mediation with me. However, husband's attorney was in attendance with him during mediation. I received an email from attorney's paralegal late in the day before mediation that attorney would not be attending mediation (no reason given at that time). Attorney did not offer to send associate attorney in her place. No direct contact from attorney the day before mediation. Client was the one that initiated contact after she was a no show at mediation. Discovered later that attorney could not attend mediation because she had a campaign fundraiser to attend. Main contention point during divorce was not addressed by my attorney, and was not properly addressed during mediation because attorney was not there to fight for me. Result: Unfavorable outcome at mediation for me. Attorney's staff routinely sent documents to me for review which contained numerous errors; errors that could have been avoided if they had just opened up my file and reviewed it prior to preparing the documents. I spent a ridiculous amount of time correcting errors, and resending documents back to staff for correction, only to have documents returned to me with same and more errors. Final orders had significant errors. Attorney said she reviewed final orders page by page, but Attorney didn't catch/realize that there was a significant error when I mentioned the error in the possession portion of the order. I constantly had to double check the work of the attorney and her staff to ensure that the orders were correct. I did not pay attorney to do her work for her.