Jan Forker Cummins

Jan Cummins is the type of attorney who gives other attorneys a bad name. It seemed clear to me that she’s in it for the money. I hired her to help settle Mom’s fairly simple estate which does NOT need to go through Probate. At the first consultation ($300) she said without Special Needs Trusts it w...ould cost $7,000-$8, 000. At our next meeting she said she hadn’t looked at the trust yet, but we both agreed we wouldn’t need Special Needs Trusts. She surprised me by now saying it would cost “upwards of $10,000.” I had to remind her she had already told me $7,000 - $8,000. Jan tried to complicate things, telling me I needed to do and she needed to do things even I knew weren’t necessary (later confirmed by different lawyer I hired with extensive experience in trusts). There are many beneficiaries, but that has nothing to do with making the trust complicated, as Jan kept telling me it did. After the consultation I had only met with her once to sign the employment agreement and talk about a few things. After that meeting Jan reviewed the trust (straightforward and only assets are in banks accounts), and drafted a beneficiary notification letter required by law. The beneficiary letter she wrote encouraged the many (well over 10) beneficiaries to contact her with any questions or concerns. I told her to delete that part. I would have no control over how long they/she spoke or emailed, and from how Jan tried to complicate things and make unneeded tasks for herself, I could see her doing that too with the beneficiaries. That would increase her charges, and possibly create problems with them. I told her I prefer to have them contact me, and I would forward the questions/issues to her. She agreed to delete that part of the beneficiary letter. I went to her office to sign the letters for her to mail to the beneficiaries. She announced that she changed her mind, and she didn’t think she could keep me as a client if I didn’t allow her to communicate with all of the many beneficiaries! I was surprised, and later confirmed with my new attorney that her directly communicating with them does not need to happen. Right after Jan told me she MUST be able to have contact with beneficiaries or she won’t keep the case, she told me she’d already gone through $3,800 given her, and would need more money before doing any more work! Besides talking a few times on the phone and emailing, reviewing the Trust and drafting the beneficiary notification, she had done almost nothing. I protested, and she said she’d be sending me a bill showing what she did. I quickly left to get back to work, and because I was shocked and dismayed. As I was going out the door her only comment was, “And there’ll be more charges too!” Later that day I terminated her services, telling her to do nothing more, not even make copies of the file, as I had copies. She said there would only be another $100 in charges, and that she would file the Will with the county without charging me the $50 fee. Instead, the final bill she sent did charge $50 for filing the Will, and she added an additional $400, not just $100 she had promised. I ended up paying over $4,200, with the only things to show for it that I actually needed were the Will filed with the county, and she notarized an acknowledgement.