Zo Taylor Rees

I hired Zo Taylor-Rees as my representative attorney for a contentious divorce. The first meeting I had with Zo she was curt and dismissive which should have been my cue to complete the consultation and exit without hiring her. Her manner did not improve in the four months I had dealings with her and... her passive approach did not assist my situation, in fact it most likely was the result in a negative situation being more negative. When I left her office 4 K lighter I knew I had made a serious error. It turned out I was right and I suggest you heed/read the reviews here should you need further verification. Taylor-Rees is not passive so much as inept. After the one initial consultation with her in her office each meeting thereafter was held in the hallways in the courtroom. On my second appearance related to the divorce but not the divorce itself Rees substituted another attorney (her husband) and he was not aware of the story, circumstances nor the situation. I had to brief him in the courthouse and thankfully this matter did not progress to trial. I could not imagine going to trial with an attorney playing catch-up the morning of a trial. On the matter of my divorce the last appearance I had secured three witnesses. Despite several attempts to reach Rees the week before the trial she did not return my calls. Most of, if not all communication to Rees is done through her paralegal and Rees neither answers telephone calls nor emails directly. Therefore, one must do all communication though a third party leaving you waiting for a response at the behest of Rees. Rees had not spoken to any of my witnesses to ascertain their value to the case nor furnished me with a list of questions prior to the court date. In the end she did not want to call any of my witnesses to the stand. This could have been easily ascertained prior to the case. Each of my colleagues took a day off from work to testify on my behalf but apparently she did not see fit to use them. If the witnesses had no value to the case that should have been ascertained prior to the court appearance. I subsequently discovered that I could and should have subpoenaed witnesses to testify on my behalf. She was rude and adversarial with me (remembering I am the client) and several of my colleagues who were there on my behalf were horrified at her manner and her hostile tone. I spent the morning in the hallways with Rees squiggling notes on her yellow pad trying to line up the facts of the case in a chronological order despite having been my attorney for four full calendar months. Despite email evidence, photographs, texts videos and all manner of highly relevant items to my case Rees did not offer anything into evidence. She had no predetermined questions for me and missed many, many opportunities to score points for our case. When she did finally call a witness to testify upon my request she was very obviously unprepared. Three weeks prior to the case being heard I consulted with another attorney who suggested I seek turnover orders for assets in the basis of fiduciary waste. This was not completed and the morning of the trial Rees informed me that the motions were going to be presented the following day. Three weeks after I had instructed this to be completed. She was constantly talking about ex-parte motions which were never filed and the one she did file I was informed by my subsequent attorney that it would be rejected and indeed it was. The attorney I hired post Rees also informed me that whole exercise was a completed waste of money. In the four months that Rees was my attorney I never received an update on my account nor the work carried out. The final straw arrived when Gina her paralegal informed me that opposing counsel had enraged her, finally after four months of legal pugilism she was joining the party. I terminated her during that phone call. I have never received a statement nor a refund for work that was not carried out. Caveat Emptor!