Erika Katherine Klein

I went with Erika as a recommendation from someone else who hired her for their divorce. My divorce went to court because my ex refused to let me have my children for 50% of the time and refused to work out any type of percentage on the equity of our home and expected the court to give her the home ...and all of it's equity without giving me any whatsoever. I hired Erika to try and get equal custody of my kids and an equal share of the marital home. Throughout the trial, it felt as though Erika was on my ex's side every time she complained about anything through her lawyer. Every time any accusation was leveled against me by my ex, Erika would approach me already believing I had done whatever my ex said and tell me why I shouldn't be doing it instead of even asking me what the situation is first or asking if I had in fact done what I was accused of. Example: Several times my ex complained I was withholding all my money from her when, in fact, I had removed her access to the online bank account but still kept her debit card active for her to spend (with no limits). I sent emails to her saying I was removing her access to the online accounts but she still had her debit card and could spend whatever she needed. My ex only told her lawyer that I wasn't giving her any money. Erika emailed me saying I absolutely was not allowed to withhold money from her and how it would look bad and how my ex still needed to be able to feed the kids and everything. This was the first communication I had received from Erika about this matter and her first instinct was that I was doing it and she needed to stop me from doing that so she didn't lose the case. During talks with her, many times I felt as though I had to defend the way I just wanted to parent my children to her. Or what I was asking from the divorce. Ultimately, it felt like Erika is used to defending women against men who are trying to abuse the system in their favor just to get one over on their ex-wives and treated me accordingly even though I was her client. To be fully transparent. During the case, I won the custody I was seeking. I received a smaller portion of the equity of the home's value when the trial first started (40%/60% split that I offered to the judge because I make more money than she does) . However, the marital home's value increased substantially during the divorce (by approximately $140k). I asked Erika about trying to submit a new appraisal or what I could do to get 40% of the remaining equity of the house when it was sold and was told there was nothing I could do about it and lost out on 40% of the additional equity money my ex pocketed from the sale of the house. I would not recommend if you are a man, she seems to already have an idea how all men operate and that is how you will be treated. You will be driving your entire case and be on the defensive with her from the beginning.

Erica Klein was recommended to me by someone who had Erica represent them in a long, drawn-out, expensive child custody battle. That should have been a red flag in retrospect, because Erica dragged my case out too...unnecessarily. Erica gave bad legal advice and did not have proper attention to det...ail, then lined her pockets when her missteps caused several extra rounds of negotiations. The additional negotiations that stemmed from Erica’s poor lawyering earned her an extra $1.9K, by the way. Overall I found her to be incredibly unprofessional and not nearly as knowledgeable in family law and contract law as she claimed to be. Don’t just rely on my opinion, ask around the legal community and you will get a better sense of Erica Klein’s reputation and character.