Anne Laurie Westbrook Gould

Anne Gould should NOT be allowed give legal representation. Her qualifications are examples of the low bar set in our current legal system. Please believe that this is not merely a response from a bitter ex-client who lost a case but it is a summary of my experience with Anne as my attorney. An...ne has no real legal expertise. There were countless times during my case where I relied on Anne's recommendations. One of these recommendations resulted in my actions being found by the court as acting in "bad faith." This also resulted in my children being ripped from Washington State and transported across the country to Arkansas due to a legal technicality that Anne was not aware of. Anne is unprepared. We were in court several times over 7 months and EVERY time we were in court Anne was unable to make reasonable arguments because she spent most of her time rifling through paper notes. Anne would spend several billable hours (according to her) studying our case prior to appearing in court but then had no idea how to respond to any line of questioning. Anne is dishonest. During the time when Anne represented me there were several letters that needed to be written for trial (eg Answers, Motion for appearance, Quick Replys, etc). I personally wrote each and every one of these letters and then emailed them to Anne for legal formatting. She submitted this paperwork word for word as I had written it (even with some grammar and spelling errors). She then CHARGED me over 35 hours of "writing legal responses/paperwork." When I approached Anne with my concerns over her "over billing" she initially agreed to forgive those hours and then later SUED ME for under payment. Anne is a fraud. I fired Anne after 7 months of misrepresentation and over billing. I was upset at her effort and knowledge level of the law so I parted ways with her. After Anne agreed to forgive "overcharged" hours she then SUED ME for over $8k (after I had already paid her over $24k in legal fees). As a footnote to this experience, I hired a different attorney after firing Anne and he was able to get my children back to Washington and in my care in less than 2 months. He knew more about my case (and the law for that matter) in only 2 face-to-face sessions than Anne ever did in 7 months. If you want to throw money away and have your life destroyed stick with Anne. She will be perfect for you.

Lack of competence, efficiency and organization. I hired Anne for representing me with my protection order. She did nothing, but messed up my case even more. I gave my financial declaration, three times and I had to pay $500 dollars to the other attorney because she missed the date. Now she keeps... sending me a bill for $10,000 to send to the pastors at my church. :) I asked for our contract and she keeps sending the bill. I do not know if she understands the difference between our contract and bill. I gave her the $500 in cash to pay the other attorney as the Court ordered, and she made a decision to not pay because there was no due date. My new lawyer had to remind her to pay the other attorney, because that was the money for. She kept saying: When are you going to pay me? I think I should send her my bill for the stress she caused me. On my representation, she sent her assistant Ashley that appeared late, when the judge asked to stop talking about the subject, she kept going, she did not communicate with the other attorney and she was only interested in getting more fight.