Larry W. Zeigler

I had the misfortune of being assign Mr. Ziegler as a state appoint attorney in an action against me regarding a child support issue. His disdain for clients he served this way became apparent to me very quickly. The first judge that I went before recused himself from being able to hear my case. ... We left the courtroom to an adjacent room when he began yelling about, or “inquiring very loudly without waiting for my response”, what had I done wrong such that a judge what not hear my case. He had immediately assumed that there was some sort of malfeasance on my part that was the cause of the judge recusing himself from the case. The fact was that the judge knew me personally and I'd talked about my case with him. Mr. Ziegler lacked in his knowledge of the law, or was willfully misrepresenting the law for his convenience. One of my primary concerns in this action was whether I was going to lose my gun rights. He assured me that I would indeed lose my gun rights if I didn't consent to everything the prosecution wanted. (This was a “contempt of court” action with regards to child support.) Twice, with two different judges, I inquired about this issue (because he wouldn't push this issue that was a primary concern of mine) and both judges told me that my gun rights would not be affected by the action against me. My ability to contact Mr. Ziegler and receive any useful guidance was so lacking that I eventually continued, as much as I could, without discussing anything with him. Eventually I'd come to a tentative agreement directly with the prosecuting deputy, but the prosecutor was hindered from directly dealing with me because I was officially represented by Mr. Ziegler. In court, the prosecutor asked Mr. Ziegler for a written consent for him to deal directly with me. Mr. Ziegler gave verbal consent to such, but refused to provide the written consent that the prosecutor apparently needed. This caused a significant problem for me as there was a certain time based deadline I was coming up on and without the ability to come to an agreement with the prosecutor was to be incarcerated, as I didn't have the money they'd originally demanded. At this point, I believe that the prosecutor saw how badly my counsel was representing me and gave me lee-way by not pushing the deadline that the state had imposed. By the graces of the prosecutor, I was spared the consequences that were being caused by my attorney's refusal to provide written consent for the prosecutor to directly discuss my case with me. Eventually, a judge officially relegated my counsel to only being in an advisory role, thus allowing me to deal directly with the prosecutor. After the attitude and actions of Mr. Ziegler, along with either the lack of knowledge or willingness to misrepresent the law, I decided that I was better off handling the issue completely by myself. I had send follow up correspondence to Mr. Ziegler requesting copies of court paperwork from when he “represented” me for my records, but I never received a reply from him. From my observation of him with another client in court at the time he represented me; if you pay him to be your lawyer he'll gush about you to the judge, and presumably will not be hostile or hinder you. But it appears that you have to directly pay him for that sort or representation.