Melina Shalysse Benninghoff

Ms. Benninghoff was appointed to represent my grandson who is presently incarcerated in Corcoran on a in-custody offense of conspiring to receive controlled substances in prison and an additional possession of an inmate manufactured weapon that was previously dropped by the institution. She has fail...ed to communicate with her client and was recently informed that she was being fired by her client, after which she responded. My grandson's mother as well as myself have reached out to her office with no response. Would not recommend this lawyer. Dr. Guy Washington, Forensic Psychologist

I hired her to represent my son in Kings County. She took the money and then basically gave the case to her assistant, who knew nothing about what he was doing. He agreed that Benninghoff was not doing her job, and apologized for her, but that did not help my son's case. I had to fire her and hire... a "real" attorney. This was the day after she called me up to tell me off for speaking to the DA about what was being done and found out she was not only incompetent, but lying to me.

I would not recommend her nor will I ever use her services again. She promoted herself shamelessly throughout the fleeting visit instead of taking the time to find out more about the case from me. She neither proposed nor was interested in a strategy, and never explained the evidence the DA had. She ...was so busy that she showed up rarely in court. Melina never responded to my mail to here requesting discovery information, or any of my attempts to contact her.She didn't even answer my requests for renegotiating bail. She was far from collaborative and in no way took my wishes into consideration.

We hired Ms Benninghoff a year ago initially she showed great interest in the case and the client but eventually all that dissipated. She never made an effort to communicate and would send her "step in" Daniel Baldridge who had no idea what the case was all about and go to court unprepared. Ms. Be...nninghoff only showed up a couple of times for the court dates. Never discuss or sit down in person with the client of how the case was going. She made a lot of promises but never kept any. From the start she said she will deal with it when she was ready, its absurd over a year she is was still not ready or shown interest. We basically did all the foot work in gathering all documents to help out in the case but it was still not appreciated.