Jones Patterson & Tucker, PC

At the end of 2021 I retained Dan Patterson to modify a prejudicial custody order my ex husband obtained under false pretenses when I was denied substantive due process and put a stop to unauthorized restrictions my ex-husband was imposing on me outside of the bounds of that custody order. Dan erroneously insisted there was nothing I could do about any of it, even my ex’s unauthorized self imposed restrictions, except wait a year after the date of the order and file a modification, which he did. Years later I discovered Dan could have intervened and did not, he could have served a cease and desist or petitioned for substantive relief of my ex’s interferences regardless of custody and he could have filed an amendment to the order to address contentions arising from the order sooner than a custody modification.,In January 2022 he filed a motion to modify custody AND ALL ANCILLARY ISSUES. Additionally what Dan should have done was petition the court to allow him to file a memorandum because the issues were far too complex and nuanced for oral argument. When the hearing actually occurred on January 4, 2024 two years later after being continued ten times Dan neglected to review his own petition for the hearing and failed to properly advocate that he requested to modify all ancillary issues in addition to custody when the ancillary issues were not modified after the hearing. In fact, Dan did not preserve any of my rights his defensive strategy as a litigator effectively amounted to malpractice. He did not advocate for my right to submit evidence prior to the last hearing if it pertains to the factors prescribed under the statute for a custody modification as permitted under IC 31-17–2-21 ( c ) or to demonstrate a pattern of parental misbehavior as permitted by case precedent Arms v. Arms or diligently pursue the court’s preferred position of awarding custody to the parent more likely to foster the relationship and involvement of the other parent as decided in In re S.M.T., 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 97181,2012-Ohio-1745, 917, citing C.G. v. C.L., 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 90341, 2008-Ohio-3135, 1 13. The most devastating example of Dan’s ineptitude was failing to appropriately advocate that the $10,000 custody evaluation I paid for used the specific statutory language that both my ex husband’s and his wife’s psychological testing was specifically harmful to the emotional development of our children and numerous and continuing violations and interferences amounting to substantial contempt. I served my case to Dan on a silver platter I supplied him with two PhD expert witnesses in my support, one of which Dan let fall out of our grasp by failing to utilize him in a a reasonable time frame (a year and a half), the phenomenal and thorough custody evaluation including the statutory verbage, and even supplying him with the caselaw and statutory support specific to my circumstances and did not engage in discovery or submit any evidence of the substantial and continuing changes or circumstances and violations insisting the custody evaluation demonstrated these well enough but failing to appropriately advocate this to the court. He also at times went even a whole year without sending me any invoices and frequently erroneously charged me for things that did not occur (such as charging me over $1000 for attending a hearing on a date that did not even occur because it was continued). After retaining Dan for more than two years absolutely none of the contentions I retained him for (at a minimum stopping my ex’s unauthorized interferences and modifying prejudicial provisions of our custody order) were addressed by his actions or the order , he insisted his services were concluded because the hearing was commenced. He left me high and dry worse off than he found me because I was in the hole all the legal fees, evaluation fees, and expert witness fees and two years of evidence and incidents denied intervention and he had the audacity to bill me for it and never filed a change of judge, which he recommended, but did not do.