Honey Kessler Amado Horribly Incompetent Appellate Attorney Beverly Hills California

I am the CFO of a Fortune 500 Company here in California and I have therefore had opportunity to deal with a great many lawyers.  Our corporate dealings have primarily involved business law so when it came time to get a family law appellate lawyer someone suggested Honey Kessler Amado based upon her advertising on the internet.  Although her website seemed very self-promotional, her resume looked good so I hered her. She is self-absorbed with a grandiose opinion of herself, but I wanted someone with confidence and experience.

What a mistake!  She dragged out my case time after time not even filing the opening brief in the California Court of Appeal until that court literally dismissed my case.  She had to ask to have it reinstated due to "oversight" in her schedule.  She charged tens of thousands of dollars and then relegated the case to an assistant of hers who made all kinds of rediculous arguments in the pleadings.  Then she failed to follow through on any attempts to work with her or communicate with her, always asking for more money to complete the case saying she had "undercharged" in the beginning.

Honey never provided letters with updates, case status, outcome of conversations with opposing counsel, and the filing status of things she was supposed to do.  I had to check the Court of Appeal website and constantly remind her.  When she did communicate, she would only speak by phone so there was no paper trail.  She incorrectly completed and failed to file documents.  I sometimes had to remind her of impending deadlines and she said she had it "under control" until the Court of Appeal finally said "no more continuances" and then she what she finally filed can best be described as crap drafted by her paralegal.  When she did talk to me, she was extremely arrogant and talked down to me.  I finally had to fire her and go with competent counsel (at 1/3 the cost) who somehow managed to salvage the case half way through the appeal.  The Court of Appeal noted all her errors in its decision but also stated that this was "no fault of the client".  So it did work out for me, but at a cost of over ten thousand dollars and she almost gutted my case.

Be very careful doing business with this firm.