Cannon Legal Group

Can I give less than one star? I totally agree with the other commenter. My sister obtained legal services from this firm and she had a HORRIBLE experience. She was more stressed after hiring them. In this instance it was with both Cannon (THE OWNER) and Watkins. They did not answer calls, emails, and overcharged for work that wasn’t being done. If you need a reliable attorney please look away from this company. Unprofessional, unreliable and unreachable.

I’ll begin by stating that I am expressing my opinions on my recent experience with only 1 lawyer. I was recently looking for an attorney to help me with some custody, child support and paternal rights stuff in the Pasadena area. This is the first time that I retained an attorney, so I was very wet behind the ear in understanding the whole process. I looked at a site called AVVO and found Cannon Legal Group. I called, made an appointment and off I went.
I ended up retaining a lawyer there by the name of William Watkins. He seemed competent and said that the things I was in need of help wouldn’t be a problem (reduction in child support, more time with my son, laying down some ground rules with an immature mother). He was confident, all smiles and laughed at the things the mother was trying to accomplish. I retained his services and off I went.
Needless to say, we got destroyed in court by a Beverly Hills attorney. My problem with this attorney is that he should have been prepared for multiple scenarios as court is not always cut and dry. I found out later that he could have called my daughter up (18 years old) to speak on my behalf to help keep my son in the country. The judge ended up granting the mother to ‘move-​away’ with our son because she was the custodial parent.
He froze up in court and became useless. I was a wreck due to being blitzed in the courtroom and found myself represented by someone that was out of his league. We should have been prepared for multiple scenarios and been ready to act if we were thrown a curve ball. We definitely were not.
Trying to email, or call him, over the next few weeks was impossible. He would respond to 1 of every 3 emails that I sent him and when I asked him to call, because sometimes an email just isn’t enough reciprocal banter, he never would. There were actually 2 separate occasions where we had a phone meeting scheduled on calendar, and he failed to call me that day! There were a lot of excuses and apologies, moving offices, took the week off, etc.
A few things became fairly certain after I lost my son to his mom (born and raised here) to move to another country and take him with her.
1. I should’ve done a better job finding an attorney or used references.
2. You almost always get what you pay for. And in this case, the other attorney was more than double the rate that I paid for this poorly educated charlatan.
3. Money talks.
I did not pay much for this fool to represent me, but I was unaware of the going rate for the different levels of attorneys. Had I known that I would be flushing my money down the toilet, I would’ve happily paid 10x that amount to keep my son on the same continent.
I cannot speak of the others at this Legal Group, only the pretender that I had the misfortune of working with, William Watkins.