Douglas Cannon Smith

Douglas Smith was only interested in the case for the initial consultation. After he received my $2,000 retainer, there was no communication between him and I. He would not return my calls or emails. Douglas is disconnected with all his client's needs. He would not see me until the day of the hearin...g, which he was not prepared for. The complaint showed up without a lawyer and she was able to get $17,000 from me because Douglas was not willing to listen to my advice. He is such a bad lawyer that the idiot open his binder with all of my financial information viewable to the complaint! After she was able to get $17,000 from me and the case was over, he sent me a bill a year later asking for $41 to review the results of the case that was finalized a year earlier. do yourself a favor and find a competent lawyer! He is lazy and Incompetent!

Unfortunately, this isn't my first experience with an attorney. They're all busy, at least the good ones, and they all require a delicate balance of patience and persistence. Pester them too much with phone calls and they'll become hard to reach. Ignore them, and they'll happily put you at the bottom... of the list of important things to do. If they give you tons of personalized attention and hand-holding, you'll regret it later when you get the bill. To be successful with your attorney you need to minimize your communication by being organized, concise, and articulate. At the same time, you need to set goals and expectations and be persistent about making progress. Prior to retaining Mr. Smith I read all of the reviews and decided that the complaints were from people who just didn't "get it". I reasoned that all of those people had a bad experience because they were pests or they didn't stay on top of their own case. Either way, I understand a little about how to manage an attorney and I was optimistic that I could work with Mr. Smith. My original consultation was scheduled quickly and Mr. Smith was very articulate and accommodating. He seemed eager to take my case and he took initiative immediately. I was reasonably impressed. I armed Mr. Smith with lots of detailed information about my case and provided him with good documentation. I paid the retainer promptly and I was initially optimistic that everything was going to work out well. Unfortunately, as the case progressed, it became clear that Mr. Smith wasn't on top of all of the details. I tried my best to communicate with him and carefully balance his need to not-be-pestered with my need to be sure the case was making acceptable progress. In any case, it didn't work and I wasted a significant amount of time and money to accomplish little toward the resolution of my case. In fact, Mr. Smith failed to take some specific steps that I had made clear that I expected him to accomplish -- and that's inexcusable. To be fair, Mr. smith appears to be intelligent and caring. However, it seems that he's eager to accept new clients and too busy to provide excellent service. If you are in a collaborative situation where Mr. Smith need only grind though the customary steps to resolve your case, he's probably a good choice. Although you might not save any money if your case is needlessly prolonged. If you need an attorney that'll dig in to the details of your case and be proactive in your defense, I fear that you'll be as disappointed as I was. I want to like Mr. Smith and I would like to give him a glowing review because I think he's intelligent and capable. Unfortunately, he didn't come-through for me and apparently not for others. Beware! If an attorney can't work with a solid experienced client, a vulnerable or inexperienced client doesn't stand a chance. There's better choices out there...

Everytime I called to speak to Mr. Smith about my child support case he was always so busy, never there, or with other clients at court. How busy can he be everyday? He was payed to answer questions with knowledge and truth, instead he never returned our calls and his emails were not informative. His... emails just reinstated what was already covered in the court documents I received in the mail. I also believe he never asnwer the questions in person because he had no clue and needed the extra time to research the basic questions I had. He always overcharged to show up 5 minutes before court without having a meeting with me to discuss any issues or answer any questions I may have had. I wouldnt recommened him to anyone. The office has very poor customer service, his legal assistant rarely answers the phone, it's difficult to get an appointment, and once you do get an appointment Mr. Smith will tell you he will call you to follow up on paperwork which he never does. NO ONE ever returns phone calls. Is that too much to ask. Simply put, I received subpar leagal service from an inept lawyer! Keep looking around, because his he completely got ran over in court by a plantiff with no legal representation. Finally, after the case was over and he only charged me for $800.00 of legal service. I got a final bill for $1200 exactly to take every penny of the retainer.

I hired this Attorney for a divorce case. I'm currently on the east coast while he was representing me in El Paso, TX. The divorce just got finalized and absolutely nothing went my way. I will say, probably not his fault the deck was stacked against me from the get go. My biggest gripe with this gu...y is his complete lack of communication. I hired him nearly 2 years ago after filing the the initial petition I heard nothing from him for months. I kept myself up to date by checking the court records to see when the cases were. After almost 6 months of literally not a word from him, I called his office to see what was going on. I got a brief run down of what was going to happen and when from the secretary. The only time Mr. Smith contacted me was the day of or the night before a court date was coming up. He never had a clue as to what my case was about and his "notes" were often wrong. By the time the meetings came about I was never 100% sure he was going in with all the right info, even if I had him repeat what I just told him back to me. He is a nice guy to talk to but he never seemed genuine or like he cared if we won or lost. Unfortunately in my original interview with him none of these characteristics came out, it wasn't until he got my deposit that he basically stop trying. I honestly think he did the bare minimum required to fight my case and rolled over at any opposition. I have a grip load of my initial deposit left in some account that they wont get back to me on. I've completed all the necessary "you lose" procedures but I don't know if he's received any of them because he wont return calls or answer emails. In the end, find someone else he did a piss poor job at best. I hope he sees this and realizes that communication with your customers is paramount.