Dewitt Family Law

Reviews

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  I hired Steven DeWitt in September 2012 to represent me in a divorce. At the time, I was on amicable terms with what would be my ex-spouse, but going through a tough emotional time, as one could imagine. Such times call for someone on the outside to look after one’s interests, hence I retained Steven as my attorney, as he appeared to be a Christian man with values and integrity. I had, for the most part, agreed to give up most things to my ex in an effort to ‘just move on’, with exception to a few items. In particular, the house I had co-owned with spouse. I informed Steven, at time of retaining him, that my goal was to quitclaim title to my spouse and, in return, the expectation was to have me removed from existing loan in addition to title. I expected the terms of the divorce decree to include legal protections to protect my interests. What I received in the end was, well, no protections. I attempted to reach out to Steven by both email (on April 4, 2014), as well as phone (left message with his receptionist/legal assistant-withholding name as she doesn’t deserve to be called out on her boss’s poor performance). I received no call back, email, or letter. I reached out again by email on April 30, 2015, followed by another call to his office, after no response back from him. My attempts were futile. I had hired a new attorney to fight for custody of my children, among other things, after my divorce was finalized. I had interviewed several attorneys at that point to replace Steven, as he expressed no interest in me/failed to respond or communicate with me at the time. Not one attorney interviewed wanted to assist in ‘cleaning up his mess’, in particular, with regards to the house. You see, the divorce decree merely indicated I was to be ‘held harmless from any encumbrances’. Steven recently reached out to me to try to address this, after prior negative review was posted, but the damage was already done. After three follow up hearings to try to address with court, the judge literally ‘admonished’ ex for not doing enough, but went on to state that my ‘divorce decree was left vague and unenforceable’. In other words, not worth the paper it was written on as it did not indicate an action to take (i.e. timeline to complete loan assumption, refinance or sale of home nor did it include verbiage on enforcement action court can take if failure to abide by terms). To make matters worse, Steven recently acknowledged that he didn’t even draft the decree that was entered into court, but rather allowed opposing counsel to do. Kudos to opposing counsel for slipping unfavorable terms to me, past what was supposed to be my legal safety net, Steven. There were other issues with language in the decree (unfavorable child support terms against me for example and failure to make suggestions on how I could seek reimbursement on recent inheritance I had received and deposited to community bank account just 3 weeks before retaining him) that surprised other attorney’s after-the fact, but these issues have since become non-issues/not worthy of fighting further. Bottom-line: At this point, Steven receives an ‘F’ from me for failure to properly address my needs. It appears that Steven just wanted to collect a paycheck in my initial divorce, as he didn’t suggest edits to opposing counsel nor to me. Since then, and after an initial negative review was posted, he has ‘offered’ to ‘brainstorm’ on how to resolve, but not actually offer any way to ‘correct things’. Again, judge indicated there’s nothing he could do, same with attorneys that came after Steven. There are other attorneys that will be more detail-oriented in their representation of you. Beware, as a poor divorce decree entered with the court by poor representation will come back to haunt you. It’s like gospel…once entered and on record with court, you’re damned to try to challenge it. Choose wisely upfront. Accordingly, I cannot recommend the services of Steven DeWitt. I rate him an ‘F’ for ‘FAILURE’.
  By Eric Petrus, August 22, 2017

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