Douglas B. Thayer - Lehi, UT

In the Rules of Professional Conduct, it says: As advocate, a lawyer zealously asserts the client's position under the rules of the adversary system.This is hard to do when you don’t listen to your client’s position. Doug Thayer barely listens to your position.The rules also state: The lawyer should also consult with the client and seek a mutually acceptable resolution of the disagreement. Doug does very little consulting. He bosses. He has little recognition that clients are experts in their circumstances and goals. As I would try to get him to consider something, he would quickly dismiss it with something like, “end of story.” He is constantly reminding you how he is the expert, yet he was losing about half my hearings even though I have a good case. He would regularly threaten withdrawing by saying things like, “If you don’t agree, I’ll withdraw." His ego also blinds him to creative solutions, which was greatly needed in our complex case. Doug and his firm, Duram Jones & Pinegar, were slow at responding to questions and moving the case forward, which is also against a rule of conduct. We would send them emails with questions and they would regularly take days to respond or not at all. His firm would wait weeks to file motions, delaying an already slow court process. He originally told us we could be done in August, and now in January we aren’t even close. The judge at my last hearing expressed concern that my petition to modify had been moving along too slowly. He wanted us to move faster to trial. As Doug and his firm were contributing towards the slowness, we asked him if he could focus on the main trial and let us take care of the superfluous motions my ex-wife was filing. This would keep the cost down, but he rigidly refused, saying this court process is just expensive. Yet, he could have chosen to work with us rather than run his lucrative machine. They would file unnecessarily long motions to add to the cost. Once, the judge would not enforce sanctions for my attorney fees because of the excess cost of writing the long motion. Even when the judge told him he didn’t need to write so much, and when we asked him to keep them more concise, he said he has to respond to every detail of my ex-wife’s ramblings. As one of his colleagues said in a review, he has a reputation for running his clients’ bills up. Then, to top it off, as he dismissed himself from the case to the judge, he stabbed me in the back by telling the judge I swore at him and threatened him (with bad reviews). This is the judge who will hear my request for custody modification. This behavior goes against another rule of professional conduct: A lawyer should keep in confidence information relating to representation of a client so far as disclosure is required. Doug Thayer has a big ego, he’s rigid, unprofessional, he will run up your bill, and he’s not that good at winning.