Shawn D. Bartley and Associates, LLC - Silver Spring, MD

I could say so much about Shawn, but for now I’ll keep it brief. I retained him to pick up a case in DC federal court. And the rates were hourly and somewhat reasonable. And when we met, he said all the right things. But after over 3 1/2 years of me feeding this case 10’s of thousands and it creeping along, I was not happy, and I also complained. He was also helping me in another case, and I was not happy with him at either. I remember Shawn complaining to the judge that I was breaking attorney-client privilege with some of my rhetoric, and I thought, oh boy, I’m in trouble, but the judge fired back at him, “It's his privilege,” meaning he (Shawn) can’t complain. Anyway, he dropped me in the DC federal case and said I didn’t have the money to go on, had health issues, and staff issues. I was not happy with what I felt were mistakes on his end, so I asked Who would you recommend. I want to go with his recommendation because had I lost I didn’t want Shawn saying he had dome a great job, but who I chose to go with after was the guy that screwed it up. Well, that guy charged MORE THAN TWICE as much as Shawn per hour, and didn’t even have support staff that charged less for the mundane work. So obviously Shawn realized that money was not the real reason for dropping me, especially since I’ve been feeding this new guy for over a year, part of which was to fix things he says Shawn should not have done. So, can I recommend Shawn Bartley? in a word, “No”, is he a nice guy? “Yes” But that’s not why you hire an attorney. Perhaps later I will expand this review. Perhaps I’ll also file with the “Office of Disciplinary Counsel” time will tell.

Non-responsive to calls & emails from myself as well as opposing attorney. Significant fees with little to no results. Actions and conversations left me extremely concerned. I felt he was not committed to my best interest, but possibly more committed to billing for as much as possible. I'm still unclear what he did for the amount billed.. I have since found representation elsewhere and am very happy that I changed when I did. If I was able to find another attorney sooner I would have discontinued his representation sooner.