Valerie M. Smedley Valerie Murray Smedley Took our money and performed no service; Won't return phone calls; Paid her in April it's now Sep 29. Montgomery, Alabama

Actual letter sent to Valerie Smedley & Alabama Bar Association minus names:

Ms. Smedley: This letter is to complain about your lack of communication, specifically, return of our phone calls in June 2010, July 2010 and August 17, 2010 at 1:30pm. On each occasion my wife or I left messages for you to contact either of us, or our son xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx, in regards to the status of xxxxxxxs paperwork concerning child support/joint custody.

As of the date of this letter, it has been approximately 5 months and we still have not heard from you or a representative from your office. The paperwork was signed by xxxxxxx with my wife and I present in your office on April 26, 2010, at such time, you were given a check in the amount of $500.

Since this date, we have not been able to contact you and you have not made any attempts to contact us. I have also spoken to a representative from the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court of the Family Court of Elmore County on September 7, 2010, who was unable to locate any paperwork submitted by your office in the name of xxxxxxx xxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx or xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx. The representative also informed me that if the paperwork was submitted in April they would have definitely received it by now.

We expected a much higher level of service from your company and we are quite disappointed since you spoke so highly of your own commitment to your clients. I do not want to spend any more time on this problem and we have no idea the status of the paperwork, we are informing you by this letter that your services are terminated immediately and we expect a full refund to acquire a more suitable attorney.

I will be informing friends and family about this experience and also sending a copy of this letter to the Alabama Bar Association as a complaint against you and your lack of professionalism as an attorney. Please be advised that we will pursue legal action against you if we have not received a full refund within 10 days of receipt of this letter.

-end -

Update - I sent the same letter to Ms. Smedley certified mail but she would not sign for it so the post office, after several notices for pickup, returned the letter to me. It is Sept 29, 2010 and we still have not heard from Ms. Smedley nor anyone from her office. In my opinion this is stealing. You take money for a service ad never perform the service then avoid your clients until they go away. Now, do I get a lawyer to sue a lawyer? I wonder if this is a common practice among attorneys because they know clients hesitate or may be intimidated by taking lawyers to court. They also know the limitations of the Bar Association. I will be pursuing legal action and will come back and update this post.