Retained Jamine Von Ellen to handle my divorce. She requested at our first meeting and was paid an upfront $7,500 retainer.
Burned through the retainer inside of one week with time spent writing inflamatory letters to my wife's counsel which accomplished nothing but to promote bad feelings.
Second week asked for another $5,000. I paid the $5,000 relying on her advice that we were moving in the right direction and were taking the positions that, in her experience, produced the best results. This retainer was burned through inside week two/three.
Asked to meet with her to find out what the strategy was as I was not seeing my children and had now spent over $12,000 and the only thing which seemed to be accomplished was to create anomosity with wife and opposing counsel. She was 1 hour late showing to the meeting and did not offer an apology for wasting my time but instead rushed me out of the office in about 20 minutes but not before requesting a third retainer of $5,000. When I balked at paying yet another retainer (which would have made it $17,500 inside one month) she indicated her firm was very busy and she had to allocate her time to paying clients. I told her I would have to think about it. Yes, should have walked then.
She called me later that week and had the nerve to yell at me for missing a telephone call with her that morning and said that due to my not being available to meet her as she needed and that I was not accomdating the process she wanted to withdrawal as my attorney. I told her she was leaving me with a mess and out $12,500. She filed the withdrawl papers with the court citing that I was not making myself available and that she was not able to effectivley represent me. I did not bother challenging it as I was not looking to keep her as my attorney.
During her representation which lasted about 2 months she was rude, uncaring and assisted opposing counsel in drafting a divorce settlement agreement that I am two years later still in the courts with as the language is apparantley vague and leaves many things open to interpretation.
The bottom line with Jamie Von Ellen is she is about money. If you are not flush with cash you are not going to get any type of service, consideration or most troubling respect from her.
At a time in most peoples lives when they are dealing with difficult emotional issues she assists in making them not only feel emotionally worse but in leaving them financially damaged as well. Yes, divorce is not fun, but there are good lawyers out there. I have one now who has spent the better part of 6 months cleaning up Von Ellen's mess and has charged me less in more than double the time.
Look elsewhere for effective counsel.
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