Florida Women’s Law Group – Jacksonville

They are NOT advocates for women. I can assure you the only concern they have is how much money they can take from you. My daughter had what should have been a very straight forward divorce (no assets just child custody and support). The only reason we hired an attorney was to ensure that what was agreed to was fair for their small children. My daughter was assigned an attorney (Ellen Ball) who at times seemed to show concern but there was absolutely no effort to come to an agreement with the opposing attorney. Unfortunately about 1 month before their first case hearing, Ellen resigned from the firm and my daughter was assigned Georgia Garnecki. On May 2nd, just prior to the FIRST case hearing on May 7th, my daughter received a call asking for an additional $2500 (I had already paid them $9000) with a threat that she may not have representation on the 7th. My daughter did not have the money and I reached out to the firm and was then told there was enough in escrow to carry her through the case management hearing. Ms. Garnecki had a call with my daughter on May 5th (first and only phone call that lasted 30 mins). Ms. Garnecki started the call with an aggressive tone accusing my daughter of not doing her financial affidavit or what had been requested of her. She didn’t even bother introducing herself or asking how things were going. Clearly Ms. Garnecki didn’t read the file since my daughter HAD submitted the financial affidavit months prior but was told by Ellen to hold off until further notice on the other items. In any event, they attended the hearing and Ms. Garnecki remained silent when the Judge asked why there hadn’t been any progress. Mind you her excuse to us was that the opposing attorney was not responding, so why not say that? Following the case management hearing I wrote an email to Ms. Garnecki requesting that she put pressure on the opposing council to respond. I also said I didn’t agree with this costing $12000 when there were no assets. The next email my daughter received was a Consent to Wtihdrawal as her attorney. That’s it, $9000 for a few phone calls with the initial attorney, some filings, one phone call with this so called attorney Georgia, a few email exchanges and they withdrew. At the time there was $2800 still in escrow which I was hopeful to get back so she can get new council, but now the next bill I received for the 30 minute phone call and some other made up work $1700 and then another bill for $524, so basically nothing left. Thankfully, I didn’t send them the additional $2500 because that would have been gone too. Seems pretty clear to me they had no intention of helping unless there was an endless supply of money to spend. I absolutely would not recommend this firm, they are not who they claim to be. It’s not only unprofessional how my daughter was treated, it’s unethical. The words of Ms. Garnecki “all your daughter wants to do is settle” well ma’am that’s usually the goal especially when there are no assets. But the truth is all my daughter wanted was what was best for her children but instead was treated even more poorly by the so called firm that was hired to help her and KNOWINGLY put her in a position of disadvantage on purpose. Disgusting and shouldn’t be practicing law or at minimum don’t claim to be advocates for people you have no intention of advocating for.