Melissa C Golan

Melissa defended me in a protection order hearing from my neighbors (which was based purely upon well documented, easily proven lies). Despite being out of the country and despite not having practiced law in Pierce Co. Courts, Melissa took on the case. The court granted not one, but TWO extensions so... that Melissa could adequately prepare for the hearing. My husband and I had multiple meetings with Melissa; each one it seemed like it was the first time Melissa had heard of the case, despite that she had been working on it for a month. I regularly had to repeat things we had already discussed multiple times and remind Melissa of things she had already asked about. Additionally, Melissa would regularly say "I don't know about X, I'll have to look into that...", but she never seemed to look into it. During the trial, Melissa's performance was abysmal. She pretty much did absolutely nothing. When the opposing counsel blatantly misquoted what I had said (accusing me of threatening to murder my neighbor), it was ME who called an objection. The judge told me to mute my mic, and Melissa allowed the opposing counsel to proceed with misquoting me, despite that both parties had submitted video evidence to the contrary. Additionally, she failed to bring up any of our evidence/points such as the damage the neighbors have caused to our property (which they admitted doing to police, record of which was evidence), multiple false reports against us to the fire department, etc. Doing nothing was typical of Melissa though--my husband and I did 100% of the leg work for this case; submitting evidence (which I don't think Melissa fully reviewed), filing papers, etc. During the hearing, it was revealed that Melissa had received a bunch of evidence from the opposing counsel per the rules of discovery. Melissa failed to notice these in her email and as such, none of us saw that evidence until during the actual hearing. This wasn't much of a surprise, as Melissa had failed to notice emails from me, despite that she was expecting them. Ultimately, we lost the hearing. And with it we lost our right to bear arms. After the hearing, Melissa--once again--said she was going to look into things that she didn't know and follow up with us, such as our right to bear arms. We also planned to proceed with a civil suit against our neighbors as they have continually damaged our property among other things. It has now been almost two months since our trial and Melissa has failed to follow up with us as she said she would. On top of everything, to add insult to injury, Melissa's suggestion at the onset was that we just move. Overall, I would have to say Melissa's behavior was just shy of completely incompetent. She was extremely unprepared, didn't know how Pierce Co Courts work, dropped the ball repeatedly, and has ultimately ghosted us. We have decided to move forward with other counsel, and I would not recommend Melissa to anyone under any circumstances based purely upon her performance (or lack thereof).

At the time I was going through an uncontested divorce and really only needed someone who could file the paperwork appropriately and provide some basic guidance. I obtained her services via ARAG, an employment based legal insurance policy. She was nice enough, but didn't seem particularly vested in i...t and although time was of the essence, things did not move particularly quickly. At my first meeting with her to go over all the documentation that I had sent in, it was obvious that she was looking at it for the first time at that meeting. She didn't come prepared nor had she done any paperwork. The next meeting was set up with my (then) wife and Melissa to go over the completed paperwork and figures. It had taken a long time to get it set up and to get the paperwork together and by then my wife had been getting all kinds of advice and was hedging on moving forward with things. I had advised her to get an attorney to review the paperwork before signing but that we could keep costs down if we had the legal insurance attorney put it together. Things quickly fell apart after that and I felt like the advantage of being agreeable and ready to move forward had passed. My then wife had gotten an attorney and was changing her mind about most things by then. Melissa was not particularly responsive and out of frustration I contacted ARAG to request the ability to change attorneys. I was informed on that call that Melissa Golan had already billed them for the completed divorce (as if it had already taken place). I also learned that ARAG pays a set rate to attorneys and so most of them are only willing to work so much for it to be in their benefit, which is likely a large part of the reason for her lackluster performance. The fact that she billed for a completed divorce is a terrible sign in terms of her ethical standards of business and she should be avoided in my opinion. After performing a formal investigation, ARAG authorized me to change attorneys (usually you cannot because of the 'set fee' thing). My actual divorce proceedings took another year to complete and it was egregiously expensive, but I did have good representation after hiring a private attorney and had faith in that attorney's ability to do the job.