Stefani L. Quane

Stefani was amazing - she was thorough and fast, as when I came to her, I was under a tight timeframe to get things worked out prior to our wedding date. She was able to meet the deadline while still ensuring that I had all the information and fully advocating for my needs and best interest. She is ...extremely knowledgeable and honest, while factoring in your unique situation and emotions. I only wish I was in a position to have fully taken all her insightful advise. I highly recommend - So grateful to have found her !!!

I hired Stefani Quane as my legal representation for a prenuptial agreement, based on her reviews on Avvo. Overall, I found my dealings with Stefani to be fine. This is my first time hiring a lawyer for a more in-depth procedure, so take this into account. Final cost: $1750 retainer @ $250/hr as o...f Aug 2019, although she told me her rates have gone up since. Pros: Experienced with prenuptial agreements. Less expensive. Cons: Doesn’t provide as much specific guidance as I would have hoped for. Never sent a final bill, just took all of the retainer. Told me she thinks it’s quite likely that I’ll get divorced. Summary of interactions: I consulted with Stefani over the phone. After deciding to hire her, we set up a time for her to come by my house to discuss what I was looking for and draft a template. We edited the doc before sending to my fiance’s lawyer. The four of us then reviewed it together at the other lawyer’s office. There were a few minor changes following, before the four parties signed the document (remotely). My initial free consultation with Stefani went well. She explained the general process and options quite clearly. I liked how she recommended a lawyer she works well with to represent my fiance, who we ended up hiring. Stefani was not always the most responsive. I had to follow up a few times on some things. This may be related to the fact that she seems to manage her schedule/logistics herself as an independent lawyer. However, she does seem to have a paralegal who made some minor version edits. The core of our engagement was the in-depth discussion. Stefani came to my house, which was convenient, as I was ill. We spent two hours or so going over the basics of prenups, Washington state-specific law, and what’s more likely to hold up in court. She drew things out in a helpful way. She has lots of experience on various relationships/cases. The challenge I found in our conversation was that as a lawyer, she could tell me how different parties have handled different things in the past. However, I often wanted her to do a better job of understanding my specific relationship and guiding me regarding what my prenup should look like. Several times she’d say something along the lines of: “A prenup can do whatever you want.” To which I’d respond: “But I don’t know what I want. I just want it to be fair. Tell me what it should include!” As a non-lawyer who has never gotten a prenup before, I often found myself feeling frustrated at the seemingly limitless complexity. I’m not sure if it’s the lawyers job, but I’d hope they would dumb it down such that I could tell her my specific situation, and she could translate that into a legally sound document. The other memorable thing that I didn’t like is that at one point Stefani said it was quite likely that my fiance and I would get divorced, based on our cultural and other differences (like me being Australian and her American). This is NOT the kind of thing someone recently engaged wants to hear, particularly from someone who doesn’t know us personally at all. After the initial meeting, she sent me a draft. I think it was 95% boilerplate template, which is fine, as I don’t think we were trying to include lots of crazy specific things. I found myself cleaning up a number of typos, which was suboptimal but not a huge deal. During the review with my fiance and Kathryn Silk, I think Stefani did a fine job of arguing on my behalf and representing my interests. To be honest, I liked Kathryn’s style of explaining things and general personality more. After that four-person multi-hour session, there were just final doc approvals and signatures, which Stefani provided punctually. The last annoying thing is that she never actually billed me, just kept all of the retainer. Even if we used up all of the time, I would have liked to see how her time was billed out.