Mary Ellen Daniels

Mary Daniels handled a probate case for my family. She took approximately 2months off without explanation in the middle of our case, leaving us with a stand in attorney from an outside law firm who knew very little about our case. During our initial interview, attorney Daniels asked about survivor is...sues (beneficiaries) of the deceased. We explained that there were multiple family members but that we had not seen or heard from all but one or two them for many years and had no idea where they were. We were tasked with locating as many as possible, which we agreed to do. We were then somewhat surprised when in the initial court filing she stated that there were no surviving issues/beneficiaries. When we asked about this, we were told that this was okay and that she would file that information later. She stated that she wanted to file as soon as possible so we would be appointed administrators to the estate before others applied. As it turned out, the attorney for another family member used this to suggest we were being dishonest and trying to hide the fact there were survivors. Attorney Daniels made a weak attempt to justify the document by stating she had filed a document since then that did list survivors. Unfortunately, the judge concurred with the other attorney that it appeared we were trying to hide information. We realized then that the way attorney Daniels filed the initial documents was not the norm. The judge then ruled in support of a request by the family member to be appointed as co-administrator. This individual then filed a petition to receive an even greater portion of the administration fees.The end result was a loss of administrator fees and misinformation which the other family member further spread to extended family members. Our family was the only family who tok care of the decedent for approximately 40 years. The other family member had not seen nor been in contact with the decedent for at least that amount of time. It made sense that we would administer his estate. We believe that attorney Daniels' poor performance in this matter directly effected the outcome. Overall, my family felt our representation was pathetic and lacked a level of competence one would expect from an attorney. I'm still considering filing a complaint with the Bar association. We cannot possibly recommend her.