James T Hendry

James is a nice man and a seasoned lawyer. My experience with him was unacceptable, however, and I was forced to find a new lawyer. There are four areas that you should address with James, in writing, before hiring him: 1) Timeliness. He was impossible to contact by phone, so I was forced to use ...only email. His email responses took, on average, about 2 weeks. It usually required a second email from me to get him to finally respond. It took him over a month to create a cover letter. He offered an excuse about “a big court case” early on that caused the delays, but his timeliness never improved. 2) Billing practices. I never got a bill, statement, or log from him, ever. I asked for monthly statements at least 3 times. After pulling the plug with his firm about 1/3 of the way into the process, he kept the $5K deposit, simply claiming “There is not a reserve to be refunded”. Note that my case was fairly straightforward and I only met with time twice and never talked to him on the phone. 3) Accuracy. As noted, the cover letter he wrote delayed the process by over a month. But aside from that, he misspelled my ex’s name in it. It was then that I knew I had made a mistake in hiring him. 4) Infrastructure. His legal assistant was much more attentive and detail oriented than James himself. Unfortunately, the firm had computer and storage problems during the time I was with them which may have contributed to the delays and general incompetence. I would not recommend hiring James. You can certainly find a better lawyer in the area he serves.