Nicole L Deering

I hired Nicole for my divorce in mid 2023. This should have been an easy divorce not many assets no children. The issue my spouse is a divorce attorney in the same small pool in Portland. My ex spouse refused to turn over discovery, dragged the divorce along for over a year and caused me to pay lawye...r every time. Nicole did nothing to further the divorce proceedings. When I asked her to be more aggressive I did not see any action. Over all my divorce took nearly a year to complete and I am still navigating issues that my ex spouse was able to slither her way through because my legal guidance was subpar. Items that I didn’t think about (because she was not forced to actually produce discovery) resulted in me taking on more debt than I should have. I continued to have to keep my ex spouse on my health care the entire time and pay lawyer fees the entire time. I believe if my ex-spouse was not a lawyer in the same field I would have different and better representation. I can’t recommend this firm.

Nicole was hired halfway through a messy and contentious case with a court date quickly approaching. We had to change counsel abruptly (no communication for 3 months) and interviewed a half dozen attorney's before settling on Nicole. Nicole is honest and will give you her expert opinion to get the be...st outcome for you and for your children. She is honest, thorough and real. The other party was almost impossible to communicate with and was purposely difficult every step of the way. Nicole pressured and held the other counsel and party to deadlines and ensured that we ended this arduous battle with an outcome that the children were happy with. She is an excellent communicator and used every tool in her disposal (Word, email, text and phone) to make sure we were all on the same page and our concerns and requests were addressed. All during a pandemic. THIS WAS A NIGHTMARE FOR OVER 2 YEARS! Nicole brought a solid parenting plan and stability that was necessary for the kid's development and social well-being. Her staff is responsive and courteous and there was a definite team feeling from their firm. We felt thoroughly supported and never had to wonder if they were over-billing. I would recommend her and her firm to anybody dealing with a difficult ex or just wants a solid honest attorney. We were not her largest or most complex case but she was focused on our case, when working on it. No nonsense, no filler and complete transparency. She is deeply respected in Portland, and she lived up to her reputation. Thanks Nicole and Team!

Nicole helped me navigate through one of the most crucial times in my life. She provided sincere, expert advice with a straight forward and compassionate style. I feel grateful because Nicole was so dedicated to my divorce case and parenting plan. The outcomes in court were all positive and I woul...d recommend Nicole to friends and family.

Nicole has joined a large firm and is very busy. I suspect that she is overloaded with too many cases. I hired her to handle my divorce in a fair and equitable fashion with my wife. She was often ill prepared and was using templates from other cases to cookie-cutter court submissions. I was direc...ted by her into a single session mediation marathon with a retired judge. Never agree to this. I was quite capable of making quick financial decisions however it was very inhumane for my dear spouse. My spouse was not ready for this level of pressure. I felt sorry for the trauma. In addition while I was reading lengthy documents that I had never seen before, I was paying billable hours for a minimum of two attorneys and a judge to watch me read. While the other party was reviewing our counter proposal, we were twittling our thumbs - more billable hours. Nicole never was able to obtain a counter proposal prior to the mediation however opposing counsel provide 15-20 pages of documents at the start of the mediation. Quite frankly I thought Nicole spent more time driving down my position than acting as an advocate. Throughout the process Nicole often put forward false deadlines for me to agree to positions in order to pressure me. In addition when I asked for the documents in MS Word so that I could compare the documents with previous versions, Nicole resisted. I spend hours - billable hours - explaining to her that in the mediation terms we had successfully negotiated that opposing counsel was required to provide documents in MS Word. She finally got the documents. Nicole is a nice person but she is just pushing cases through. She is more interested in bending her client into agreement than acting as a good client advocate. My most important advice is NOT to agree to a marathon mediation session. Break it up into several 1 hour sessions, where everyone can thoughtfully review the proposal - off the clock. Good luck