Janet Bledsoe Lacy

The divorce process is an unknown by most of us needing to wade through its convoluted system. Unfortunately, we don’t know what we don't know, so we seek good counsel and expect certain results. Janet Lacy was recommended to me by a former business associate, and without much due diligence, I tru...sted the recommendation and leaped at the idea of having great counsel available to me. Frustratingly, our relationship lasted about four months with three painfully confusing meetings. When a client leaves a meeting with more questions than he or she began with, something is certainly wrong. Janet is most likely in retirement, if you must know. So her zest and spirit is all but extinguished at this moment. After receiving calls from her during normal business hours while still a client of hers, one while she was driving and another from the comfort of her home with dogs barking in the background, I knew I had chosen the wrong attorney to represent me in what has been a difficult dissolution. The professionalism we seek and the undivided attention to our case is NOT what you’ll be receiving from Ms. Lacy. We had three unproductive meetings, one of which was spent almost in its entirety watching her organize my file. She brought in crumpled-up papers of mine to file and unraveled them in front of me. One of our meetings left me with the feeling that she was actually more defensive of my spouse than of me. The third and final meeting left me with the certainty that because I was a high net-worth client she would bill me into eternity. Further, she did not share my goal of finalizing this divorce quickly and amicably through a settlement offering and/or private mediation. All that was discussed and her intent from the beginning was to move towards trial. Her statement was, “we’re going to prepare, painfully (please hear that as excessive billing), for the long-haul.” As I’m sure you’re aware, about 5% of divorces actually get to trial, so the attorneys that utilize this strategy for clients are certainly not keeping the interests of their clients in mind first, but those of their own, ensuring every “t’ is crossed and “i” is dotted to protect themselves from litigation for their mistakes and poor representation of clients down the road. Bottom line: Janet Lacy is a horrible choice for an attorney, with questionable ethics and representation of her clients, and a professional dedication to her trade that has most certainly burned out years ago. For your mental and financial health, please look elsewhere.

I ended up having Janet represent me when one of her partners, after months, could not represent me due to health reasons. We were working together for about 4-5 months and I never actually met her in person. There was a drop in the ball with her getting up to speed. Just like the other review, she h...ad me running around for weeks answering every question my husband, who represented himself, asked, fill out every form he wanted, produce documents that he could get himself. I questioned who she was working for, me or my ex. She made comments to me that made me feel like I was on trial with her and felt as though I was defending myself to her. After a total of over 7-8 months with the firm, I let them go and hired someone else. At one point she refused to talk to me anymore or email me until she got more payment. Pretty much all I got for my $16000 was binders of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of documents I produced. I was told when I started consulting with other attorneys that a lot of her clients end up terminating services and switching to other attorneys.