Jessica A. Pederson

I had a really difficult family law case.  My ex was trying to take away my kids. I did what any dad would do in this situation. I started looking for the best family law attorney near me. I found Jane Wesley Brooks (JWB) because she was listed as one of the top family lawyers in San Diego Magazin...e. I figured, Jane should be able to help me with my child custody case. Boy, I couldn't have been more mistaken. Jane pushed me off onto one of the other attorneys at her practice, Jessica Pederson. Jessica said all the right things at first. Hit all the right buzz words. Told me she would be aggressive. She was Pro Dads. She believed in Dad Rights. She believed in equal coparenting. She was fighting for my kids. So I signed the retainer. When it came down to our actual custody case, Jessica played softball. She actually told me to just agree with unfair and inappropriate things my ex was doing. Which meant that my ex acted with impunity, and did even more things to make my life miserable.  And our children’s lives miserable.  Any average attorney would have filed a Temporary Restraining Order, or TRO, against my ex, considering how she was acting towards our children.  Not Jessica.  Jessica likes to just plug along, allow terrible things to happen, and drag things out as long as she can.  She doesn’t believe that there can be Domestic Violence by a mom against her children.  Jessica pretends she is a Domestic Violence Lawyer, but she doesn’t act like it.  Then there is the billing. JWB does something that (A LOT) of family law attorneys do: she over bills and triple bills. I would send one email, and be charged by 3 different people. My attorney would read the email (.2 hours), then hand it off to the paralegal to read my email (.2 hours), then hand it off to the secretary to read and categorize the email (.2 hours). Then my attorney would respond to my email, and ask me another question. The whole email chain would take 5 or 6 replies to get anywhere, meanwhile, I was billed for each email, when the reality is the total amount of time it should have taken for this one simple task should have been 0.2 hours TOTAL. Not 0.2 x 3 x 5 = 1.5 hours. It adds up. Sadly, in my research, I found a few other San Diego attorneys do this, so my advice to any Dad looking for a divorce attorney, is to do your research and make sure they aren't over billing you, or triple billing you the way Jane does. Then came the alimony and child support part of our custody case. An average alimony lawyer, or child support attorney, would fight for their client.  Not JWB.  Here, Jane sent me very aggressive emails, saying that I had to "disclose all of my finances", and if I didn't, I would be hit with a "motion to compel", which Jane said was very bad. So I disclosed everything. My ex didn't. My kids’ mom gave us no verifiable income, and documents that had been clearly altered. When I asked Jane to get more information, and find out my ex's true income, I was brushed off, and told to just accept what my ex-wife had forged. The real reason that Jane wants you to "disclose everything", is that Jane and Jessica want to know your total worth, so that they can wet their lips and milk you for everything your worth. Which she did.  JWB is not an honest child support lawyer.  She is in it for herself.   The worst part of the entire case, was how because Jessica played softball with my ex, my case dragged on for years, with small incremental changes mostly going against me. I was too scared to fire my family attorney, out of fear that I would LOSE MY KIDS! No dad wants to do that. JWB knows this, so they milk you for everything your worth, and could honestly care less about your personal case. I'm sure that the people on here that give JWB a 5 star review had a fine time with her. She's probably fine for easy family court cases where both parents get along and are getting a simple non-contested divorce. That was not my case though.