The Law Offices of Robert B. Buchanan

After 6 months, 2 court dates and $5000 in legal fees, Robert and his senior associate Renata Musial were unable to establish any visitation, custody, parenting time or child support agreements and withdrew themselves from our custody case. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We arranged for a consultation and on-boarding with Robert in November 2022 following a Petition for Parentage for my son in the Cook County Circuit Court. Robert initially assured us that with a $2500 retainer, he could use his expertise to get us visitation somewhere between 2 weeks to a month through the use of emergency visitation rights. After on-boarding, we later found out the following week that Robert was not going to actually be handling the case but instead, trusted us to his paralegals and senior associate Renata. They immediately scrapped the possibility of filing for emergency visitation and began working on financial reviews. It turns out that during this time, Renata had "assumed that opposing counsel would agree to paternity" and by New Years Eve, after realizing this was not the case, a paternity would need to be ordered (18 DAYS BEFORE COURT) that she claimed would be covered by the court fee waiver. After many visits at the Daley Center, the city clerks had to explain to her over the phone that the court fee waiver would not cover the test. We had to go back to the DNA center once again the following week and finally pay out of pocket as it turned out that the legal team did not file the case as the fee-waiver approved judicial type. By the first court hearing January 20th, the judge dismissed the session as paternity had still not been established, resulting in a wasted court appearance and zero progress two months after onboarding with Robert. By this time, the retainer had been completely used on financial reviews that were not yet necessary due to unconfirmed paternity tests and Robert was requesting an additional $1600 in fees for work they had done. We should have jumped ship at this point but after many complaints, Robert reduced the bill to $700 and apologized for the mishaps. Our next court appearance was for March 27th and we figured that the positive paternity results would make smooth sailing. Instead, Renata and her newest paralegals had requested that we re-visit the previously compiled and completed financial affidavits from months before, citing that too much time had gone by. This incurred an additional several hundred dollars and additional discovery requests from the opposing counsel, all of which could have been completed at once now rather than months in advance at the cost of missing paternity deadlines. A week before the next hearing, Renata provided what she believed to be a good offer: 1.5 hours of supervised parenting time per week at a museum 50 miles away from both the mother and I, with the condition of 10-panel ($500) drug test despite no criminal or drug abuse history or evidence of such. We had to point out to Renata that not only is this offer absolutely insane, but the Illinois drug test court order form itself requires "evidence of potential drug abuse pursuant to IL Rule 215 (a)" which she previously dismissed at not applicable. At the next court appearance on March 27th, because I was sick with stomach ailments, my parents sat in on the zoom hearing. It lasted all but 5 minutes and per their witness, the opposing counsel made a series of unsubstantiated allegations concerning potential drug abuse until the judge asked for evidence which they could not provide. Renata remained quiet the entire time and provided absolutely no defense to the accusations nor did she bring up potential visitation or parenting time despite the fact that paternity had finally been established. Zero progress again and we received her withdrawal 2 days later. We appreciate Robert's corporate professionalism but his team's mismanagement and inexperience has cost us thousands of dollars, zero results and valuable parenting time that we will never get back.