Carter Barron Casteel

Not efficient, client-focused, or interested in resolving cases in a time-sensitive manner. They make something relatively peaceful and simple and expensive drawn out fight over items that end up right where they started. Lots of menial paperwork and failure to communicate with opposing counsel o...n simple items often directly results in more billable hours and a more contentious case. More often than not, instead of communicating with opposing counsel via telephone or correspondence, Casteel files for a court date and includes combative language stating "opposing counsel has been unwilling..." without attempting once to reach out to negotiate. As with any attorney, anytime you go to court you can expect to exhaust as least $2,000 of your retainer. In the case of Casteel, you will make multiple trips, but rarely if ever actually see the judge. Instead, you sit in a conference room for hours while the attorneys bounce back and forth, negotiating, and eventually reach an agreement that could have been proposed and accepted weeks earlier via a couple conversations...no trip to court was every needed. Barron is lazy, and an average attorney at best. Ask other attorneys in town, and it is easy to validate that statement. Carter is a good attorney, but she genuinely enjoys fighting over anything and everything. It doesn't matter if it is the heart of the case or the most menial item, Carter will fight instead of negotiate. That is a very expensive route for simple items that are easily negotiated. Not everything in a case has to be a fight, and the more middle ground you can find to build on, the more willing parties will be to compromise on the bigger items. They love temporary orders, which are only rules of engagement in place until the case is finalized. More rules are more money, and more rules raises tension unnecessarily. They will file motions requesting the most obscure and restrictive conditions, based on no supporting evidence, then at court advises you to give into the most generous concessions. What a waste of time and money. Casteel uses mediation, a time and technique designed to reach compromise on a final agreement, to only focus on more unnecessary temporary orders. They refuse to discuss anything final. Why even do mediation in that case? They know the court requires mediation, and "final" is the last thing Casteel will seek during it. A closed case garners no new fees. Barron and Carter often juggle case loads between each other. That means Barron could be your attorney, but Carter shows up for mediation. The two don't communicate case details, so time is wasted rehashing what happened months prior, and then Carter reopens prior agreements because Carter decides wants to fight anew in a different direction than Barron agreed to previously. They will ask the opposing party for boxes of discovery information, but openly admit they review none of it "unless it will go to court". If finding agreement outside of a trip to the judge is important, it is important to know both the good and potentially damaging evidence on both sides of the case. Without that knowledge, you end up in an expensive trial that didn't have to happen if they known how to leverage or minimize potential evidence. Yet, their team will spend an absurd amount of billable hours "reviewing" your own discovery response information. They will eventually submit it...incomplete, to opposing counsel. Incomplete results in further requests, and more billable hours responding. It may not be appropriate to call Casteel a bad firm, but they are certainly opportunistic with billable hours and have no urgency to settle your case.