Columbia Family Law Center

The worst. Divorce from 2020-2022 finalized in 2024 when I walked away from it all. Good luck and I hope this helps you. Grant it I’ve only been divorced once but I don’t think it could have gone any worse. Desmond is not someone I would recommend to represent as an attorney for a divorce. I am a male and my experience with him was pathetic at best. A couple dozen of unanswered emails, and unused pertinent information that would have been beneficial to my case. Failed to send me a zoom meeting for a pre-trial. Calls me while I am on vacation and asks if I were going to join the meeting. I had to rush to my hotel and join the zoom meeting. His paralegal even charged me a small amount when she needed to review my case when they decided to change paralegals on me. The OC sent an email to Des explaining to him that I need to stay out of the home of my ex, that is her primary residence. I explained that I had not been in her residence for two months. They sent the letter two months later, the next thing I know we are in trial and I am ordered to pay $1500 of my exes lawyer fees because I had not stayed out of her house. They had zero proof of me being in her house subsequent to the first or second letter sent to Des. Des just did not look at the evidence and the lack thereof evidence to defend me. Des told me that was his fault and it was his responsibility to contact OC. Des never contacted OC. I wanted to have GAL or counselor to talk to my kids about the living situation, the OC opposed it and Des did not fight for the GAL or a counselor. He gave up and let the ex win that request. Even the Judge called out the fact that no GAL or counselor was used and he has nothing to go on from the children’s perspective. I provided Des information about how my kids felt regarding the living situation, Des did not use it. It fell on def ears again. I was forced to get a CMA for my home, Des never used it as an exhibit and used a made up value of my home that he submitted a value to OC and to the courts resulting in $45K more than the value of my home. I asked for a mistrial, he never pursued it. Had multiple reschedules and when I asked Des, he said it was the OC requesting the rescheduling. I reached out to my ex asking why is her lawyer making all these reschedules, she informed me that it was my lawyer. In my opinion, they were working together to gather as much money from “us” as they could. I wish I would had fired him. I spent around $60k on my divorce only to be told by Des, in my 25years, that was the second worse ruling I’ve ever had. I had to ask for pre-trial conference with Des after our first trial date. Des was totally unprepared for my case. Had he used the information from the emails I sent him, things would have turned out better for me. I feel Des has become complacent in the divorce world for men and doesn’t really care. He got his $60K (ish) from me and moved on. Months later I did receive an email or phone call stating that the judge Leroy McCollough and or his bailiff failed to send Des the final judgement / ruling and it was way past the appeal date. Maybe true, but I have my doubts because of past behavior. He said he would still try and appeal it for me. He did try, cost me another $1700 for their time. I did back out of the appeal, I felt I would have lost even more. He is good at knowing the law, he is good talker, I believe it may have been an hour of free phone call time during the almost 2 year divorce process. Des is a nice guy, he just lost his passion. The one thing I remember most about why I would never recommend him as a divorce lawyer to anyone that outweighs all the above.. My daughter wrote him a letter to be read in the courts and used as an exhibit (I never read the letter), well, he lost the letter that she wrote.