Diana Lynn Wheeler

Ms. Wheeler met with me for our initial appointment about a custody case. A lot of what she said about the process of modifying our custody arrangement during that initial appointment was not accurate. I don't know if she was just trying to make it sound simpler than it would be or if she just didn...'t know. Our case was rocky right from the start, and I ended up having to pay for documents twice because it took so long for her to get our summons to a process server. There was no way to have my ex-spouse served in time for the original court date. Additionally, she didn't seem to understand how jurisdiction between states was determined. Her lack of information on that subject also cost me money and our temporary hearing was wasted dealing with that. She wasn't a good advocate for me to the judges. Opposing counsel said a lot of vicious, untrue things about me, and I don't feel that she did much to counter those claims. Our judge had a pretty negative picture of me from opposing counsel while Ms. Wheeler did little to contradict the statements being made. I was truly disappointed with her counsel. A few months after our temporary hearing, she filed a motion to withdrawal counsel without letting me know in advance. She said that we had a break down in communication which is strange because I had told her assistant 3 weeks before this filing what my intentions were. I think that I was just not making enough money for her to keep me on the books. Later she agreed to drop the motion (which I regret now), but wanted me to pay for her filing it. When I balked at that, she had me play phone tag with her and her assistant before filing another motion for withdrawal of counsel. This time she stated that I was not abiding by our financial contract. I had just paid up all but $125 dollars (which was the cost of her motion to withdraw) the week before. The remaining $125 I hadn't paid because her assistant was going to call me back after talking to Ms. Wheeler about it. Since then, I have paid the full amount due to this point, but I'm worried about how being dropped for financial reasons is going to affect my ability to retain another lawyer. I don't think that Ms. Wheeler did know the process that our case involved. I think that my case was a little too complicated for her. I was also disappointed that the law firm that she worked for didn't have a mechanism in place for helping with my dispute with her over the bill. I had read that it was best to try to work out differences with your lawyer and avoid changing lawyers if possible, but Ms. Wheeler doesn't seem to feel that way.