Barbara A. Cole

What a disappointment and truly a waste of money. I was referred to Barbara by another attorney. At first meeting she was pleasant, and seemed a go-getter, making promises that this was a case that could be fought. I hired Barbara, and gave her the required retainer. Barbara was very responsive a...t first, but not long after I had to call her for updates on my case and find out 'where we were'. I would get a lot of runaround, and when I did get good information it wasn't helpful to finalizing the case. Barbara did unnecessary and costly work (the attorney I hired to finish the case pointed this out), and got nowhere. What should have taken 6 months took well over a year with no conclusion. Barbara is not a competent attorney, and as other reviewers have said, she's more about billable hours than actual fruitful work. I should have searched for reviews before hiring her. Unfortunately she cost me way more than necessary and that was time and costs that I could not recoup.

I hired this lawyer in the most fragile moment of my life. Mistake number 1 I hired her just because somebody I trusted gave me a referral. Mistake 2 I thought the more experience the better. It turned out her experience in my divorce was not enough. Actually she did not have the experience neede...d in my case. A much younger fellow though had it. I learnt later I got burnt real bad and she almost screw up my case very badly after I hired my second lawyer who pointed out how she took advantage of my ignorance on how divorce worked and how she over charged me. She tricked me in ways to charge me for things that was not even necessary for my case or even useful in court. A waste of my money to just fill her pockets. I am very angry how people can take advantage of others in a such deceiful way. As a single mom I thought that she would at least have some simpathy. I've got to say my second lawyer respected me in every way, did not take advantage of my situation, educated me about options and most importantly showed me the realistic scenarios that could happen. A good lawyer does not need to be rude, tricky and disrespectful to you "client". A good lawyer can make money honestly putting your interest first before theirs. I wouldn't never recommend her to anyone.

She handled my divorce, which was quite a horrible experience for me and my daughter. Personally, I think it was all about the money. First, she never told me she was out of Dallas and only flew into Kerrville on occasion. When I confronted her about it, she insisted she told me right away. I would n...ever have hired her had I known she wasn't local to me as I wanted this divorce done as quickly as possible. That didn't happen. She dragged it on for almost 2 years, waiting forever to demand a response from opposing counsel (who was dragging it out on purpose). She told me she would get temporary child support while the divorce was going on, but that never happened either. I was going to graduate school, so finances were tight, and in that time, that was a loss of over $7,000, and her fees ran close to $18,000 during all of this. After the first mediation, which failed, she told me she could help me... it went downhill from there. There was even one time my ex took me to court, making false accusations, and she entered with not one shred of paper, no briefcase, NOTHING! There was one point I tried to provide her with paper that showed my position and she shoved it away. She also lied to the judge (not necessary since I had a court document as my proof), and when I asked her after why she didn't tell the truth, she told me we didn't want the judge to know that yet... The truth is, I think it would have helped me. She was disapproving of me, and by the Texas Bar, she should have sent me to other counsel. She led me on, thinking she would be helpful in the end. To my horror, during the second (and last) mediation, she didn't believe my side and became so disgusted she threw her hands in the air and exclaimed, "I can't defend you!" Then she went on to brag to the mediator about her son going to an ivy league college. She made no further attempt to help me, attempted nothing of which I requested except child support (which is required anyway), but she did NOT even TRY to get back child support. I was devastated. Fortunately, after the failed negotiations which ended so horribly for me, I fired her and hired other counsel to finalize the divorce and THEN renegotiated the terms. My new attorney was able to restore my hope and procure a better life for myself and daughter, so things are good now. Really, there are so many things I could say... I would run!

Barbara did not do timely work: she was going to file a simple motion to modify, but took so long (never filed when she said she would) that my ex-husband was able to file an enforcement motion first regarding our children. Then she told me to not accept his serving until she filed......and my ex h...usband told me that she kept avoiding signing a certified letter he kept trying to deliver to her by the fact that she was never at her office like she said she would be. I started getting a bad feeling regarding her and then looked up more reviews....which were all bad. So I fired her on a particular date and hired a new attorney. She continued to charge me for services that my new attorney was doing and basically spent my entire retainer in one month. Her charges for approx 1 month almost equaled what my first attorney charged me for the totality of my contested divorce. Also, she does not live in Kerrville and is not completely open about that at first. I will be filing a grievance and may even take her to small claims court for the principle of the matter. This was a nightmare attorney. Do not be fooled by her promises or seemingly nice demeanor....you will regret it.