Christopher R. Smith - Syracuse, NY

We just encountered the worst experience with this attorney, Christopher R. Smith, Esq. on our first home purchase. He was referred to us by our realtor and our mistake is that we never researched him before proceeding to seek his legal services. We asked him his legal fees for a new home purchase and he categorically charged us his flat fee for his services. Later on we detected that he had indicated an entirely different amount in our closing disclosures without discussing anything with us. Also, although we had clearly communicated and told him that we were not interested in homeowners title insurance, he went ahead to get it for us again without consulting us. On researching him, we found out that he sells title insurance, and is an examining counsel for the same title insurance company from which he purchased ours without consent despite saying "No, thank you!" When we drew his attention to these, he quickly got belligerent towards us. Although we had sought his legal services, he never contacted us to familiarize us with the process or give us directions on what to expect through the process. Rather, we had to do our own research on what to expect every step of the way. The issue that broke the camel's back for us: at our final walkthrough the house, a problem was detected that we requested fixed before we close on the house. This is a basic right of every home buyer. Although it is common practice for sellers to offer credit for detected problems on a house, it doesn't erase the buyer's right to request a fix instead. As our legal representative, we expected Chris to be on our side and work in our favor as all professional attorneys do. Instead, he began mounting pressure on us to close on the house despite the detected problem. This is violation of a buyer's right. If the buyer prefers the problem fixed instead of receiving credit, this right should be respected without any intimidation whatsoever. He wanted us to accept credit for this problem and close quickly (because we had exposed him on the earlier issues and he wanted to get done with us) and we preferred getting the problem fixed instead before proceeding to close. I could not believe the intimidation and threats this attorney hailed on us in attempts to frighten us and to compel us to rush to close. He is the most unprofessional, uncaring, and unethical attorney I have ever seen. He has no interest in, and certainly has no respect for the rights of his clients. We are considering launching a complaint with the bar on our experience with him. He completely mistreated us and had zilch interest in defending our basic rights as his clients.