Stephanie Roberts Stjohn

I hired this attorney for a family law case, before hiring her I made it clear that I wanted full representation and to be coached. The only time I was able to get an appointment with her in the office was to sign paper work for her. St. John would contort my words to make them blatant lies which m...ade me look less than credible in court. I would call her staff and leave a message to be filled into the status of our case I was lucky if I received a phone call back. I requested several things that were extremely important to me to get done and she blew them off; when confronted she accused me of trying to take over and said I should hire another attorney. She failed to represent me and basically was just a waste of my money. I ran into another client of hers at the court house after she became rude with me in front of opposing party and found out he fired her for the same thing but he was drawn in for 6 months. Ms. St. Johns daughter Heather does the paperwork and repeatedly any papers I had drawn up were riddled with typos and had to be sent back. Very unprofessional and claimed ZERO responsibility for her mistakes ; not filing paperwork on time or filing for motions to be heard in court, serving my ex without following through with the paperwork. Seemed that her only intentions were to draw the case out till a hearing since that is where big money is at. After the encounter with one of her former clients I interviewed several others and found out that the commissioner for our case should have been dismissed since she was biased towards move away orders but since we already attended court it was too late. Wow here I thought good money paid for good attorneys. Guess it pays for bad ones too. I ended up moving before our "big" family court date, spoke with her daughter/paralegal (Heather) 3 days after moving to give new contact info and asked since the ex and I were trying to work things out should we still go to mediation, heather told me Ms. St. John said yes. That made me think she was fully aware of my new info and that I did not disappear but low and behold I appear in court and she is bad mouthing me to opposing counsel saying how she has not heard from me and she has no idea how to get a hold of me. I know this because she walked right by me to talk to the ex's lawyer and I stood right there staring at her while she did it. She and I began talking and she was very gruff towards me saying I cant have my clients not stay in contact; she claimed there was nothing in my file indicating new contact info and she did not receive anything from mediation, she asked me to either pay additional funds or sign the sub attorney form. I wanted representation but she pretty much said I will quit if we continue so I agreed to the sub and that was it. Overall, I did not receive what I paid for which was competent representation, one that was knowledgeable about my case and that was able to provide the coaching I paid for. My ex met with his lawyer before every court appearance and before mediation so that he could be briefed on what to say and how to act. I was simply nobody she did not care about what was at stake, and she did not care about my concerns; even if they were not important to her you just don’t blow people off or get angry because you are being questioned. Honestly, she might have been good back in the day but as several of the lawyers I interviewed after her said they don't think there is a lot of fight left in the ol' dog. Regardless, when someone says they are going to do something you expect them to do it not claim they can't 3 months later because they need permission from the court 1st. I would not recommend her for family matters as there is just simply too much at stake. Do your homework so you don't end up stuck like me. Good luck!