Thomas Bernard McCullough Jr

I wish I had read the reviews on AVVO before working with him. I concur with the previous review - Overcharges and Underdelivers. Takes advantage of clients. Charges you for Secretarial tasks at attorney rates. Never once stepped foot in the court system for me. Misguided me on case strategy. C...ould not produce the timesheets he was to use when billing me? Does not represent the practice of law in good faith. Poor example! Horrific experience!

He estimated it would cost a maximum $25K of his time to get a corrupt trustee removed from his position. He ran up a bill of about $50K. He accomplished nothing. We had informed him early in engaging him that our financial resources for pursuing our interests were very limited, yet he didn't even... alert us to the fact that he was running up was way exceeding what he had estimated and give us the option of backing out before the bill got too high. Of course no lawyer can guaranty results in an adversarial situation, but he and/or his staff dropped the ball in at least these specific ways. ## He was impolite in responding to client emails, having been heard in the background to a call I was having to his staff making denigrating comments about me, the client, and complaining that I was making an inquiry. ## He filed a critical court response pleading just _barely_ short (hours short) of the absolute deadline for the judge's staff to receive it. As a result there is reason to believe that the judge did not really read it and as a result what should have been a slam dunk judgment in my favor it appears the judge was uninformed of the issues. And in court, when it became clear the judge had not really read our arguments McCullough did not verbally attempt to correct the judge's misunderstanding. ## When the party we were opposing made to the judge an out rightly false statement about an action he had taken, even though McCullough had in his papers documentary proof that this was false he said nothing and produced no counter evidence. It is extremely disappointing to do all the hours of background research and provide one's lawyer with the ammunition he needs in a hearing, have him standing there earning $400+ per hour and then have him stand there like a dummy and say nothing while events unfold against your interests. I could likely have represented myself more effectively in that court than he did. ## Mr. McCullough's billing policies are draconian and unreasonable. Specifically: I would send and email with information he requested. I would be billed a minimal period of time (about $100) for him sending me that one line email. When I supplied via email the information he requested I would again be bill that minimal charge when he received that email from me. It is important to understand the information he requested was already available in papers I had supplied earlier, and essentially I was being asked to catch the ball for him not finding the info he already had AND being double charged for his or his staff's failure to do their own clerical work and filing properly. # He also made a bad judgment call by counseling us to not make a reasonable/palatable settlement offer to the other party involved. Any lawyer can make a bad judgment call, but when he does it should be duly noted. Mr. McCullough is not unknowledgeable of estate law. And he or his staff did clearly put in substantual time on the case. That was not the problem. He just didn't seem motivated or interested enough or alert enough to do what he needed to do to represent me well, and interms of cost/benefit ratio I could not recommend him as a good bet.