priscilla G.
1/5
Our children mean the world to us so hiring the right attorney is life changing to say the least. I write this review in hopes to save the next parent and potential client from a misunderstanding of what you may be getting yourself into. The attorney that represented me was Lisa Thiessen. Understand that the fees as high as they get in this area. Personally my case was an easy win and I ended up winning but unfortunately not with or because of Mrs Theissen. After about 10k deep and Mrs Theissen settling on less child support than what was court calculated for the sake of getting out of there . Then on custody side- just continuances and rescheduled court dates, I switched attorneys and got custody settled favorably in less than a month. Needless to say spending tons of thousands of dollars less. Just to give you an idea of how deep fees can get and unjust this firm can be, I was charged over $400 for time & filing fees to change a court date because Mrs Thiessen was going on vacation during the proposed court date . I had to call and inquire about the filing fees and attorney fees to get to the bottom of this, then dispute how that shouldnt be pushed on me as a client because she on vacation. There was a demand letter which required us to respond to 21 questions. The parlalegal that produced the response literally copied and pasted the SAME answer 21 times. That redundant response costed me over $3k in preparation work and time. When i called in to dispute this, the person at billing dept said they have a "minimum charge" for ANY response regardless of how long it truly took them to respond even if the same answer was copied and pasted . I told her there is no way it took 6-8 hours to copy and paste the same response 21 times. She let me know this was all in their fee agreements. I am not one to dispute paying for work done as everyones time is valuable however to pay thousands of dollars for a response to be copied and pasted is just unfair and gouging. A simple call the front desk totaling 1 min 36 seconds to ask what room your hearing is in costs you $40 (they charge over $400/hr no matter who you talk to front desk receptionist, paralegal or attorney doesnt matter and bill at .10 hr minimum) . As you can imagine, even with minimal time and work put into the case, the fees add up and they add up fast. Just be genuinely aware of this prior to hiring.
As for the workmanship of Lisa Thiessen, i cannot speak too much on it as I never really got a chance to see her fight for me in the custody court room which was my primary concern. I saw her at a brief child support hearing (less than an hour) where she caved and asked me to settle with opposing party who doesnt even see his kids- even though calculated support was $200 higher and im paying for her time and fight, we settled allowing him to pay $200 below guidline support. I believe she was simply tired and didnt feel like continuing a repetitive argument with opposing counsel. She called me after and apologized it ended that way explaining that in 6 months we can go back and refile asking for more. My case was continuously confused for a divorce settlement although I explained so many times myself and dad were never married and have been seperated 8 years now. (nowhere near a divorce case) but maybe she was inundated at the time and confused on what was what.
In sum 10k deep, nothing but continuances and still had to scrounge up money to hire another attorney after all this so that i could finish the job. I cannot tell you where the 10k went or what it accomplished for me and my daughters but Im genuniely upset I didnt read the fine print of my contract. I cannot imagine how much it wouldve costed me had i kept this attorney through my 3 day trial. Another attorney took the case less than 3 weeks out, prepared an utterly strong case and outline of trial for me and my daughters, subpoened officers involved and won with everything we were asking for- for only 4k. Less than half of what I spent on absolutely nothing to get done.
