Patricia Joan Chvatal

I worked with this attorney twice in 2019 and 2023 . Two of my close friends did too so I have a very good experience and knowledge about her and her practice . The best I can summarize it : Pat had her stardom in the old past but not anymore . She will promise you a lot but once you hire her s...he will change her position quickly. To make things worse, she has been having memory gaps probably because of her age . She will forget details of your case and in my situation went on vacation while she had scheduled a court date only to find myself with no representation . Pat should retire , period ! Her billing practices are also questionable where work done by her staff is billed at her hourly rate . Not only that , after paying hefty amounts you will have to review documents because in my case , I found major errors in names ( yes she listed different couple name on my case ! ) , who the petitioner is vs defendant , and on and on . Save Your self time and money and look somewhere else . Good luck in your search .

Hired for divorce and custody. She didn’t cross examine and failed to present evidence the clearly showed the other party was lying! She failed to present evidence including tapes of the threats and intimidation made by other party. She tried to extort money from me to return my photos! She failed to... appear for the hearing and sent out nasty letters saying we didn’t show up; the court records stated she was in another court. She sent the bills to collection and they responded that she did her job so poorly she shouldn’t be paid. And I still don’t have the pictures of my son because I refused to pay her for them! I took the pictures and gave them to her for my case but she didn’t use them! And here now 30 years later I still don’t have them! She avoided legal filings that caused more litigation fees and hearings.

Patricia Chvatal know how to set you up after being a attorney for 41 years. She will tell you everything you want to hear, just to get a contract from you.Ms. Chvatal will walk out of meeting with you, to go help another client, even the settlement conference. Her staff will make error on your bill ...and Ms Chvatal will try to take every $ you have for all her trip, she take while she is working on your case. When you have a meeting with Ms. Chvatal will talk about everything like to join her church, your dog ,your childhood,and wanting you to vote for attorney that she want to be the next Judge .I guess she think that will help her in court. Then,when you get her bill all that time you spent with her is on your bill. Ms. Chvatal did not check to see how much money my x wife had in her retirement.I found out after I fired Ms. Chavatal after the divorce was over and hire another attorney to fix the error she made on the final divorce and he found that my x- wife had pulled $85,555 out of community property retirement account and did not disclose that to the courts before the divorce was over. There was a court order that all large amount of money taken out of account was to be disclosed. I hire different attorney and save my part of my share of her retirement account, He even had to track her down in Florida, When she went missing. The mistake that Ms Chvatal made ,it took a year and 1/2 after my divorce to get my money from my x-wife retirement account and more attorney bill, the total cost for both attorney this was over $35,000.

I had no knowledge of divorce proceedings and what to expect. Even though I was against getting a divorce, my divorce was non combative and non confrontational. However, I was set up with the worst parenting plan, and divorce decree imaginable. Of course I didn't find out until it was too late. Fo...r example, I was literally advised against 50%-50% shared custody that my X and I agreed to. Instead, Pat Chvatal set me up with 50%-50% shared visitation, and told me it was the same thing. Unfortunately, I believed her since I was paying her to advise me. In addition, to the parenting plan, medical premium credits in the child support worksheet were not given. For as easy as my divorce was there should never have been such poor service. Her services ended up costing me more than it should have (thousands $$- years down the road), and less time with my children. My advice is to trust yourself, and not your attorney. Your attorney does not know what is best for your children. If you love your children get 50/50 shared custody, and not 50/50 visitation or even joint custody (there is a difference). Be active in your children's lives, go to parent teach conferences, school events, med,dent, and optical appointments, sports events, dinner events, vacations etc., and document everything you do in a journal. 50/50 shared custody is the best and healthiest custody agreement for children as well as dealing with the X. There is tons of documentation supporting this.