Met with Julie Pirtle the first week of November explaining my goals with my divorce. I knew I would need to pay alimony but didn't know how much. I said my husband doesn't want the divorce. She gave me a quote of 3500 to 5000 for the divorce. It ended up costing me 12,500 more than double. If there had been progress made, I would have been ok paying the money but there wasn't. Received bills with double billings, items that didn't belong on the bill, items that said no charge but were charged for it. The most concerning issue was receiving other client's information. Who received my information? When I asked about it, they said there was a lawyer with similar email address as mine. I use AOL, what lawyer uses AOL? Most times when I was given a document to read and approve, there was some issue that wasn't correct. I had provided all the financial information and it wasn't used correctly; it was wrong in the documents. For example, in calculating the alimony, she used my exact salary but rounded my ex-husband's social security down. This caused a difference in $200 monthly on my alimony. Tax returns with all of my information were sent via email to my ex's lawyer then on to him. I provided a secure portal when I gave them the information and pointed out email is easily hacked and I didn't want my information sent via email. I dealt with 5 different people in this organization.
Each month there was a status hearing and each time I was told there was no agreement with the other lawyer. I was charged for 30 minutes of prep time and 30 minutes of status time. The status is a call with the judge where 20 or so cases are held in 30 minutes. She may have spoken for 5 minutes but I was charged for 30. Since these were remote, I am sure other work was taking place. This happened for 6 months. During this time, I was talking to my ex-husband, and he said we were in agreement. I asked for details from my lawyer and could never get any concrete information. In March, I asked to have a meeting with both lawyers and my ex-husband so that we could finalize the divorce. This meeting was never setup, and my request was ignored when I asked about it. Then I resorted to having my ex put in writing what we agreed to. He sent that to me in email, I sent on to both lawyers. This was in April and still no movement on the divorce. I just got reprimanded by my lawyer for going directly to the other lawyer. I kept asking why this wasn't resolved yet, and no I wasn't nice about it. I felt completely ripped off by this organization so Julie fired me as her client saying I didn't have confidence in their firm - no kidding who would!
I hired a new lawyer and it was smooth and done in 2 months. read more