Client
After reading the good reviews simons law has. I was excited to get some good representation for my restraining order. Initially communication (before I paid) was shaky, there would be a few days in a row of calls and emails that were never responded to, and a few days where they communicated well. Me emailing and calling for about 4 days to say I'm ready to pay and getting no reply means 4 less days for us to prepare for court. Upon working with them, communication was good , I felt things were going well, we had multiple calls and e-mail exchanges while preparing our defense. I worked with George who is a very nice guy but nice doesn't necessarily mean he will defend me to the best of his ability. There were many issues , some big, some small, that I will outline below. - The motion submitted to the court before trial contained a misspelling and I never had a chance to review it beforehand, there were some things about me I would have preferred weren't written, - the plaintiff was served the papers the moment she walked into court , and not well beforehand which I think is the correct thing to do. - George said "I already mailed the plaintiff the motion" to the judge, then later said he didn't actually do that (I believe because he forgot) and handed her the papers during court. This looked pretty bad as George had just said something to the judge that wasn't true. - George later was arguing my defense and said "the defendant is suffering financial hardship and paying for his own apartment" - which wasn't true , I'm not paying for my own apartment, I believe he misread the information I gave to him and yet again stated another inaccurate statement to the judge, which I had to speak up and say "George is mistaken that's not true" Already a few minutes into the hearing and George has said 2 things that aren't true, it was really not a good look for us. - George then argued "he's a good guy, I can tell by the statements he wrote to me" in which the judge seemed baffled and said "are you his lawyer? Are you giving a testimony now?!" This does not seem like a legitimate argument to make and carriers no weight, I couldn't believe he even said that. The judge had to ask George if he's my lawyer two times because he seemed so baffled by what george was saying. - I had called / emailed/ texted / and talked in person to the people working my case about the plaintiffs repeated and documented lies in a previous hearing. I had outlined a packet of well documented lies and evidence for each lie and discussed it with George right before court. Proving the plaintiffs repeated lies was very likely the very best route we had to overturning this 1 year restraining order, when it came time to present them, George said nothing about it, didn't give the judge the packet of outlined lies which would have greatly damaged the plaintiffs testimony (which was a testimony based solely on her word and no evidence), despite saying on text "perfect thanks, we will expose Her" when I talked about her false statements , he did not present a single thing about the plaintiffs repeated lies. George really was floundering like a fish out of water at trial, he was not saying anything strong or concrete . The thing he said were not relevant or were not legitimate arguments. I was left embarrassed and humiliated after my representation. I believe I could have made a better argument representing myself. I asked him why he didn't present the packet of false statements and he seemed to not even understand what it was and just made a comment based on only seeing the cover page "oh that's just her swearing" no george, she said under oath she didn't swear, her swearing repeatedly means she lied under oath. This was a 1 year restraining order on the line , 1 year of me not being able to see my 3 and 6 year old daughters grow up, this was the biggest court case of my life and I was defended very poorly. I had reached out on 12/6 explaining my disappointment to Joseph simons and requesting a refund, as of 12/11 never got a reply.