Law Office of Steven M Bishop

I used Steve Bishop for my second Divorce. HE IS THE BEST BAR NONE. The marriage was for 26 years and although we had been separated for 6 months it got very ugly very fast. I went to Steve as I wanted a fair settlement. Steve was good about setting expectations and backing it up with facts. Unfortunately there was little room for agreement or any sort of meeting in the middle. As I wavered and just wanted it over and to move on Steve was quick to assure me that what I was thinking would not solve anything and in fact get me in deeper. In an emotionally charged event like this was I was making very emotional decisions based on emotions. In the end Steve was correct 100% of the time. Now 5 years later and looking back the settlement was very fair for both of us and I am able to move on. More than anything I learned to Trust Steve Bishop. He was fair on both sides and made me look fair. That is good. And best of all he is obsessive compulsive about retuning calls and emails. That kept me very calm. He gets an A+ from me

I would caution you against using Mr. Bishop for your divorce. I contacted him in April, 2015 to began the process of an uncontested divorce. I was not seeking alimony, only help with the legal fees for my 3-​month marriage. He advised me to pursue a nullity of marriage based upon the alcohol addiction of my husband and the short duration of our marriage. I told Mr. Bishop that my husband would never admit to such a claim. Mr. Bishop disputes that I ever told him this and claims that he only said to me that my husband would have to admit to alcoholism. When I questioned his «scenario» expressing concern about the billable hours, Mr. Bishop responded that, if the «scenario» was not accepted then more time and expenses would occur. (To make a nullity case, the facts have to be provable and the condition permanent, like the person was already married or not of legal age. It is unheard of for a psychological disorder like addiction.) In addition to the advice to pursue this dubious course, I found that Mr. Bishop lacked attention to detail and did sloppy work as evidenced by the haphazard approach to completing my financial disclosures which he insisted we do immediately following the «free» consultation asking me to guess the details. He immediately proceeded to send me drafts of letters and emails. I naively proceeded to make corrections to the inaccuracies. One was a draft of the letter to my ex-​spouse «offering the nullity angle» that repeatedly spelled my name both correctly and incorrectly throughout. All this flurry of activity occurred within five working days.
After receiving valuable advice from a friend who explained how rare a case that is based upon nullity of marriage is for most attorneys, I decided it would be best to choose a new attorney. My new attorney took one look at the pile of paperwork I had from Mr. Bishop’s office and said, «He wrote that many letters? He has used up all your initial deposit.» It is true, most of the $ 3,000 was swallowed up in an astonishingly short time. And no contact with the other side had even been made. Steven M. Bishop is focused on one task only: misleading clients with dubious legal advice, leading with a «scenario» that will ultimately fail as a method of creating more billable hours. I received his eleven page retainer designed to protect him after I decided to switch but would like to share that my new attorney’s is one page. I would not recommend Steven M. Bishop, do your homework, he has been sanctioned. The cluster of five star reviews posted on Unilocal in one weeks time are suspect.

Steve is awesome. He secured an incredibly favorable outcome for us, but beyond that he was just incredible to have on our side through a tough and sometimes very rough process. Steven is super competent, has great instincts and his experience allows him to not be surprised by anything that happens in Court. We had an unfavorable judge who seemed intent on ruling against us, but Steve was relentless and got an outcome that was more than we had hoped for. Thank you Steve not only for your skills but for your passion and compassion with people.

Mr. Bishop was referred to me by a very well respected colleague several years ago and I have since been fortunate (or unfortunate, depending upon your viewpoint, it is divorce after all) to retain Mr. Bishop to represent me in 2 divorces.
Though prepared and willing to get «tough» I wanted a amiable, direct, and quick process with a minimum of drama. He was perfect! Always available to address concerns and willing to provide clear and educated counsel when needed. My ex-husband’s were even a bit envious of the service I received as they didn’t feel similarly represented. Adding to the positive experience was his staff. Personable and experienced. A winning combination.
I have recommended Steve and his office to many friends and will continue to seek his counsel should it be needed in the future.

Steve was simply wonderful. He was gracious, informative and took care of everything. I was very impressed with his professionalism and integrity. I sincerely recommend Steve to anybody needed legal assistance in family law matters.

Mr. Bishop successfully represented me twice in the past 3 years. (twice because if you are familiar with family court, even if you win the first time, the other party can just start again if they want to keep trying to punish you). Not only is he an excellent attorney, with great knowledge and skills in the Family Law/​Court arena, but he also understands how difficult the process your undergoing and helps reduce the stress with effective communication and compassion to your situation. He is extremely professional and qualified and I would 100% recommend him to a friend or family member if they were in need of Family Law services.

Steve is an awesome attorney! To have spontaneously walked to the podium and bring to light those important issues and represent me as you did, was artwork. Professionalism at it’s best, thank you.

I hired Mr. Bishop to handle my divorce after searching for a Christian attorney on the internet. My experience with him was he was not trustworthy, responsive and he did not keep me informed of my case. He asked me to provide him with personal information which took me unnecessary hours that he claimed he needed only to charge me to then have him read it and never use. More than once he would have me come into his office to go over my case and then he would never go over my case and have me sit there while he worked on other things and made small talk. He also called me after business hours from a bible retreat and during the conversation told me that he couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t stop thinking of me. Had I of known what he was like before I hired him I would of not chosen him.

5 stars all day long…
I can tell you what … All this emotional up and downs that come with going to court, preparing documents, not letting the effects show to your child, keeping up with the day to day has got to be one of the most emotionally and physically «suck the life right out of you“things I’ve done and I am not even close to being done. Not even… Alot of it rests in places that I get frustrated with like mainly why do we have too do this:? Aren’t the father and I grown up enough, care enough about our child, wise enough, mature enough, dedicated enough, smart enough, willing enough and I could just go on but it just drains me thinking that a conversation can not be had wherein we both leave egos and all other BS at the door and get in talk about it, decide something that is fair and just handle it and be on our way. Instead it is the opposite. Believe me i have tried and tried and in just hearing and seeing who this person is who shares a son with me I can’t fathom. I have a hard time dealing with this fact. The thing is I want answers that I am not getting for whatever reason and I tend to focus there but Mr. Bishop will stop me when I start meandering on a dead end side path. He is very direct and to the point, if I answer him with a response that doesn’t address his question he will ask me again. I think that this helps keep both of us focused on the end game. I don’t want my attorney to patronize me I need that brutal honesty so that i do not get on those emotional roller coaster. We have a bit of a ways to go but so far I am very pleased with my attorney. I am informed, updated, questions answered and even get to ask for some things that I would like to see happen and can’t wait to see if they do. I recommend Mr. Bishop especially if you want it straight and someone very well versed in custody and family disputes and ALL that that entails.

I’m always skeptical about anyone «brave» enough to slander someone, but too much of a coward to share their identity. The accused has a right to know their accuser. The poster of these lonely comments has appeared on NUMEROUS websites on the internet. When selecting an attorney, one should never rely solely on the experience of one person. Mr. Bishops ABA standing and credentials stand for themselves. If he was as horrible as these comments described, he’d be disbarred! I’m a former client of his with a very lengthy and stressful custody case. Steve has represented me about 3 times on the same case, separate motions, which included a move away order I WON! Many ppl become disgruntled when they lose of course but what I know PERSONALLY about Steve is that he lays either a favorable or unfavorable blueprint of your case before your eyes BEFORE he is retained. Most people who are unsuccessful with Steve’s help, are those who have not followed his advice and/​or who were not forthcoming to begin with. Steve is a very competent, knowledgeable, confident, and well respected attorney… HOWEVER, he caanot work miracles. Give him the truth, cooperation and confidence, and he’ll hand you a disposition in your favor! ;-) SIGNED A BRAVE CLIENT: KESHA PRESSLEY!

STOP!!! Do your research before you hire this attorney!!! Especially if you’re a woman. My experience was that he pretended he was «in» with the judges, made himself out to be a good Christian man (His paraphernalia is plastered about his office) and then proceeded to behave like a bully, all the while I had convinced myself that since I was paying him, he had to be on my side, hadn’t he? He asked me to give him every detail of my situation, apparently to keep charging me but didn’t present any of it to the judge. He appeared very afraid of the judge, possibly lost my case on purpose in a chauvinistic frenzy and/​or was incompetent. I would agree with other comments that he is also highly inappropriate on so many levels!!! If I had to do it again, I’d find ANYBODY else! I feel sorry for the nice ladies who work there and have to put up with his incredibly unprofessional conduct!

I came to Mr. Bishop with no assets and my ex and I wanted to settle out of court via agreement. As a military spouse I asked him if he handled these types of divorce cases, he adamantly confirmed that he had this expertise. Instead, I ended up versing him on my rights as a military spouse and I have a feeling that he never had any experience with military divorces.
My case was not complicated given the lack of assets and both my former spouse and I were in agreement concerning custody/​visitation. Despite this, he kept telling me that I needed to continue the case to make the changes that I requested on the agreement as I found inaccuracies. Not to mention he didn’t address neither the military pension nor the education of our child in the agreement. When I asked about these items he would tell me, his client, that I was asking for too much!
We ended up going to fee arbitration as after I fired him as my attorney he had the nerve to tell me I owed him more money once I ended our business relationship.
Thankfully, I ended up with a professional California State Bar Certified Family Law Specialist who handled my case in ¹⁄₆^th of the time it took Mr. Bishop.
I highly recommend anyone looking for a divorce attorney find one who is a CFLS.
UPDATE ¹⁰⁄₀₅ — It appears that Mr. Bishop has taken the CFLS exams and is certified now. I would like my review to stand regardless as I did not have a good experience with him. Thanks for reading!

I highly discourage anybody from using Mr. Bishop as an attorney for their divorce case. My experience was horrible from the moment I paid my retainer fee.
The quality of the work was sub par and he clearly didn’t review work carefully that came across his desk from his paralegals (which he charges you $ 150/​hr — they may get paid $ 25 if they are lucky). In fact, in the middle of my case, he fired his paralegal and blamed all of the mistakes that were made on her.
My name was misspelled on documents time after time and he told me «it wasn’t misspelled anywhere that counted». He also said that it is common that mistakes are made on documents which is why clients need to review them carefully. At $ 350/​hour I don’t think mistakes should be «common». That’s why you are paying them.
You will pay for all those mistakes that are made as they have to continue updating your legal paperwork on top of copying fees, mailing fees, paralegal fees, attorney fees, and administrative fees. It’s quite a joke. I have no problem paying for superior service but when you are paying for high levels of service and you receive 1 – 800 DIVORCE service, there is something seriously wrong.
Finally, during the appointment where my ex and I signed our paperwork, Mr. Bishop made completely unprofessional remarks with sexual innuendos. They weren’t funny and were completely inappropriate.
After all that, he had the nerve to ask me to handle my estate planning business. No thanks. I have a brand new understanding of all those attorney jokes I’ve been hearing all these years.