Jason
Be WAREY of International Academy of Family Lawyers -iafl . com lawyers!
www .iafl. com is the website for the International Academy of Family Lawyers. It is where I found a scoundrel named Jean-Michel Camus, working in a company called "Legalcy" at www .legalcy - avocats.fr. It's a French law firm specializing in family law and international family law (Mr. Camus' review and that of Legalcy is coming next). The iafl does not have any place on their site to file a grievance or to contact anyone representing them. No phone, no email, no chat, no zoom, no skype, nothing. They have no way to leave feedback on their lawyers. They are the only game in town, as far as I was able to find in google, who has a list of international family lawyers. I can tell you they have at least one completely unethical, lawyer in the person of Jean-Michel Camus, who I mentioned above, who, once I had decided to hire him and he had my retainer, proceeded to bill me for for every minute on the phone and every email we had prior to his being hired. WITHOUT breathing a word to me that I was paying for all of that! He billed me for finding out about his billing and whether we could work together, AND even billed me for ACCEPTING MY PAYMENT without telling me I was being billed! Of course I could neither accept nor decline, because HE NEVER INFORMED ME! Beyond ludicrous. We had no working contract, I had submitted no payment. It was very clear that I had not yet decided to employ him. If I HAD been told UPFRONT that he was going to be billing me for all of our subsequent conversion and emails, I would have hung up the phone immediately, as would any intelligent person. If I had been told I was going to be billed RETROACTIVELY for all of the aforementioned items above, prior to signing the contract and/or prior to paying the retainer, I would also have refused. It would seem I was expected to read his mind. On the contract I signed with him, I specifically stated as a condition to my hiring Mr. Camus, that I be informed PRIOR to the using up of any retainer, AND debt obligation to a subsequent one... Mr. Camus entirely ignored this. In fact, the amount of his retainer would have already been completely used up prior to my paying it, because of his "creative" (ie, deceptive) billing scheme. Mr. Camus was employed by me for less than 5 full days during which time he made a total of ONE 10-minute phone call (to the other party's lawyer) and sent FOUR emails. MR. CAMUS PROPOSES TO CHARGE ME MORE THAN 3,000 (THREE THOUSAND) EUROS FOR HIS "WORK." I've dealt with lawyers before and have never seen such flagrantly unethical behavior. I am shocked that the iafl would endorse such a lawyer. Maybe they were unaware of it, maybe he hasn't done this before, but he has NOW, and this is the kind of lawyer they are promoting. Individuals who behave in such a way give lawyers the reputation they have for being snakes and some of the most deceitful and unsavory members of society. Stay FAR away from this site and especially this lawyer, or if you choose to use it (or him, heaven help you!), BEWARE AND TAKE EVERY PRECAUTION. Even though I did, I now have the added hassle of getting the unused portion of my retainer back in addition to the stress of the legal matter that I was already dealing with.