Law Office of James E. Latimer

And one star is too much. Unfortunately, Unilocal won’t let me give them a zero. My saga with this law firm started a month ago, when I had my initial meeting with case manager Shane King on Sept. 16^th, and was introduced to Mr. Latimer himself. I signed a contract and the next week received a copy of a letter they sent to State Comp on my behalf informing them that they were representing me for my injury back in February, and asking to change my doctor. I was so happy to have someone help me battle workers comp, and was very relieved.
In the meanwhile, Shane King asked me to give them EVERY document I’ve received from State Comp, and to email him a list of all my other work-​related injuries, so they could determine if they’d could sue for any of these older injuries, for which I’ve been seeing a doctor for years. However, the last time I saw a doctor for the older injuries was fall 2013, so I needed to get this info to them quickly, because I had to have seen a doctor sometime in the past year for them to file a suit for any old injuries. It took me several days to get all this information together, and I typed it up. This is where the problems began. I had misplaced Shane’s business card so I called the office and asked for his email. The receptionist wouldn’t give me his email, and sent me to his voice mail. I left another message. Several days went by, no return call. I called again, and left another voice mail. No return call. In the meanwhile, my right arm had begun to hurt badly, and I really needed to see a doctor. In the two weeks I waited for a return phone call, my arm hurt so bad that I couldn’t even lift my right hand to touch my cheek. On top of that, I was starting to feel panicky because my next doctors appointment is tomorrow, and Mr. Latimer told me not to go back to my doctor, because they wanted me to see THEIR doctor instead. But if I didn’t see a doctor this week, my temporary disability would stop. So yesterday I called and left another voice mail for Shane and then another for James Latimer himself. No return call. Today I called again, and was sent to Shane’s voice mail. So I called back and asked to speak to their office manager. I think her name was Alicia, and she was the first person I’d spoken to at this firm in almost a month. She told me they had decided not to represent me, but couldn’t tell me why. She said they had mailed me a letter informing me of this on Sept. 23^rd, which I’ve never received. When I asked her about all the documents I’d left with them back in September, she told me they’d mailed them back to me, too. But I never received those either, and I was beginning to feel panicky, and started to cry.
At that point, Alicia transferred me to staff attorney Cory Stephens, who was BEYOND condescending and rude. She blamed ME for not having Shane’s email — she said I should have made sure that I had Shane’s email when I last met with him. When I told her that I had gotten Shane’s business card, but had misplaced it, she blamed ME for losing it. And she didn’t think that all of my case documents being lost in the mail was a problem either, and said that it wouldn’t be hard to get copies of everything that State Comp has sent me. She didn’t apologize or take any responsibility for all of my case documents being lost. Basically she let me know it’s my problem, not hers.
When I asked why they decided not to represent me, she said it was because they needed to have a good working relationship with their clients, implying that they didn’t have one with me. Why she would say this is beyond me, because they made the decision not to represent me only a week after meeting with me, and we didn’t have the chance to develop any working relationship at all. In the week between my meeting with them and signing a contract, and their supposedly sending me that letter, I had no other interaction with anyone at that firm whatsoever. In fact since I dropped off all my documents a month ago, I haven’t heard from anyone at that firm at all.
I didn’t read the Unilocal reviews until after I signed the contract with this firm, but once I did I got worried, especially after I read the review by Marcella G about their not returning calls. I definitely experienced this. I can only pray that the documents I gave them show up in the mail, but it’s been over two weeks since they said they mailed them to me, so now I’m stressing out about that, too. Thank God that when I saw MY doctor last month, I went ahead and scheduled a followup appointment just in case, and will see her tomorrow. I’m so glad that I didn’t cancel it because then I’d be in an even bigger bind than I’m in now, thanks to this firm. After all this, I am seriously considering filing a formal complaint with the Bar Association. And I just found a review on Cory Stephens on
— it was one star, «worst experience EVER.»

Jim Latimer has been a pleasure to work with. He and Cory both fight hard to win your claim.

My father is a lawyer as well as my stepmom so I know what an aggressive go getter looks like. At first he seemed like a go –getter but expect no communication and you have to call and call to get a response. I found email worked better but you have to ask about everything. So if you have a hearing you have to ask «do I need to go» and then you find out no. OK thanks glad I asked but then you hear nothing abour the hearing and how it went. So then you have to call and email again. Its maddenning and soo unprofessional. I spend more time pulling information from them than anything else. We have had two cases (related to each other) and I feel we have had to promt all the information. And we had to ask before hand «what should we expect?». No pre-​hand advice or strategy. I am not sure if it is a churn and burn and they just go through as many cases as they can but its horrible. Its been over a year or so and on our second case and we haven’t spoke to the paralegal or Lawyer in over a year. Its all email and always prompted by us. Ifeel if I didnt ask constantly nothing would happen.