Jody Patterson / Simply Legal Paid for divorce in Nov. 2010 and she never filed the paperwork with the courts! Tempe, Arizona

My spouse and I met with Jody on 11/5/10 and paid her in full for divorce document preparation/filing.  He and I agreed on everything from the beginning and the paperwork was very simple.  She said she would have documents ready to be signed by me the following Friday at 11am.  I showed up at her office on time and she had no idea why I was there.  She argued with me that I never made an appointment with her and that she had nothing for me to sign.  it took another 2 weeks for her to prepare the initial document I was to sign so she could file it.  This was the end of November.  I started calling and leaving messages about a month later wanting to know what the next steps were (since she provided me with nothing - not any paperwork outlining what the steps were, not an outline, nothing).  She wouldn't return calls or emails.  I called (from a different phone number) on 1/24/11 and her "secretary" answered.  She transferred me to Jody who proceeded to yell at me because supposedly the emails she sent to me were bouncing back.  I thought that was rather funny since I'd been emailing her (so she would have had the correct email address) and had received emails from others without hearing of this problem.  She finally emailed me the documents to approve and I responded to her the same day stating no changes needed to be made.  She said it would be 20 days from that day that the process would officially begin and 60 days after that 20 for the divorce to be final.  Needless to say that's not the case.  She's returned neither phone calls nor emails for another few weeks.  I got lucky in that she returned an email from me in February 2011 stating the emails kept bouncing back (what a joke!) and that she was including documents I needed to print, copy and have notarized.  I did all this the day I received them via email and drove to her office.  I was shocked that she was actually there!  Her "secretary" had the audacity to look bored and annoyed when I mentioned that it'd be nice if Jody would return a phone call or an email and offered no excuse whatsoever for this or for why it took 4+ months to do something that should take no more than 30 minutes.  I was told that everything would be filed (what a lie) that week and the reason it wasn't showing on the court website is because less than 45 days had lapsed since the initial paperwork was filed.  I told Jody (who was in an inner office - she wouldn't come out to the reception area) that I expected to be called when the documents were filed.  Needless to say I never received a phone call or an email, nor did my spouse (the respondent) ever receive the paperwork she told us he should expect to receive from the courts.  I called her 2 weeks ago and noticed that the outgoing message on her machine had changed.  My spouse went to her office last week only to find it closed.  So she basically took our money and did about 25% of the work.  I was one of the lucky ones because she did (eventually) file the beginning paperwork and the court hadn't dismissed my case so I didn't have to pay another filing fee.  Jody was referred to me by a friend who obtained a divorce 5 years ago and had a very good experience.  I was not so lucky.  Not only is this woman a theif, she is very unorganized, unprofessional and nasty.  My hope is that she has her license removed and is never allowed to prepare legal documents for anyone ever again!