Marcus F Westervelt

This attorney was court appointed, did not keep me informed of the case nor did he even speak during any of our court proceedings! He would "assure" me of what would happen but when it came down to it he barely said two words to the court in my defense. I have a mental illness (depression) and he ...was HIGHLY offensive to me. Didn't return phone calls or emails in the beginning and when I finally WAS able to reach him, he said my repeated phone calls were a sign of my mental illness. I stopped calling and was not kept informed of the case at all. Months later, he made the comment that "A Beautiful Mind was a good movie and proves I can be a good parent" How insulting!! I reported this to the State Bar of Arizona and was told he would be contacting me... well I'm still waiting. If you get this lawyer appointed to you, I HIGHLY recommend requesting a new one IN THE BEGINNING! Do not trust that anything will happen in your favor as long as I have. It will not happen.

After my second hearing, I was faced with decisions and some tough realizations both during mediation and in the court room. I found Mr. Westervelt to be very quick and responsive to phone calls, emails, and questions I had (prior to, during, and after my court hearings) in my case. Mr. Westervelt ...was court-appointed to represent me in my case and during the last hearing, it became very clear that I was going to need to hire an attorney if I wanted to have any real chance at a fair trial. Juvenile dependency cases, I have come to find out, are among the most complex and intensive cases within the court system-definitely requiring much more time and effort than a court-appointed attorney is able to give. I hired a new attorney later that month after speaking with around 20 (literally!) I would not recommend anyone to keep with a court-appointed attorney in juvenile dependency cases unless they absolutely have no choice. These attorneys are handling your case, along with a stack of who knows how many other court-appointed client cases, and then their clients paying them out of pocket on top of it. You are dealing with a child's life and future and these attorneys have the power to impact the outcome of that case. To not give these attorneys the time they need to dedicate themselves 100% to that kind of a case should be illegal...It is not fair to the attorney, the client, and most of all, it is unfair to the child involved. Mr. Westervelt showed to be trustworthy, responding to my emails and calls that day or the next, and seemed very knowledgeable in these types of cases. I was disappointed, however, that I did not receive minute entry copies of our hearings. Some very important issues I had brought to his attention for the past several weeks were not voiced at all during mediation or in the courtroom. During his opening argument at our last hearing, Mr. Westervelt didn't sound thoroughly prepared and was missing important documents he was referencing in his opening argument. If he had requested these from me ahead of time, I would have happily provided them. The information and references he gave were outdated and it was hard to follow his overall argument; he just wasn't ready. Assertiveness of any kind was completely absent and it was very hard to follow him. However, in the process of trying to hire a private attorney, I did speak to many offices who were familiar with him, one of them even giving his name out as a referral. The problem is, I am not sure if the referral is due to his performance or if his name was being thrown around because he is one of the few attorneys who specialize in these types of cases (there is a very small pool of them and trust me they are hard to find!) Overall and in the short time he represented me, I found Mr. Westervelt to be a very nice man, great at following up, never any issues with trust, and certainly has knowledge in his field of practice.

As a current client of Marcus Westervelt, I would like to give my first review as my case is just in its beginning stage. I swore off lawyers about 5 years ago after an experience that emptied my savings and did nothing more than I could have done myself. It was so costly that by the time the trial... rolled around, I was the one walking in without a lawyer to represent me. I had to build my case myself and prepare to not only argue my case, but also battle the other party and his lawyer. My experiences only went downhill from there with very little exception. I know nothing about being a lawyer. The one thing I have learned over the years about lawyers is that it is not so much what you know about the law (that is the most clean cut out within the job) but it is about being transparent to who is working the system and how they are getting away with it. In today's society, the most obvious factors (money, politics, character) and the less obvious (unities like the free masons, personal preferences, first impressions) are exactly those which we are caught in as we try to solve what can be a very complicated or a very simple equation, depending on how good of a lawyer you are I would imagine. That question should be simple and Marcus Westervelt is the first lawyer I have ever dealt with that initially laid it out for me. He asked me, what do you believe your case is really about? Very simple, very clean cut...On my first impression of him, I found myself walking into a conversation where time was extremely limited and the questions on both ends were almost infinite. Marcus kept me on track in those 15 minutes we had upon our first meeting. He walked into our meeting not only with the ability to communicate the other party's issues but also ask me what mine were. I like to believe that this was his way to answering that one simple question: What is this case really about? I found myself rambling in my nervousness and overwhelmed in the situation alone. He was assertive to stop me and pull me back on track. If I tried to tell him" how it was", he would remind me who the lawyer is because I believe that no one knows my case like I do, but then again I am not the lawyer and I need to be reminded of that. I guess some may feel a bit peeved at a certain level of assertion, but I walked out of that meeting with a smile inside. If he is this way with his clients, I have no doubts how he handles those on the opposing side. I have visited his office and had contact with two of his staff members to date. I always get a phone call returned and his full attention on my case and my case only. If he cannot focus on me, then we schedule a time that works for both of us. So far, he has not been flaky or careless of my case to any extent. He does not hesitate for a moment to give his honest opinion even if it is the last thing I want to hear. He just lays it out there. We have some time to go before my case concludes, but I am very confident that I finally have representation that doesn't make me simply feel like just another form of job security for someone else in this country.