I hired this law firm in 2021 to represent my son on criminal charges that he had been detained for. The initial meeting, well presentation, to convince my husband and I to hire this firm was impressive. Mr. Ron Helmer, Mr. Brent Hopkins, and another attorney set out on proving that they were worth the $25,000 retainer that they required. They stated that the one reason they were able to charge so much was because they have the best of the best and most of their attornies were former prosecutors. Mr. Helmer stated have an awesome A team, an equally great B team, and a C team that was awesome as well. They added that if neither of those teams could get it done, they have a fresh group of new defense attorneys that had just come over from the prosecutors office and this group was still buddies with the current prosecutors, mentioning how they all still had lunch together and such. Please feel free to comment on what you think was being implied there. Ron Helmer was the main presenter during this show and he went on to talk about the many cases he had won and how his family was sort of like a rainbow coalition, meaning his children married outside of their race. I took that to mean that he was for all people. A question that had never been asked but he felt the need to answer, I suppose. My husband and I left their office confident that we should retain them especially since we thought that Mr. Ron Helmer, the one with all the amazing victory stories, would be the one representing our son. Welp, we were wrong.
1. Shortly after retaining the firm, we found out that Mr. Brent Hopkins was representing our son instead. We were advised that Mr. Helmer no longer a trial attorney. Shortly after the firm had been terminated by my son the following year, another attorney told me that Mr. Helmer had several ethics violations which may be why he no longer took on clients.
2. Mr. Brent Hopkins never took any notes. My son and I would always have to repeat everything during the next meeting which also means that the things Mr. Hopkins said he was going to do during the last meeting didn't get completed because obviously he'd forgotten.
3. Mr. Hopkins had the opportunity to have my son's Indictment dismissed during a motion hearing due to the prosecutor "losing" discovery that had been accounted for initially. The judge advised Mr. Hopkins that he needed to prove that the prosecutor lost this part of the discovery with malicious intent. Mr. Hopkins had no response for the judge. My 1st question was in what situation would a prosecutor lose discovery with benefical intentions? And who would be the only party to benefit from it? Again, Mr. Hopkins had no response at all and the motion was denied.
4. There were several conversations with Mr. Hopkins where he seemed to have a very hard time remembering that he was now a defense attorney, not a prosecutor. It was very frustrating to constantly have to remind him of this. I tried a different tactic once with him. It was role playing where I played defense attorney and I let him play his favorite position as the prosecutor. I showed him just how this case made no sense and after he got extremely frustrsted, he yelled at me and said something that showed me exactly how he was not working on the side of my son.
5. Two days before another motion was to be heard, Mr. Hopkins advised my son and I that the prosecutor stated he would up add an additional 5 years to the plea deal if we proceeded with the motion and lost. Im no attorney but that raised many red flags. Why would the prosecutor be worried about this motion to the extent that he would threaten to increase the sentence? Nevertheless, this thought meant nothing to Hopkins and Helmer. They tried to convince my son and I that he should take the plea instead. The next day my son decided that he could not put his fate in the hands of these attornies. Mr. Helmer and Mr. Hopkins both tried to convince my son to let them represent him on the motion the next day. The same motion they were just trying to talk my son out of the day before. My son told Mr. Hopkins that he would not hold back when advising the judge why he was releasing them from counsel should he try to represent him still. Mr. Helmer advised my son that he would refund all monies I had paid him that next day after court. That was in the beginning of 2022. Mr. Helmer told me in a text message that he was not refunding me anything at all. I must add that they had many people taking payments by phone in different offices that they often had the accounting incorrect.
There were many issues with this firm. One is huge and I will more than likely have to bring to court, especially since the prosecutor was removed from the case shortly after Hopkins was. I would like to end this particular review by stating this: After releasing this firm aa counsel, many other attornies have told me that this firm was full of scammers and schemers. I myself have found VERY bad reviews of the firm that were hidden online. I wasnt aware that it was possible to hide reviews that aren't favorable. That doesn't seem fair to a potential client looking to retain. Its almost like false advertising. I wonder what else they are able to do to remove reviews from the publics view? I would not have hired the firm if I had seen the reviews that were hidden. All reviews should be visible to the public being that those reviews are based on the level of service provided to other clients.
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