Anne Wakefield

I received a referral to Anne from a friend of a friend because I was looking for a more aggressive lawyer to help me try to get my divorce settled vs going to trial. My previous attorney had already completed all of my paperwork (i.e. Final orders for divorce, child support, parenting plan) however... the other party’s lawyer was incompetent and instead of making any attempts to work towards settlement, seemed to be waiting for trial. I met with Anne via Zoom and found her to come off as confident and proactive. I hired her shortly after. Soon after that I was asked about pushing back my upcoming court dates so that they had time to reach out to the other party’s attorney. I was not contacted by Anne again. Somewhere in this timeframe and completely unknown to me I was handed off to another associate Dylana Jones, who I hadn’t met or talked to. I found out after dismissing them that paperwork had even been filed to replace Anne with Dylana on my case, and I had no idea this had even been done. From here, everything seemed to spiral. The bills that I received were for ludicrous amounts, especially for the minimal work that was done. As an example - They forwarded me a generic document for a Request for Production of documents to be sent to opposing counsel, that somehow seemed to have taken hours to be completed, and I was charged for this “work” as well as for the time taken to send it to the paralegal, who then put it into an email and sent it to me and then billed me more for that time as well. Of course the paralegals would be reimbursed for their time, but why would I be paying for you to send it to them and paying for them to send it to me, when it could have just been sent directly to me without the extra costs? I was also asked about setting up mediation, but it was never mentioned to me that by doing so we were skipping over a zero-cost settlement conference and that because of the history of my relationship, I also had the option to have mediation waived. I didn’t find any of this out until I happened to randomly read about this process online. I contacted Dylana to ask when my settlement conference was scheduled, only to be told that they had canceled if for the mediation and that waiving the mediation could have also been a possibility. In approximately 3 months, they managed to bill me over $6,000 essentially for moving a court date, making those other changes mentioned (that I wasn’t even told about) , and sending out a generic request for production to the other party. We exchanged VERY few emails and did not talk on the phone. There were no trials or conferences completed. Nothing else was accomplished. I was told that because my other documents were on another attorney’s letterhead and pdf, that they had to transfer the information, however this shouldn’t be a huge undertaking, and had they mentioned that in advance, I could have easily transferred the information myself. My prior attorney completed multiple proposals, all final documents, and a significant amount of email interaction with me and the opposing counsel over a span of 7 months and still didn’t go through as many billable hours as they claimed. He did 4x as much work for less than I paid them. I feel completely scammed. I got nothing for my money and to me $6000 in 3 months for a divorce where all the paperwork was already completed and the opposing counsel wasn’t even responding with offers, documents, or counters, is appalling. I would never recommend them to anyone, I believe that they definitely over-bill and pad their hours. I am actually worse off than before for having hired them. ’m out of $6,000 that I desperately needed, I lost the opportunity for a settlement conference that I would have liked to have had, I have court dates pushed back when I really want this to be over as soon as possible, and I have nothing more to show for all of this then I did before I hired them.

Anne Wakefield is a gem. She understands how to hold your hand through divorce and creating parenting plans-- which can be one of the most difficult processes of your life. Anne was quick to respond, efficient, extremely knowledgeable and kind. Don't underestimate her, though, she was tough when she ...needed to be. I would highly recommend and trust Wakefield Legal with any legal needs in the future.

If you want a lawyer who only cares about how much money she can suck out of her clients, then Anne is your "lawyer". In 2017 I went through a divorce and hired Anne when she worked at WAKEFIELD PENNY PLLC. Just like any divorce, it was a very emotional and hard time for me, but not once Anne was sup...portive or cared about my emotional state. She made many mistakes, like when she didn't file the sworn support statements that I worked very hard to gather and blamed it on the messenger service. Or when she showed up late to court hearings, or acted frustrated when I asked her legal questions. She even charged me for finding an answer to a legal question about interrogatories that she didn't know the answer to. Bottom line is that Anne is only good and passionate about one thing, billing for every minute she can and getting as much money as she can out of her clients.

She is still my attorney but we have built little trust. She seems disinterested in my case and communicated poorly to her paralegal in trying to write the final orders for the case. So much so that I told my soon to be ex wife to make an offer, Because I did not believe she or here paraleagel were g...oing to finish. I will keep you informed I am 7k in, and told anne my ex can have everyhing in the house. My feeling i am going to court while trying to give up.

I was referred to Anne by a mutual friend of ours when I was first starting my divorce. Anne was very quick and responsive to the initial emails that we sent and was able to schedule a consult at no charge within a week. I met at her office in Downtown Seattle where she walked me through the process ...of my paperwork and we had an honest conversation about if I really needed an attorney. My case didn't involve a lot of shared property or debt, so it was a pretty clean break. Anne was very thorough and made me feel like I could handle the case on my own, so ultimately I filed my paperwork without an attorney. During our consult we walked through the dissolution procedure and what I should expect. In addition to that, I had some follow up questions I sent her a few weeks later that she happily answered via email, not billing me for any of the information she provided. All in all, she made me feel very confident that I could handle the case myself, but if my situation were more complex, I would not hesitate to hire Anne. I highly recommend Anne! Thanks for all your help!