Frances V. Dunham

Similar experience to other reviewers. Frances had no problem responding to emails and phone calls right up until I gave her the retainer fee. Since then, my calls, texts, emails have gone unanswered. At this point I don’t even know if I’m getting divorced. Considering this area of law affects a pers...on’s finances, mental health, children and coparenting relationships, you would think there would be some sort of compassion. I emailed her and requested that she cease all services and refund the unused portion of the retainer fee, and she promised to get back with me over a week ago. Now I’ll have to find a new lawyer to accomplish that and finish my case so that I can move on and out of this limbo.

If I could rate her no stars, I would. Frances was recommended by a friend that actually saw her perform in court and stated she was good. Well... that is if you can get a hold of her. She moved offices 3x times during the time that we hired her which she failed to give notice about her move twice. W...e found out about her move when we called to ask about court status because her assistant Julia had given us a different date, than the court notice we received by mail. We spoke to her 3x including the day she got hired and fired. She will take your retainer and disappear. As a matter in fact, she will send you an invoice for releasing her as your attorney over the phone. The day my husband informed her that we were no longer needing her services due to NOT REPRESENTING us properly, she sent him an invoice for the phone conference. We would receive so many excuses from Julia regarding the case. Almost 4 months went by with not knowing anything. I am not sure how this attorney has her license to practice when all she does is take retainers and charge for doing nothing. Honestly, we have so many negative comments and issues we can share, but we've wasted our time with her that she is no longer worth it. All I can say is to take your money elsewhere. This is coming from someone that has been in the legal industry for over 8 years. I was patient, because I know how busy attorneys can be, and how the court system can be, but this had nothing to do with the court nor the fact that is busy, because she was not familiar with our case at all the one time she showed up to the hearing when we were told it was not happening and it had been changed.

We hired Ms. Dunham for a child custody case a few years ago and it was the worse experience ever. We mainly dealt with her assistant, when we appeared in court she was not prepared. It was as if she had never heard of our situation. If I hadn't brought my own material to court that day we would h...ave had nothing to work with. When we arrived in court we were told that our retainer had been used up. Yet we had never received a bill in all the months prior to court to inform us of the zero balance. There were a lot of mistakes made in our hearing because of her lack of or should I say no preparation. It was a very lengthy hearing and when it was all said and done the outcome was not what we had hoped for to say the least. I attempted to contact Ms. Dunham the following day for advice on our case and she refused to speak to me because we now had a very large bill that needed to be paid prior to having a conversation with me. She finally came to the phone after I agrued the fact that we had never received a bill however all she said was that she didn't have to legally talk to me because I had a balance. She didn't care enough to do her job, to do the job she was hired to do. We should have reported her to the state bar but I was so exhausted after our case that I couldn't find the energy to do it. Especially because I did all the dirty work for her and yet I paid her thousands of dollars to do nothing. I hope somebody finds this information helpful. I've noticed how she's responded to some of the commits on this site however the truth speaks loudly when out of the thousands of recommendations she has apparently had, not one has bothered to make a positive comment about her. Every single rating on here is poor and she only got that from me because I couldn't go lower with my rating.