Marie Vaccarelli

Important to know this information because children are so terribly vulnerable & the kind of harm that can be done cannot be repaired. Experiences with this attorney were exceptionally bad. There were basic bad practices that can be expected from any professional not conducting their work properly. No work, huge charges: She consistently failed to prepare for case conferences & court appearances. Her billings were huge. She charged $ 15,000 for 1 page of writing that was not relevant & was never used. In total she charged $ 40,000 for 3 phone calls, 1 meeting, & 3 letters, without ever even making a start to the work she was appointed by the court to do. She withheld the detailed invoices for months, had to be chased for them by another attorney’s office, & what was produced was not properly itemized, and contained charges for calls that hadn’t occurred & letters that had not been written. Letters she did write were full of inaccurate information, including stating that other attorneys had lied about the content of conversations. But these were not the worst of the problems. Other attorneys & legal workers stated they were shocked by erratic behavior, absence of professionalism, and in particular her treatment of people. She conducted interviews with small children in a manner that subsequent court appointed parenting coordinators said were grossly unethical. She also falsified what the children said in the interviews. When asked to address issues about billing and inaccuracies in her written work, her sole response was to threaten — both clients and other attorneys — Including making late night calls to 80+yr (& frail/ill)grandparents to say that any attempt to request to review these problems — the billing and other issues — she would respond to by telling the court that a 7 yr old child should be taking from its family and put into care.were. It was necessary to lodge a formal complaint to a legal review committee.