Cordell & Cordell

Do not employ this company.
At no time during the many months I employed this «attorney» did I receive any amount of quality legal advice. At the best point I would call Cordell and Cordell a weak team of paralegals.
If you are looking for a real attorney with integrity to counsel you and help you resolve your family law concerns look somewhere else.
If you want an attorney you don’t need to micromanage go to another legal firm.
If you want someone to help you understand the legal process and counsel you on the appropriate course of action quickly and decisively, you NEED to LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE.
My opinion of this company is that they are probably draining money from men by doing everything they can to drag out your legal process and cause as much over complication as possible, simply by playing dumb about the process.
I call this a company because a Cordell and Cordell «attorney» is not working for your family, they are working to leverage legal formalities to get money, whether you need the formalities or not. They will work on what they want to and ignore you.
The specific «attorney» was named Rebecca Ripley and she did nothing more than a paralegal. Her Baltimore office «team lead» has vouched for her legal approach as well. This means that Cordell and Cordell management is ok with the unethical style of family law being practiced by her in their company.
I approached this legal firm and from the first day I was in the office I told Rebecca Ripley I wanted to schedule mediation. I explained that there was a protection order and that my spouse only requested it many months back so she could manipulate the legal system with regard to custody, and that my spouse would be fine with attending mediation as soon as possible. I expressed to the «attorney» I was pessimistic of her compliance during mediation due to my spouse being very young and uninformed. I was given a completely ridiculous settlement agreement from the opposing attorney. My spouse’s attorney was taking advantage of her. See, every legal action taken costs you more, and if you don’t properly call the attorney on their games they will just keep playing dumb and THEY WILL DO WHAT YOU TELL THEM EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW ITS WRONG AND WILL COST YOU TIME AND MONEY. Her attorney was wasting time playing games by acting like she didn’t know what was logical to put in the settlement agreement. It was full of things that weren’t even legally or financially plausible.
Ok, now that I have set the scene for my particular situation, I want you the reader to understand that these are universal legal scams you can avoid.
The «attorney» paralegal Rebecca Ripley spent a few months playing around and pretending like she was doing some kind of legal research to improve my argument in a mediation and ultimately a trial. During these months I was being billed thousands of dollars by Cordell and Cordell. I contacted her many times to ask what she was doing. She would barely respond. She would hide behind the idea that she was «saving me money» by not answering my emails. And apparently that meant that she could ignore my emails accusing her of doing the wrong thing for me. I contacted the customer care department and they would send me back to her.
Not until five months later did Rebecca ensure that mediation was scheduled. Then she and the other attorney put off mediation for another month and another thousand dollars of nothing. The attorneys were now at this point playing back and forth wasting time and pretending like their schedules didn’t quite match up. This is exactly what you will see. Look for it. Cordell and Cordell chose to disregard my instructions to schedule mediation until many months and many thousands later.
Mediation was conducted in separate rooms.
Even with a protection order you can do mediation.
Rebecca Ripley was playing a game with me since it was illegal for me to contact my spouse and confirm what was happening.
The mediator took all of rebeccas horrible ideas and threw them in the trash. Rebecca was an extremely weak counsel and took no time in her busy schedule to properly orient me for a logical approach to mediation. This means mediation took more time and COST MORE. Cordell and Cordel didnt help me assemble something prior to entering mediation. The mediator was amazing. She went back and forth a few times and it was ALL ANYBODY NEEDS! DONE!
If attorneys helped people that weren’t even contesting the divorce and simply fed people into the mediation system they would not be able to string you along for months collecting money from you in preparation of fake or unnecessary «litigation.» All the court system wants is a valid agreement from the two of you signed and submitted. You dont need a lawyer and you definitely dont need cordell and cordell, Rebecca Ripley, or Clara Bereston.
If you want more:
This is the very short version. The Maryland BAR got a better one