Spencer Nathan Thal

Three reasons that I would recommend Spencer : 1) He explained difficult legal terminology in language I could understand. 2) He promptly responded to any questions I had. 3) He offered helpful advice that ultimately steered us in the right direction to making a secure future for our children. ... The legal work I hired Spencer for was to draw up a Will for myself and my husband, which is not that exciting for him, however Spencer treated us like valued clients and helped us to put together a Will that is better than we originally thought of. When I first spoke to Spencer I didn't even know exactly how to explain what I was hoping for, but he was able to discern what it was I was trying to accomplish and drew up exactly what we hoped for. If I emailed him a question, he responded within a day and sometimes within an hour. Initially I was worried about hurting relatives feelings about how I wanted guardianship and our estate to be in the event of our passing but Spencer gave us advice that helped us make wise, not emotional decisions and now we have the peace of mind we were searching for when we set out to make a Will. I plan to use Spencer for future legal needs.

My husband and I were both seeking help with each of our Wills and respective healthcare directives. Our financial situation has changed significantly in the last two years, and we recognized that it was becoming irresponsible for us to have not had something in place. Since we didn't know any ...legal professionals who specialized in this, I decided to turn to Avvo. Given Spencer's experience and positive reviews, he seemed like a good fit. Having worked with a few different attorneys over the years, I have always had good experiences. I assumed this would be the case again. Unfortunately, it wasn't. After an initial email exchange with Spencer confirming that he was available to help with my Will, we had a consult by phone to address basic questions and overall needs. I was curious about things such as my husband and I working with the same person or if exploring the idea of a trust made sense given our objectives, etc. In response to the trust inquiry and without really knowing anything about me, Spencer responded, saying that aside from minor/irresponsible children and properties in multiple states, trusts were for "the extremely wealthy, the kind with money you and I will never have." I found this to be an offensive statement given that he knew nothing about me or our financial situation. There were a couple of other moments – one where he interrupted me to tell me to "let him get through everything." It's not how I would talk with a prospective client, but I chalked it up to bad manners. We ended the call with me saying that I was looking forward to next steps and him saying he would send me questions that would allow him to put something together. In reviewing the questions sent, what I hadn't realized was how much time and work they would take to address. For one, my husband and I needed to have some very difficult conversations about how we were handling things with our family. I also wanted to leave money to my alma matter, so it took some time connecting with contacts. This, while we were both going through busy periods with our job, traveling, and dealing with an unexpected family emergency. Fast forward two weeks. I return from a business trip and am catching up on emails. I see that a few days earlier (on a thread of 38 messages between him and another attorney he introduced me to - all using the same subject line), Spencer sent a new message stating that because it had been a couple of weeks since he heard from me, he assumed I decided not to move forward or had found representation elsewhere. He asked for a response letting him know either way, or he would be closing my file the next week. I read his Thursday note on a Sunday evening. The following morning at 7 am, as I was writing my response back, I received another email from him stating that he had closed my file. 1) We never once discussed a timeline on how quickly all of this needed to be done. As I shared with Spencer, if he has rules around how quickly he needs to move his client's files, he should have been upfront and communicated these expectations when he told me he was available to work with me. 2) Of all people, Spencer should know that this type of legal work can take time. And can be emotionally taxing. I'm genuinely surprised that he would be this insensitive. 3) As the client, I should be the one to determining the urgency around my Will, not my attorney. For something as personal as this, I would recommend going elsewhere – working with someone who at least appears to put your needs first rather than their own and isn't patronizing in the process.