Thomas L. Dickson

If you see this review and still hire Dickson you can't say you weren't warned. Attorney Thomas Dickson is a scoundrel. He will talk a good talk and gladly take your money. In return he delivers nothing. His firms double billing policy will cost you double what you are expecting to pay. He hires inex...perienced new attorneys and uses them to do case management. Then, because these junior attorneys have little or no experience they have to consult with Dickson about every little aspect of your case. So instead of paying a reasonable fee of $275 - $325 an hour you end up paying for two attorneys equaling $600 - $650 an hour. I fired Dickson and hired a single attorney and it cost me way less and I actually got work product and positive results for a 3rd of what I paid to Dickson for similar work that had to be redone because of Dickson's junior mistakes and mishandling of my case.

Thomas Dickson performance as attorney is dubious at best and his billing practices downright dishonest at worst. When asked how much time and cost to take on my case Thomas quoted no more than $3000 dollars for discovery and filing the petition. I provided Thomas with all the documentation and answe...rs he needed pertaining to the case. Soon afterward Thomas emailed me stating the petition was complete and he was ready to file. My wife and I reviewed the petition and the invoice he sent. I expected charges for work actually done however based on the invoice we received I couldn't see much in the way of any meaningful work. In fact, there was charges for the information I provided him. I immediately got upset and expressed it to him via email. Here is an excerpt of my suspicion of Thomas's billing practices. "Thomas, I have received your invoice and I'm appalled by the charges. I distinctly told you I wanted to be notified prior to any further actions of what cost would be. I am extremely disappointed with what you have achieved thus far. Nearly $5000.00 in charges and all I have is a draft and a couple of phone conversations. Why am I paying for counsel between you and another attorney when I hired you to represent us?' When I questioned the ridiculousness of some of the charges to my surprise he deducted monies off the bill only to trump other charges to add to the next invoice. My wife and I met with Thomas for the first time so we could work out the disagreements and to find out how much more to get the petition filed and expectations after the filing. During that meeting I questioned why we had never met face to face before and Thomas stated that he does not meet most of his clients because everything now days is done through email transactions,phone or other media. My wife and I agreed to pay half of the remainder of the invoice and the petition would be filed. To date nothing has been done. Thomas sent another invoice with work done to the petition that two months earlier he claimed was ready to be file. I sent an email to discuss these charges but have not heard from him nor his office. I will be contacting the Bar Association about his conduct and his unfair practices.

Thomas L. Dickson and Brian Johnson of the Dickson Law Group were retained in November 2012 to represent me regarding my lawsuit against the Town of Skykomish for violation of Washington State’s Open Public Meetings Act. The Town had already received a serious written rebuke from the Washington St...ate Attorney General’s office and had offered to settle the suit. Attorneys’ Thomas L. Dickson and Brian Johnson were retained to pursue a negotiated settlement. Despite being paid thousands of dollars, neither Thomas L. Dickson nor Brian Johnson did anything and I recently received a copy of the ‘Clerk’s Order of Dismissal’ from the King County Superior Court as a result of this case being abandoned. Even though I have a signed Retainer Agreement and physical evidence from the Dickson Law Group showing they accepted the case, this law firm now states they don’t and never have represented me in this matter.

Tom was over an hour late to our first and only meeting. I gave him a $2500 retainer. He said that if things went as planned he would only use about $1500. He promised to file papers that day. A week later nothing had been done, and he would not return my calls. I was forced to hire another lawyer to... help me.(The second lawyer was amazing...the paperwork was properly filed the day I hired him as promised) At the end of the first billing cycle Tom had used all the $2500 without doing a thing. I called and talked to Tom. He talked but no awnser to where the money went. Then he put his partner on the phone same thing. The next billing cycle I was charged $1500 for that phone call "they showed me I was very nice on the phone call not disrespectfull at all" They also charged me another $300 to $400 to deliver one document to the courthouse pre pared by the 2nd lawyer. . I paid them over $4000 for them to deliver one document drafted by another lawyer. I then emailed them telling them I was scared to call again, They gave me a $150 credit .If you really need help I would definitly look elswhere. This is a true story. Scary Hu?

We used this law firm for our construction dispute a while ago and left with a soured view by the time all was over. To begin, our case was quite simple. Mr. Dickson quoted us an estimate up front before turning our case over to one of his newer associates. After being told over the phone that the... first consult would be free of charge, I discovered in the next billing cycle we had actually been charged $350 to meet with Mr. Dickson. On this day, I had come to their office to drop off paperwork pertaining to our case. What happened though, is that the receptionist announced Mr. Dickson was in and wanted to introduce us. Moments later, we were seated in a conference room where he began to ask questions about our case. Had I known we were being charged for this, we would have simply left. These are the things that, as a client, would have been appreciated had they been disclosed in advance. Communication on our end was always clear and concise, yet, the new attorney would call with questions to things we'd already given her information to. And we were charged for those calls as well. These phone calls added up to some serious dough. In the end, our legal fees well exceeded the amount Mr. Dickson estimated. Our case was a simple one- as the other party defaulted and there was no back and forth communication whatsoever with the other party. In the end, we saw most of our judgement get paid back in excessive legal fees. We felt this office did not serve our best interests, nor work in an efficient manner. The staff seems nice enough, but in the end, I guess it's all in a days work.