Mendel & Associates

We used Mendel Colbert & Associates to help facilitate an adoption with a birthmother in Alaska. They were very responsive until we paid our retainer -- after that, everything was funneled through the attorney's paralegal, who was incredibly difficult to reach. We would email 3 or 4 times, and then finally call her once or twice, before we would get a response. We received no guidance about how to handle the adoption situation, and when we arrived in AK, there was no one to help us. My husband caught errors on the paperwork twice, and we had to find a place to reprint the paperwork each time. Additionally, no one from Mendel Colbert & Associates came to help us! We had to present the paperwork to the birthmother ourselves, find a notary ourselves, and deal with the birth parents and the hospital staff ourselves. When the birthmother put false information on the paperwork, we had to figure that out ourselves, too. The final revocation of adoption paperwork was signed on March 31, and it took Mendel Colbert & Associates 6 weeks to refund the unused portion of our retainer -- and only after we'd requested it 4 times, and finally got our personal attorney involved. I also saw, on the itemized bill, that we got charged for the corrections that they had to make due to their errors! If this wasn't the only attorney in the state who could handle interstate adoptions (at least, according to our agency), we would have dropped them immediately. I would strongly caution anyone against using this law firm, unless you like being blown off, given paperwork with multiple errors, and doing most of the work yourself. Worst experience!!!