O'Flaherty Law

I found an article online that was supposedly written by the owner of O'Flaherty Law about the very thing that I was involved in a suit for. I was super impressed and decided to reach out to them. It took several calls and emails to finally get a call back from the secretary, which I did not hold as a reflection of the firm or the attorneys because I know it is hard to find decent help as office staff and entry level positions like this but I would actually be told that they were going to call me at a specific time and then they would never call. I wish I had just taken it as a sign of what was to come because from there I was charged $175 for a consultation with an attorney but only after I spoke to the secretary and gave her the run down of what my case was about and then had to fill out an intake form that also gave great detail and had me download documents to support the information provided. I spoke with an attorney who immediately told me that he could not help me because he was not approved to work in a federal court but that he had an appeal attorney from the firm that could help me with my case and he would have her reach out to me and have the retainer sent over. I got the retainer for $5000 and then finally heard from the attorney over a week later and she had very little information and the information she did have was incorrect so apparently I paid $175 to spill my information into some abyss because it never made it to the actual attorney representing me, even though the information provided to him was the same provided to the office and therefore it should of been predetermined that I needed an attorney who is qualified to work at the federal level and has experience with filing an appeal. So onward and upward, although I did bring up the $175 fee and the fact that I felt it was not worth the money I paid since it was not forwarded onto the actual attorney who would be representing me but the new attorney and paralegal glazed right past it and I was just happy to move forward and have an appeal attorney in my corner. Well I contacted their office the day before the deadline was up to ask if they had began the process because the deadline was the next day and preemptively apologized for micromanaging them but due to having had bad luck in the past with an attorney missing deadlines and important case filings I felt the need to check in and be sure that it was completed. Well to not make this review the length of a short novel the attorney filed the notice of appeal incorrectly and was notified by the court of her error and given instructions how to do it correctly and do so with the necessary docketing statement. She would continue to file the "corrected documents" 3 more times before the last and final notification from the court that her filing was stricken and defective and told to refile with the same instructions for the 4th time. FIFTH TIMES THE CHARM!!! Because she actually got it right on the 5th time, although she forgot to add my husband to the initial notice of appeal and instead of doing an amendment to add him when the court questions why she now had him on the docketing statement and notice of what the appeal was for she just dropped his name altogether and decided she was not going to include him on the appeal paperwork even though it was clear from the beginning that we needed to both be on the documents. I had emailed my attorney and her paralegal important documents to prove an issue within the case on April 26th and offered to also do a spreadsheet and told them to let me know if I should do one. They responded with nothing until May 7th when they started questioning me on providing proof of the issue to which I responded by questioning whether or not they received the documents I provided 13 days earlier and they finally responded to tell me that they had but they needed me to do a spreadsheet asap and then continued to be on my butt for the next 2.5 days non stop about the spreadsheet. I sent them the spreadsheet and reminded them that I had offered to do this on April 26th and that they allowed 13 days to pass before finally responding to my email and asking me to do the spreadsheet and then expected me to drop everything and do it right away! After this I did reach out to the main office because I had been billed for the attorneys many mistakes (there were others as well) and also was upset about the spreadsheet and wanted to work something out to not pay for the attorneys incompetence, especially since I had been falsely led to believe that I would be getting an experienced appeal attorney. (which I later looked Heather Jones up on her LInkedin and saw that she was not an appeal attorney and only vaguely mentions she can work in the government court but does not specifically mention appeal cases) After reaching out to the office I was met with an email from Heather Jones herself stating that due to my email to the home office she believed that she should no longer represent me and will be reaching out to her paralegal to provide me a consent for motion to withdraw. I again reached out to the main office person who stated they would assist me with my issues and asked for them to provide me an attorney who was actually competent in the matter of my case as I was promised to originally be provided and then asked for the $3200 worth of research and strategy work that was supposedly done by Heather Jones and that I was billed for but was not in my portal and was no where to be found nor ever discussed with me. I received no answer. Heather Jones then filed a motion to withdraw in my case 3 business days before my court date but NEVER provided me a copy of the motion to withdraw that she filed (without consent) So the morning of my court date Heather Jones emails me 1 hour and 55 minuted before the start of my court hearing and informs me that the Judge had granted her motion to withdraw THE DAY BEFORE and she would not be representing me or attending my hearing and had been locked out of the case. So now I had no attorney and no representation at my hearing and the Judge granted her motion to withdraw without consent (I refused to sign her motion with consent until they would provide me a new attorney from their firm) only 5 total days and 3 business days after Heather Jones filed the motion but again I had not even been provided/served with a copy of the motion to withdraw?! Insanity! So I go to the court hearing on June 4th and low and behold the evidence that I had provided Heather Jones on April 26th was NEVER provided to the court and the spreadsheet that I rushed to get done for them and provided to them on May 9th was NEVER provided to the court!!! SO I lost my hearing because the Judge said I failed to provide any evidence to my claims. I have paid this firm $6500 and have another invoice claiming I still owe them $5500 when I was promised an appeal attorney but instead I received an attorney who could not even file an appeal and docketing statement even when the court sent very specific instructions on how to do it correctly and then was billed $400 per hour for every failed attempt she made at filing it and then bileld the same for her review of the instructions sent by the federal court that were the exact same.. except the new date being alotted each time. Provided the attorney with all of the information and documents necessary to file and represent me but she held onto them for 39 and 26 days and did nothing with them which cost me my case and not sure why they were insisting I send them to her if she was not going to do anything with them. I had already bought all the transcripts relevant to my case and she was aware of this and filed so in the transcript filing for the appeal but went and bought them again for her office, wasting my funds. And I have requested 3 times now for my file including all the research and strategy work that was billed out for and still have not received it and it has been nearly 2 weeks. My advice is to not hire this law firm. The person who was suppose to help me from the main office never responded to any of my concerns or issues and the second that Heather Jones knew her work was being questioned she said she could no longer represent me and stopped working on my behalf even though she had a due diligence to work on my case until the motion was granted. RUN AWAY BEFORE THEY CHARGE YOU AN ARM AND A LEG FOR NOTHING BUT THEIR AMMATURE PRACTICE