Veronica L Alvarez

Unfortunately, I was referred to Veronica. That was a huge mistake in itself. I felt word of mouth was better then the yellow pages or internet. I met with an attorney that was a relative of a friend. He was not a Family Law Attorney and referred me to Veronica Alvarez. I just found out this is not h...er specialty and she had no business even representing my case. I was already divorced and 4 months after the fact my ex wanted to set the divorce aside because he thought he had money coming to him. He had not paid me a dime in child support and the only good thing from my current divorce was CHILD SUPPORT WAS RETRO-ACTIVE! I met with Veronica and she tried to charge me $5000.00 to stop the set aside. Instead we agreed to see if a modification could be negotiated and that was all, for $1500.00. If anything else needed to be done her fees would have to be renegotiated. I provided her everything she requested in paperwork and she did nothing with it for 3 months. On January 23rd she sent a response to my ex's attorney.During those months she knew my only concern was not to have the divorce set aside. She even ACKNOWLEDGED in the documents that I had a standing judgment and $7,350 was owed to me excluding interest and $3,900 in child care in the request to the opposing attorney!!! 6 months after a divorce it is very unlikely and expensive to even do a set aside. I knew I was safe and really was just looking to modify our current visitation schedule that was addressed in our request to modify the standing judgment. In early February she contacted me and I met with her for the second time in person on Feb. 11th 2009. Usually her manner was to bully and interrupt me and say that I talked to much. That was her way of making me think that I needed her. I felt however that she was that way with her own client, she would be unruly with my ex-husband and his representation so I let it slide. When I met Veronica that last time, she was exceptionally nice and stated that my ex's attorney was over him, for whatever reason and he was not willing to agree to the modification. Instead I could continue to throw money away but if I agreed to represent myself I could save money and handle the modification for the visitation myself and the money for unpaid bills later. She even printed out blank forms and said that this is what was needed to file by myself. If I needed help down the line, then she would assign another attorney in her small firm for less then what I would pay with her. Please note I thought she was being very human, and I agreed, gratefully. I thought she was doing this as a favor because of who referred me. I signed on Feb. 11 2009 paperwork that said I was representing myself. The same day, she signed on behalf of me a SET ASIDE that made everything in my divorce null in void except my marital status, unbeknown to me. It was just recorded and I have lost now over $10,000 in support because the child support was set aside too. I have spoken with 3 attorney's including the one that referred her. There was no reason to set aside something that was not even an issue after 6 months. Furthermore the set aside does not have my signature on it! It was done after I released her as my attorney. She knew the only reason i hired her was NOT TO LOSE CHILD SUPPORT THAT WAS OWED TO ME!!!! By her malice and blatant disregard to my needs, she did what she wanted and DUMBED IT DOWN to make me think she was doing me a favor and cost me more then money but let my dead beat ex off the hook for no child support that was owed to me for the last two years! She undid exactly what she was hired to protect! Now more money out of pocket is needed to fix her mistake which what I am being told is MALPRACTICE. Times are hard. I hope this review deters you from wasting the cost of a phone call to someone who I regret ever meeting. VERONICA ALVAREZ has taken money out of my child's mouth because she has no clue in hell what she is doing.