Kris Costello

In Feb of 2014, I hired Ms Kris Costello to represent me on a felony DV charge. Ms Costello had advertised a rate of $7,000.00 but charged roughly $50,000.00 without explanation. She also never told me she was too busy working on other cases to take on mine. She kept postponing my right to a speedy... trial for her own convenience. This wound up costing me a great deal of money and lost profits from stocks I had to sell in order to pay her, and meet my living expenses. She did not conduct a proper investigation, and never interviewed my 19 year old daughter who's was my primary accuser. A competent lawyer would have done so, and exposed the truth. After meeting my wife in the presence of her attorney at Ms. Costello's office, Ms. Costello recommended I take a plea deal because she claimed my wife came across as unstable, and that this would work against me at trail. She also claimed it would be more cost effective for me and my family finances. After the NCO was lifted, I found neither case was true. In short, I reluctantly accepted the plea deal. When I arrived in court, Ms. Costello showed me a piece of paper in which I was also to plead that "these things are true". She never discussed what "these things" were with me at any point before my plea. The only thing she said to me (while waiting in the courtroom to see the judge) was if I kept my mouth shut, then I would get to have unrestricted access to my 9 year old son. So, when the judge ask me if I had read and understood "these things are true", I lied to him upon her advice, and said yes. After hiring another attorney to review Ms Costello's work, I discovered that all of the things I pleaded "true" were lies. This included a lie by the DA that I had violated the NCO, and for which I was rearrested in lieu of $250,000.00 bail 2 days after my February 2014 arrest. I finally hired another lawyer several months and tens of thousands of dollars later to clean up Ms. Costello's mess, get the NCO entirely lifted, and reunite with my wife. On that day in court I learned that the NCO was still in effect with my 9 year old son, and that every moment I was with him I was subject to rearrest. Fortunately, this did not happen.

Kris is the consummate professional. Through her effective communication style and strategic approach she brings a combination of deep legal knowledge and experience with a high degree of client service. Kris not only provides direction down the path but she illuminates the way during the darkest mom...ents. She is a leader and a partner. We were introduced to Kris Costello and her firm by our General Counsel to help us through a complicated employee/shareholder legal dispute with a former employee. The arguments he raised covered a broad spectrum of concerns. Each of these complex issues exposed our company to significant potential costs. While we believed we had provided an equitable and fair offer to terminate our relationship, one that in our view was compliant with the various governance documents of the company, the former employee/shareholder sought additional compensation and hired an aggressive firm to pursue his claims. Within minutes of being introduced to Kris and providing an overview of our situation, her organization skills and tenacity came through; we would soon learn the depth of her legal knowledge. Very quickly Kris was able to compartmentalize and articulate the issues back to us in a manner that we could understand and digest. She has clearly been through this type of situation many, many times before and swiftly connected the dots. Perhaps just as important was her ability to connect with us. We were frustrated and angry with this situation; Kris validated our feeling without patronizing us and made it clear that she would fight for us. Over the ensuing months Kris did exactly that - she fought for us. There were numerous rounds of demands from his lawyer and push back from our side. Kris and her team responded to each demand letter, always angling our position for a strong defense should this argument end up in court. Each carefully worded response was supported by thorough research. It was this research coupled with Kris' experience and fundamental knowledge of the law and "how the system works" that ultimately won the day. Over this period Kris had strategically guided these discussions to limit our exposure while directing us toward an offensive position. When the legal precedence supporting our position came through the Court in an unrelated case, we were ready to push back one final time. In the end, after working through these issues for over a year, we were able to reach a positive outcome without having to go through an expensive trial. Kris' stewardship, determination and legal prowess carried us through this difficult process providing a positive outcome for our company. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Kris and greatly appreciate her intelligence, work ethic and down to earthy personality. She is a real pleasure.