Hanson, Gorian, Bradford & Hanich

I agree with others who have posted. If I could give zero stars I would. They bounce you around the firm, never really accomplish anything but sure do bill you for everything and then some. The paralegal is terrible, incompetent, slow and not very nice. And believe me this matters when 90% of your billing is because of her. Because they bill clerical work as paralegal work (another ethical issue) and they also bill normal operating costs. I think we have decided to report them to the bar! I’m sure if they are audited they will be found guilty! Take your money elsewhere.
I hired Ms Hanich as my attorney and when I was in the office one day waiting, she came into the waiting room and did not even recognize me, she said «have you been helped mam?» They are not concerned with you or your case only your pocketbook.
We love our new attorney, look for 5 stars!

If I could rate «0» stars for this law firm, I would.
I hired Mr. Hanson and his firm to represent me in what should’ve been a cut and dry custody case. I had previously had 80%+ custody of my son, when his father moved back to the area and decided he now wanted ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ (i’m sure to avoid paying child support). I stressed to the courts that this was a challenge for my son (who was only a toddler) to go from living primarily with me to now being shuffled house-​to-​house every 3 days. Mr. Hanson assured me that he agreed this situation was not suitable, and that we could contest the mediator’s recommendation in court. I guess what he meant by contest was that I could roll over and submit to the judge when it actually came time to go in front of the judge –because that’s exactly what Mr. Hanson did. When the judge (who was new to the family law bench) stated that he was following the mediator’s recommendation (the same mediator that has several grievances and complaints filed against him), Mr. Hanson didn’t make a peep. Just asked that a «90 day review» of this arrangement be made. But as anyone in law will tell you — once a court makes a ruling, they hardly ever go back on it without damaging evidence. So here were are 6 months later, $ 6k later, and my ex has ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ of our son. And my son is now regressing in his behavior and can’t understand why he’s split between two homes all of a sudden. Thanks, Shaun.
Meanwhile, while the 90 day trial period was underway, my ex submitted a declaration to the court accusing me of abuse, racism, and a bunch of other unreasonable things (he was grasping at straws,) and the paralegal from this office calls me to «discuss» them — I put discuss in quotations because what I really mean is that SHE continued to accuse ME, and took my ex’s words as truth rather than asking me my side of the story. I was 39 weeks pregnant and she basically told me, «well you’ve lost the case now just so you know. we should just call opposing counsel now and agree to 50÷50» I’m sorry — but who am I paying you to represent? I was hysterical and emotional and could not believe she approached me in that way. I was so shaken up because I knew what the truth was! And here she was taking my exhusbands side. While was paying her $ 200+ an hour to read the court documents.
I show up to court only to find out that Mr. Hanson had had supposedly had some kind of motorcycle accident and wouldn’t be there to represent me at the hearing that day — his partner, Mr. Bradford would. Mr Bradford showed up 90 minutes late and basically took advantage of my pregnant emotional state and told me not to go in front of the judge — to agree to the ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ arrangement and be done with it. I told him I would keep the current arrangement (which was technically I had 57% or something random,) if the schedule of the visits could be changed — instead of 3 days on 3 days off, could the schedule be one week on one week off. Mr Bradford said sure! No problem! Come to find out, this made the custodial timeshare an even ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ percentage, meaning I lost primary custodianship of my child. And now to enroll him in school next year, I will have to pay the courts (and another attorney) for a 730 custodial evaluation, which is upwards of $ 10k. The representation of this firm is horrific — they look at you as a number, an invoice, a payment — they don’t take the time to get to know your case or your end goal. Their end goal is just getting paid. Period.
I spoke two Mr. Hanson TWICE between October and May — once at our consult in October, once at the hearing in November — and never again. All of that for over $ 6k in work.
On top of that, the child support was revised based on the 50% arrangement. Shaun and his paralegals could not figure out how to read my ex husband’s LES (military pay stub,) or my disability pay stub (I am since remarried and now on maternity leave from my job). It took me pointing out errors to THEM to get the revisions and the numbers corrected. Three drafts of child support numbers had to be made before they could figure it out — oh and don’t worry, they charged me for all 3 revisions. Even the time spent correcting THEIR errors.
I received an email from the paralegal yesterday saying I had 10 days to pick up my file since they had «removed themselves from the case,» and if I didn’t pick up the file within 10 days, the file would be shredded. I picked up the file today — barely a binder-​full of information.
And when I got home? A $ 450 bill was waiting for me in the mail — charging me for the letter they wrote to me saying they were withdrawing as representation on this case as it is their «procedure,» charging me for preparing my final file — and then charging me for things I paid for on my LAST invoice. I don’t think so.
I am no better off in my custodial case with this law firm than I was when I started over 6 months ago. Please please please heed my advice and stay AWAY from this law firm!

I think spending $ 7,000 on a divorce attorney and then ending up doing it myself warrants a 1 star rating. I had gotten their number from a co-​worker who went through a divorce and when I met with them, they said this would take 2 weeks since my ex and I were amicable and arrived at our own agreement. Maybe because this wasn’t a high profile Rancho Santa Fe divorce it didn’t hold their attention, but I expected better service for $ 220 /​hour. They dragged their feet filing and only followed up with me once during the process to let me know what was going on. The last straw was when I got the Marriage Settlement Agreement that they put together and it was rife with errors. There were so many mistakes, there was more red than black on those pages. I ended up going to Barnes and Noble and buying «How To Do Your Own Divorce In California in 2009: Everything You Need for an Uncontested Divorce of a Marriage or Domestic Partnership» By Ed Sherman (now in its 33^rd edition) and I DID IT MYSELF for $ 30 bucks. Well, that plus the $ 7,000 that I flushed down the toilet with them. And lawyers wonder why the profession is so reviled.
Save your time and money and go buy the book — IF you can both agree on terms. Otherwise, I guess you’ll have to walk the gauntlet of trying out lawyer after lawyer that won’t screw you for billable hours.