Michael James Pratum

My family had a tough case that needed professional advice. I've never hired a lawyer before and this wasn't your typical case. It was a very sensitive matter on both a personal and financial level. I'm pretty much skeptical of lawyers but really anyone I hire who's a lot more knowledgeable in an... area than me, so there's always some hesitation of whether the lawyer is truly interested in the case and wants to help or whether he wants to just get paid. Fortunately, we got a lawyer who truly cared about the case, about those involved, and also wanted to see justice served. From our first phone call, I felt pretty sure I found the lawyer for us. However, I still felt the need to check the lawyer out and we found the citation that Mike had. I'm sure that some of you are probably saying there's no way we are hiring this guy...that certainly crossed our mind. I mentioned it to Mike and he understood the reason why it gave us paused, he offered to explain the situation, and if we felt afterwards that we wanted a different lawyer, he would gladly refer us to some other other lawyers. We figured there was no harm in hearing him out and we really needed to find a lawyer and I hadn't had much luck in finding one I liked (other than Mike initially). I won't go into details about the citation, you can find that out yourself, but I also encourage you to let Mike explain the situation. The one thing I would say is any citation is a big deal, so don't get me wrong, but after taking in what we read online and Mike's account, the whole family agreed that we still wanted Mike's representation. This wasn't a situation where Mike felt he was wronged and was resentful, but that he learned from his mistake, took the consequences of it, and we felt he deserved a second chance. Mike knew we didn't have much money and so we set out a budget and goals of what we wanted to accomplish and worked from there. Any time we could save money by doing the leg work ourselves, he let us know. I don't know about you, but it seems silly to charge an arm a leg to make copies, when you can do it yourself. We also communicated by email which saved money on having to set up numerous appts and meeting times (we did those when necessary). As for his legal skills, Mike guided us through the whole process, clearly explaining to us the pros and cons of every decision that we made. He was also kind of enough to counsel us on a very emotional case. When our case touched on field that wasn't his expertise (our case was multi-facet), he referred us to another lawyer who was also great to work with. I can't recommend Mike enough. Our case is over now, but Mike still checks up on us to see how things are going. How many lawyers do you know would do that? Not many unless you are on clock and they can bill you. All and all, I'm very pleased with the service that Mike provided and I know that the next time I'm in a legal bind, Mike's the first person I'm going to call. He should be the first person you call too. You won't be disappointed.