Ryan Russman Attorney Lawyer Exeter New Hampshire

 My experience with Ryan Russman was poor to say the least. Russman was easy to find with the extensive marketing he has done, so I setup a meeting with him to discuss my case. I was being charged with DWI first offense. When convicted, I was going to become a habitual offender. During our meeting, Ryan seemed very caring and genuine. He spoke very positive about my case and made me feel very hopeful. I ended up hiring him that day. A couple weeks went by, so I gave him a call to get an update on my case. He informed me that he negotiated a deal where I would plead guilty to a first offense DWI and undergo a 5 month loss of license. What he seemed to forget was that this would deem me a habitual offender. When I asked him how he was going to handle this, he jumped around the question and couldn't give me a straight answer. When asking him specifics about laws, his answers constantly changed which made me question how well he knew them. Eventually I came to find out he had never requested a copy of my driving record from the state and chose to not take notes during our initial meeting, so he was clueless that this plea bargain he negotiated was setting me up for failure. Soon after, my dad and I scheduled a meeting with him to try to get to the bottom of this confusion. During the meeting he became very cocky and belittling. He informed me that dealing with a habitual offender charge was "out of his realm of specialty". This was funny to me, because he assured me from the start that he was seasoned in this area of law. To add to his dishonesty, lack of drive, and sheer unprofessionalism, he also added if I wanted some sort of life I had to move to a city away from my family because I would not be driving for at least six years and there was absolutely nothing him or myself could do about it. Along with this, he made jokes to my father about my mother having relationships with police officers, told me he didn't understand why I had these issues because pretty girls don't get in trouble, told me I have a problem with alcohol (I made an appointment with a licensed alcohol counselor at my own digression and was told my priorities in life are great and I was far from having a problem), and to top it off, he rudely cut us off when talking to him to make phone calls to other clients that he was trying to take on and later told us he didn't have time for us after paying him $5000. After leaving his office that night my dad and I made the decision we would not be dealing with him anymore. We found another lawyer willing to tackle my case. My new lawyer sent numerous notices via email, snail mail, and telephone to inform Russman that he was taking over the case. Russman avoided all forms of communication. When asked about it he lied and said he never received any notice and that we were mailing to the wrong address. Mail was sent to both offices and a P.O. box, so it is beyond me how he was not receiving any of it. I can't say enough about my current attorney. He got my "6 year" loss down to 9 months. Unfortunately he had to be blindsided by Russman in this process. Russman chose to make phone calls to the prosecutor in efforts to skew his judgment. The prosecutor informed us that Russman told him that I thought past negotiations that there made weren't good enough and that I was nothing more than a "f***ing drunk". In summary, Russman has proven to me that the NH legal system is a corrupt system. There are some great people out there who actually want to help you. That is something that my current lawyer proved to me. If any person knows what is good for them they will avoid this person at all costs - do not fall for his self funded advertisements. The only words that can be used to describe Russman are greedy, backstabbing, and unprofessional.