Law Office of Sharon Rivenson Mark, P.C.

First, Sharon is a very capable family law attorney. She’s personable, knowledgeable and professional. My concern surrounds what I consider to be her “fee gauging”. Sharon prepared my will a couple years ago for a fee of $1500.00. I had just had a will done a year prior by another attorney which only cost $500.00, but I felt rushed in his office and after looking it over at home thought I should get a better one done, thus meeting with Sharon. A few months ago when I reviewed the will done by Sharon I realized it contained a minor typo and I also needed to make very, very minor edits on the will as well. I met with Sharon at her office at 3:05PM, had some small talk and proceeded with the edits which took at most 3-5 minutes. Unfortunately, we needed two witnesses to sign the document which were not available in her office, so this was done at a lawyer’s office next door, where again we had a bit of small chit-chat, and after getting copies of the will made it was now no more than 3:30PM. So in total we’ve now expended 25 minutes and before leaving I asked her what my fee was and she replied $500.00. Yup, $500.00. Now my original will cost me $1500.00 which was reasonably time consuming (about 45 minutes to an hour…no more) and to charge $500.00 for literally 5 minutes of actual work to me is just plain greed. Now I know everything costs more in todays’ world, but I learned a very valuable lesson and I share this hoping others will too. DETERMINE FEES BEFORE HAVING SHARON DO ANY LEVEL OF WORK. Frankly, in 10 minutes I could have typed up my own will using my current one as a template. made the changes, obtained two witnesses and got the will notarized for probably $25 at most. I now know better and find that I will have to use my other resources for future legal needs (fortunately I have a best friend who is a local judge, the Hon. Marvin. T. Braker and another GREAT attorney by the name of Alan Markman (Markman and Cannnan, LLC)). So if cost is no object, by all means seek out Sharon Rivenson, otherwise shop around to make sure your paying fair rates for services rendered.