Craig P. Helgesen

I retained Craig around October of 2017, this was not really that difficult of a case involving custody of my son. Yesterday I was forced to settle for pretty much the state minimum for 1 simple reason, Craigs pure and simple incompetence. Craig failed to listen when I requested to have a custody eva...luator, in fact the entire time Craig was my attorney (A total of $2,300 until I terminated him) I saw NOTHING from Craig or his office. I missed several deadlines because Craig failed to do as I asked and this cost me so much money and time for the next 11 years of my life. Craig ripped apart my family by NOT taking action and doing what I had asked. If you're looking for a family attorney, look elsewhere. To attest to this I had recommended a friend take Craig on for his custody battle as well, only to have the same results. Please, if you care about your children and want a good future with them look elsewhere so you don't have the same issue as I have..

I hired Craig to help settle my divorce. Initially, the paperwork took longer than I would have liked, but when I needed him and his team, they were always right there, ready to help me. I had a couple of times throughout the process when I needed immediate help with legal documents (same day) and th...ey made sure to accommodate my needs. This was a terrible situation to go through, but having a group of people to help navigate the paperwork and other legal aspects of the situation made it easier to deal with.

This lawyer and his paralegal are horrendous. I began my bankruptcy process in April 2017. I had a few credit cards to file. All in all, a SUPER simple case. I should have saved my $1000 in attorney's fees and filed it myself. Here it is August and it's still not done. Communication was little ...to nothing. Multiple messages sent before I would get an answer. I thought the point to hiring an attorney was to take the headache away from me and it would be a seamless process. I wouldn't recommend this firm to anybody. Very unprofessional. Didn't give a crap about my case, my time, or my money. Complete joke!

After consulting with three other attorneys I decided to use Craig Helgesen for my bankruptcy. While he was pleasant he seemed disorganized. For instance, once I went in for my appointment and was told he was not in the office. I showed my appointment card, so they called him. He was at lunch. Th...ey had me wait over an hour and a half for him to return. He felt no need to hurry back on my account. Another time I went in and was told I did not have an appointment. Apparently, his assistant failed to log it into his schedule. Also, I was only trying to discharge debt from two credit cards. He failed to notify one of the credit card companies that I had indeed started the bankruptcy process, so when it was all said and done that credit card company did not discharge the debt and put a lien on the house. I feel that Craig should have given me that information that the debt would not be discharged even if I continued with the bankruptcy filing. I also found out after the fact that if you are without the necessary funds you do not have to pay the $250 filing fee, which could be more now that it is four years later, and there is monetary help for those who have no income. When it came time to actually go to court he had two of his colleagues call me on the phone to go over everything I had met with him and given him during the previous months because he was too busy to do the paperwork himself. I gave the information to Craig on several occasions and then had to scramble to give the same information to his colleagues over the phone. Why they did not have that information available to them I do not know. BUT I felt that I had paid for Craig and was getting the second string backup team. At the court hearing my estranged husband came to court and was questioning Craig about legal issues. Craig was my attorney only and should not have spoken with him at all. He failed to tell me important facts that I only found out later, after I went to court, that had serious consequences for me financially. I reaffirmed on a HELOC that I should not have. He was very unhelpful and I would discourage anyone who is thinking of using him. It cost me more after the bankruptcy to take care of the credit card debt that was not discharged. I would have been better off trying to settle with the credit card companies than filing the bankruptcy. There are more issues, but I am trying to just stick to the facts as per the AVVO instructions.

He and his staff were very responsive to my "trivial" questions on bankruptcy and gave me good on advices what I needed to do to complete the process. He does things to represent me in a very timely and professional matter with the court and always providing documents for me to fill it out ahead of ...time. I'm very satisfied with his work.