Jennifer Renee Smith

I regret choosing her. She's intelligent, charismatic and capable in person, but the substance was not there. When you're going through a divorce, you need support and clarity. That level of responsiveness was promised, but not delivered. She and her office regularly ignored my emails, wasted tho...usands on paperwork errors, and would NEVER admit that their mistakes were mistakes. When I owned a business and we were responsible for a mistake, we would apologize, fix it without charging customers, and offer them some kind of reassurance or compensation. There was nothing like that - I was charged for everything it took to correct every mistake I found in their work, even when they already had the correct information on file. Mistakes included documents scanned diagonally, documents I had submitted in normal condition that were somehow sent to the opposing counsel dark and illegible, incorrect claims about the opposing party's position, and typos in the decrees awarding assets or debts to the wrong party. (As in, No, he's not responsible for my credit card debt, and like I wrote in several documents, THAT one is his car and THIS one is mine... Things that can't be in a final decree.) When I emailed questions, she would either respond days or weeks later or not respond at all. However, when I tried to address her pattern of mistakes, she sent defensive emails back the same day, justifying and denying the poor performance by saying her documents needing revision was normal and, in her own words, "It happens all the time." (Well, there you go.) Some defensiveness was in the form of bad legal advice, telling me to not talk to my ex, blaming him for the gridlock and telling me to prepare for the case to go to trial because he would not cooperate. (This was not true, he and I were ready to sign after our mediation, but could not until important typos were corrected, which took four emails to get her to acknowledge.) It got to the point where he and I were just texting each other behind her back to wrap up all the necessary paperwork so that we could sign and be done - so I guess she did inadvertently inspire the miracle of getting us to communicate with each other again. If I had listened to her and gone to trial, the costs could have consumed my entire settlement and left me with nothing. I also have grief that during mediation, she did not take my desire to regain my home seriously. She actively tried to dissuade me from fighting for it and kept arguing that the incumbrances (legalese for, "this house is a old, shabby piece of crap") made it something not worth fighting for. I already knew it was shabby house - but it was valuable for so many other reasons. My settlement ended up way too small to even begin to replace it, and now it may take years to ever own a house again, if at all. My ex claimed that his attorneys were dismayed to have to work with her again, because of her office's reputation for disorganization. Because my ex is a known liar, I didn't know what to think of that, but now I suspect it is true. You should not have to be at odds with both your ex and your attorney. It's already difficult enough. I wish everyone a better experience with a more accountable firm.