Inept-not worthy of his nonrefundable retainer
I am very perplexed by the good reviews on Kevin Shepherd. My experiences with him were a nightmare and in no way resembled positive reviews online. He took our money for a custody issue in which he was supposed to represent my husband. We paid him his fee in February. Three months later he had literally done NOTHING on the case. At that time, the original issues had worked themselves out and we asked him to "transfer" the NON REFUNDABLE fee to a custody issue for me. He made this out to be
some grand gesture on his part but we figured it was really to cover his laziness in the original case. My case was super easy so our thought process was that even though he had proven himself to be inept in the first case, the second case was going to be so easy that even HE could get around to doing it. Wow. We were wrong. Two months go by and the only activity on my case is his contacting the other attorney involved to let him know he is representing me. That was it. I called multiple times and left messages. I emailed multiple times. I did not hear back from Mr. Shepherd until after the 4th of July (2021) This was only after I demanded my money back. At this point (in a phone call I have recorded, thank God we live in TN), Mr. Shepherd apologized multiple times, admitting that he had no valid reason to not be actively working my account. He gave me his WORD that from this day forward, he would diligently work on my case and things would be moving more swiftly from now on out. I would like to add at this point that my case was an almost agreed on modification to child support and parenting time. My ex and I did not know how to handle a few things so we needed legal guidance on how to handle things properly and get everything filed correctly. However, were pretty much on the same page about everything. With any other attorney, this literally could have been filed in days, weeks if they were super busy with other cases. At this point I felt better as Kevin had given us his WORD that his behavior would change. He lied. Another month goes by, no activity. More phone calls are ignored. At some point during this he sends me an email stating that, after having our money for 10 months, he disagrees with what I had retained him to do and that he was under the impression that he would only be modified the child support and NOT the custodial time. How he thought that to be true considered what I wanted him to do was CLEARLY stated in our initial consultation, I have no clue. I responded that he was incorrect but at this point I would be happy just to get the support modified. Another month, no activity. Then, one day I call the office trying to get some answers. The lady who answered put me on hold, came back and told me that she thinks I should drop my case entirely as I would be getting less child support if I pursued it. I was so stunned! This statement was bizarrely incorrect. Way, way, wrong. The future support amount was an agreed upon amount already, we just needed somebody to file the darned agreement. So at around 10 months in, nothing had been done on my case and they had NO CLUE what my case was even about. The attorney's office employees gave me horrible legal advice! I demanded to talk to Kevin, heard nothing back, so I was forced to email him to tell him he was fired and while his retainer was nonrefundable, I would expect my retainer to be refunded anyway as he darn well knew he had not adequately represented me or my best interests. I am running out of space for this review, so I have to get very brief... Another atty in his practice finalized my case. Kevin refused to give any refund. He blamed Co-VID and the opposing attorney's cancer for delays when neither of these had a thing to do with his behavior. His billing summary was a bunch of doctored entries. When I asked for a copy of my COMPLETE file, including his notes, he said all his noted had been trashed. Oh, and that phone call in July where he apologized and gave me his word he would do better.....he billed me for it.
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