Culver Winston Van Der Jagt

Culver Van Der Jagt, I am so very grateful for the service you provided me. Thank you. This was a difficult divorce and despite the games my then husband and the opposing council played we stayed the high road and it was them who sunk themselves. You were able to present to the Court what was tr...uly happening despite the lack of documentation from the “other side”…..no easy feat. When I look back over the process it took to safely untangle from an abusive, co-dependent relationship, I will say it was the most difficult thing I have ever had to go through and if I had understood before hand what it would take would I have been able to start.…not sure. We did it though! I came to you traumatized and in a state of fear suffering from PTSD. I was “again” attempting to leave my husband. At our first meeting, you presented a diagram of The Cycle of Abuse. This was not what you built my case on but I knew you understood the underlying situation and its complexity. That was important and I made the decision to trust you. The trust was a huge step in bringing me some much needed peace of mind and the courage to move forward. You did not fail me. Once that hurtle was crossed it was the start of taking my power back and the untangling from an abusive, co-dependent relationship. There were many pieces to this puzzle. Your quick thinking and knowledge of the law protected me on many an occasion. You strategized for the best possible outcome taking into account the type of person we were dealing with. Your guidance and assistance along with my therapist and toss in, yes the Advocate, were all there for me during the transition. I was cared for to the extent that we still stay in touch. On my part, it took a lot of self reflection, strength and willingness to do the work while you steered the ship. I will be forever grateful for my TEAM. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am writing this thank you a few years after my divorce from a healthy place. Life is good and I am thriving.

Culver, Paul, and his team did an excellent job for me throughout my extended divorce process. I highly recommend this firm for anyone that is going through this horrible process and wants to come through the other side with a smile on their face and maybe even some new friends. Unlike other divorce ...attorneys that treat this like a fee generating, paper-pushing process (e.g. the attorney I fired prior to engaging Culver, my ex-spouse's attorney, etc.); Culver understands that at the core of these matters are people, emotions, children, extended families, years of hard work, etc. He works with his clients and lets you be part of his legal team thereby enabling you to navigate a process that can quickly feel like you have no control over with other attorneys. Divorce is terribly invasive and frankly cruel depending on opposing counsel and their tactics; Culver knows most of these combatants through firsthand experience and is quick to develop tailored action plans that work perfectly to outwit their tactics. My specific case was fairly complex and involved a substantial estate value. It was also against an opposing counsel (Gutterman and Griffiths) that is known to be incredibly aggressive, I believe horribly unethical, and difficult to reach a settlement with. If you find yourself against this Firm, Culver is definitely your best choice in Denver in my opinion. I originally engaged another highly touted law firm and found myself after 4-5 months spending close to $40-50K dollars, making no progress, and having NO idea where we were in terms of status or what our strategy was to close down the open points. I am certain had I stayed the course, I would have been in for another 100K and ended up with a less attractive settlement than I reached with Culver at the helm. I terminated their services, contacted Culver, and within weeks we were having our first settlement discussions with opposing counsel. It ultimately took another year to wrap the case but I ended up spending less with Culver than I did with my other counsel in their 4 months of wasted paper pushing and got treated like a real human being. I am convinced that we ultimately achieved a more favorable outcome. I also highly recommend this firm if you are the type of client that is semi-capable yourself and willing to save yourself some money by helping Culver and team with some of the work associated with the "administrivia" of the divorce process. Remember, if you are willing to work with Culver and team you will not only save a LOT of money but together, you and his team will reach a much more favorable outcome than you could reach with other lawyers that just push paper around. I highly recommend this firm and would be glad to talk to anyone considering using Culver and his services.

Don't trust what you read online. You won't find any reviews on my ex's attorney, yet my ex cleaned me out while Van der Jagt did nothing to defend me. Give Culver credit, he's good at getting bodies in the door. That initial meeting, he made all these promises, wanted to move aggressively, pushe...d me to file divorce papers immediately. I filed, and then... nothing. Lots of nothing. The attorney assigned to me kept telling me that we just had to wait for the initial status conference... then we had to wait for the PRE... then the mediation session... then it was all over. Meanwhile, my ex's attorney was filing motions, ordering a parental responsibility eval, putting me through the wringer. I was immediately assigned to one of Van der Jagt's contract attorneys. Terrible attorney. * My attorney generally wouldn't respond until I'd emailed twice about any given issue. * Once he went completely dark on me for over a week, lamely replying that he was out sick. You're kidding. You don't have an out of office notice on your damn email? * He dutifully emailed me every filing my ex's attorney made, without any accompanying explanation. I was left to my own devices to decipher the documents. When I did email my questions, it would take several days to get a reply and the replies were not helpful. * I asked if I should be filing the same motions and my attorney responded that he and Culver felt like these motions weren't helpful to the case and were just harassment. So it was fine for my ex to harass me, but they didn't approve of it. * That didn't really matter because he neglected to tell me that there's a 60 day pre-trial deadline for filing motions. On top of that he never asked if there were any motions I'd like to file. So by the time I got hit with the pattern interrogatories, etc, it was too late for me to request the same anyhow. * There's also a 60 day deadline for naming witnesses. He never asked if I wanted to call any witnesses. * My ex ordered a PRE, yet I received no coaching, no advice, nothing. As you might predict, my ex's attorney did the opposite, and the outcome should be obvious. The PRE, selected my my ex's attorney, handed out a report even more favorable than my ex requested. * So I walk into the mediation hearing with an extremely weak position. * At the mediation hearing, it turned out that he didn't have the software on his laptop to calculate child support payments. I had to download it myself. You might think that being a family law attorney he'd use this stuff daily, but you'd be mistaken. * At mediation my ex's attorney wrote the memorandum of understanding and the final documents. The MOU contained some major catches that my attorney missed. I did realize that things were starting to go badly about 6 weeks before my court date and I talked to another attorney. She told me that Van der Jagt hires contract attorneys and farms out cases to them, and apparently only does court appearances. My particular attorney she'd faced 3 times before and her take was that he was sloppy and lazy. I agree with her assessment completely, and hopefully if you've taken one thing from this review, it's that fact. Unfortunately, by the time I realized how bad it was, I'd missed the major deadlines and she wasn't willing to take on a case that had been so badly mismanaged. In the end, you should judge your attorney by the outcome. So here's the score: If I had taken my ex's initial proposal after the initial status conference, I would see my kids more than every other weekend. I'd have saved months of stress and indignity. I'd have a smaller alimony and child support payment. And I'd have saved tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. So hiring Van der Jagt cost me in the neighborhood of $30,000 up front, another $75,000 by the time I'm done paying alimony and child support, and a whole lot of stress, gray hair, and lines on my face.