David M. Gibans

David Gibans was totally inept in the courtroom and his preparation work before trial turned out to be equally bad. I can't know the reason why, but he could NOT complete a thought or follow his own line of questioning in court. He would ask the first question of a witness and then lose his focus and... ask no further questions. He started questioning my ex by handing her the wrong document to read. He would take notes as if he had the next question ready, but then just stare at that piece of paper and never think of the question I thought he had prepared. (This was when the judge would tell him he seemed to be intentionally slowing the trial.) I fired him mid-trial after the judge accused him three times of intentionally slowing the trial and my uncle, who came from Maryland to watch the trial, told me at the first break that, "Your lawyer is inept!" Before trial, Gibans had me send him the same documents two, three, or more times when he could not remember them from other times--and, of course, he charged me for each time. He had me prepare document packets to show proof of my ex's lies. I created 20 of these packets, and he told me they were just what he wanted, but he submitted NONE of them to the court!!! When I told him I wanted a refund, he refused and threatened that if I pursued things with my charge card companies to stop payment of just some of the legal fees, he threatened to put a lien on my house--which is now being forced sold because of his ineptness. Trustworthy? NO WAY!!!!! My case involved 3 mental illnesses on the part of my partner and "gay issues," and I tried to tell him many times that it was NOT going to be the simple contract issue he thought. He would not listen to me. He didn't bother to even research the issues of this trial, so his knowledge base was very limited. He was horrid at keeping me informed about anything. When I would ask him how he was going to use those packets or what his plan was for trial, I consistently got "I don't know yet" and/or "I haven't decided yet." David Gibans is NEITHER a capable mediator nor litigator. We got one shot a mediation and I had assumed he would lead the way. He did nothing but stop me from presenting the 5 packets about lies that I had prepared at that point, saying, "Not now." I assumed he had other plans for them. WRONG! I paid him $40,000 to be totally inept! Avoid this lawyer at all costs--literally!!! I would also suggest that you always stick with a lawyer in the same town. I was in Colorado Springs and the judge had no clue who Gibans was and seemed to have that bias about "out-of-town" lawyers--not to mention the extra legal fees in driving time for every hearing and court date.