Barbara Anne Newman

Court appointed as children’s counsel for 11-14 year olds. First she told my children that because of their ages, their requests and what they had to say would be what determine her recommendations. Despite being told by the children that their biological father that they had no relationship with and... hadn’t seen for several years, is extremely abusive. The 14 year old expressed serious concerns about alcoholism and that he personally believed he does drugs & that he was concerned for his 13 year old sister’s safety, because he witnessed bio-dad physical abuse myself and his two older sisters….After speaking with bio-dad she decided everything the children had to say wasn’t true and chose to only believe bio-dad…as the children’s attorney. She then scheduled massive amounts of unsupervised visitations with bio-dad(despite the children’s plea to her not to) which included a trial over night visitation that was required in town for him to have over a month long visitation 2,000 miles away…he chose not to bother with the transition visitation and she removed it as a requirement….within a week of the month long visitation my daughter sent me pictures & videos of herself with bruises on her face and second degree burns on her arm(he threw her into a bonfire). I forwarded the videos and photos to Ms. Newman and she was unconcerned and said everything was fine. They met with Barbara immediately after returning and my daughter cried at the thought of having another visitation…for the first time she expressed concern, but the damage was already done…. during a court ordered phone conversation my daughter confronted him, where he proceeded to gaslight her and told her to never contact him again if she couldn’t remember things right… He then filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to extort money from me when he found out I don’t have the money he thinks I do he cancelled all future visitations and has had no contact for the last five years….during his bankruptcy he wrote off his fees to Ms Newman, who is now sending me bills for the full amount….she wants me to pay her $4,000 for her arranging my daughter getting abused…instead of doing her job and representing the kids.

Two things occurred when I dealt with Barbara Newman; 1. She made errors that were so serious that she essentially did not act as true counsel, violating clients Sixth Amendment rights. 2. Her deficient performance (and prejudice) unfairly affected the clients case . Her errors took away clients ch...ance for a fair trial/outcome And so clients rights were violated and client lost case. Do not do business with this lawyer!