Sharon Jo Gentry

Atty Gentry was recommended to me from the Women's Freedom Center in Brattelboro. They said she was great as long as she believes you. This stuck out to me thinking why would they phrase it like that?. After she demanded $20K up front to start my continued child custody case, 5 full days in court spr...ead out over a year. She prepared for the first day and did nothing for the last 4. no prep and even helped their side. I lost custody and now my child is living with her abuser. This women drained the $20k and needed another $15K. She said she still needs more even after on the second day of trial just before we started, she said she did not believe me and we needed to figure out something. She never withdrew, she never talked about next steps. She apparently has a sick child at home that people in the area refer to as "oh she has a lot going on." Well her shtick is ruining people's lives. I found another attorney in the north that had a client that also used her and she did the same thing to them. So at least 3 people I gather she has done this trick too. She needs to be disbarred and sanctioned for her poor ethical decisions on when to represent someone or needing to stop rather than to bleed clients dry for her own personal gain. Absolutely despicable professional behavior. Something needs to be done to stop this. If I could give her negative stars, I would. STAY away from this woman in any family law case. She never has your best interest and will throw you under the bus for her own financial gain.

I retained Gentry on the advice of a friend without doing enough research on my own. This is an error that will likely costly me custody of my children, despite the obvious advantage I have as the custodial parent. I'm writing this review in hopes to prevent this situation from happening to other fam...ilies. This attorney took on the case even though--as it turned out--she was not qualified to handle a case of such complexity. All along Gentry seemed to have little initiative to fight for me and my family, as she was hired to do. Of course, no attorney can guarantee a particular outcome, but one assumes that they work for your best interest. As explained to me by my new counsel, Gentry made several errors related to the manner of proceedings that delayed the case, thus greatly weakening my advantage. A number of the things she described to me regarding the procedure for this type of case turned out to be inaccurate, thus I did not have full information in order to make decisions about what strategy to pursue in litigation. In one hearing, Gentry argued the exact opposite of my position, effectively arguing in favor of the other side. When I questioned her about this, she decided she could no longer represent me and immediately filed a motion to withdraw. At that point, my next hearing was removed from the court schedule, delaying the proceedings and vastly weakening my position. Because the firm bills so aggressively, at the point this happened my retainer was all but exhausted.