Thomas Elliott This Oregon lawyer has dragged out the case.
Who is this Oregon lawyer?_Organization: Martin, Elliott and Snell PC Who is this Oregon lawyer?_StreetAddress: PO Box 575
Who is this Oregon lawyer?_Address2:
Who is this Oregon lawyer?_City: Tualatin
Who is this Oregon lawyer?_State: OR
Who is this Oregon lawyer?_ZipCode: 97062
Floyd Hammerquist
Contact_WorkPhone: 360 546-2245
Contact_Email: hammer198@comcast.net
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To whom it may concern:
My daughter Kirsten Fox is suing her husband, Timm Fox, for divorce. She retained the law firm of Martin, Elliott and Snell, PC in November of 2008 with Thomas J. Elliott as her attorney. Kirsten has been married to Mr. Fox for approximately 20 years and has been his business partner and home-maker as well as mother to their two daughters. Kirsten has devoted the 20 years of marriage to support of their several businesses and homemaking and therefore has no education or job skills to support herself and the daughters. Mr. Fox has seized control of the considerable marital assets (upwards of 2 million dollars) and monies and has stated that Kirsten will never see a dime of support and to-date, he has not provided any such support. He also called me personally and told me I had better not fund Kirsten’ divorce as I will never get any reimbursement. Mr. Fox has managed to place all of the marital assets and monies in such a position that he can declare himself without funds while somehow managing to cover living expenses, buy a new vehicle and support a girlfriend. I am personally funding Kirsten’s legal fees and support expenses, but I have a limited ability to do so for a protracted length of time. Mr. Elliott asked the court for a “spousal support” hearing in December and the earliest he could get was 4/10/09 (over 4 months which defies the meaning of emergency). On the advice of a retired attorney with extensive family law experience we were able to get Mr. Elliott to reluctantly ask for a “15 minute” hearing for emergency support which was contested by Mr. Fox’s attorney and the request was rejected on the basis that a 4/10/09 hearing was already set! I question how the court can rationally say that a 4 month delay is reasonable to service an emergency?
Mr. Fox’s attorney then petitioned the court to dismiss a protective order (issued on the basis of spousal abuse) to keep Mr. Fox away from her place of residence. Mr. Elliott made absolutely no effort to argue on Kirsten’s behalf and the order was dismissed! Since then, Mr. Fox has made numerous visits to the house and removed marital assets as he feels free to do. I find it interesting that a hearing to dismiss a protective order can be obtained in a few weeks and a spousal support hearing takes over 4 months to obtain? Is this the fault of the court system or the requesting attorney?
Finally at the 4/10/09 spousal support hearing (scheduled for 1 pm to 5 pm), Mr. Elliott and Kirsten agreed that the issues to be pursued at the hearing were spousal support, child custody and exclusive use of the home. However, without prior warning, Mr. Elliott spent the entire time between 1 pm and 3:30 pm trying to get Kirsten to agree to an irrational split of marital assets on an ad hoc basis and never so much as mentioned spousal support or child custody! Then at 3:30 pm he announced that Mr. Fox had walked out would not agree to anything and since we were obviously unable to agree he dismissed the hearing without so much as arguing his support motion before the Judge. I can only conclude that Mr. Elliott was never prepared to argue for emergency support or child custody in the first place. We have no idea where Mr. Elliott’s notions of what a fair division of marital assets came from other than his discussions with opposing counsel during the 4/10/09 hearing. This was never discussed with Kirsten!
It should be obvious that any delay in these proceedings works to Mr. Fox’s advantage as he can easily wait for my support funding to end and he can then dictate the terms of any divorce settlement. Assuming Mr. Elliott is reasonably competent I am at a loss to explain the outcome of the above events other than Mr. Elliott (for whatever reason) does not intend to work for Kirsten’s best interests. It was therefore necessary to terminate Mr. Elliott’s services and retain another law firm to represent Kirsten’s divorce. To add insult to injury, when asked for all of Kirsten’s case files, Mr. Elliott is holding them hostage for a remaining $2500 in fees! I intend to request arbitration on the additional billing as well as the monies already paid. It is my understanding that it is both illegal and unethical to withhold documents and files that are critical to a client’s case. Despite knowing that Kirsten has no funds to pay such a billing I can only conclude that Mr. Elliott is again trying to delay the prosecution of the divorce and that only reinforces my belief that Mr. Elliott is working for Mr. Fox’s interests.
Kirsten Fox intends to also file a complaint on Mr. Elliott.