1 /5 Erika Williams: I was looking for assistance from Attorney Robert Harker regarding a step-parent adoption and the situation turned very sour as soon as he realized that he would have to put in more work than originally expected, even when this possibility was disclosed from the beginning. I am a member of MetLife Legal plan and they have a contract with Mr. Harker to provide the SAME quality of service at a previously agreed-upon rate paid by the plan instead of the client. We discussed the possibility of this being a contested adoption instead of an uncontested one and the firm agreed to proceed despite what happened. I have not had communication with the other parent for almost 3 years because of previous domestic violence and I expressed to Mr. Harkers assistant that I didnt feel comfortable speaking to him. I have built a life completely separate to his and dont know anyone or anything that could locate him to get him served the adoption papers. I tried to text him and he ignored me so the firm agreed to call him themselves once they filed the paperwork in the court and asked me to remind them thats what they said they would do. However, when they saw that it was leaning more towards a contested adoption, they began to lie about the work that had been done, find any reason and make up excuses to end services, and stated that the responsibility to contact the other party about the adoption falls on me because "they dont do that for MetLife clients," meaning that I get a lesser service because I am not paying them thousands of dollars. Mr. Harkers assistant stated that the phone number we provided for the other parent belonged to someone else and they couldnt do anything about it. But I called the number myself from another phone and he picked up the phone. When I let them know that this was the case in hopes they would try to call him again then, their response was "Well, were just not doing that" and "Calling him was just something we discussed" instead of something we had agreed upon and talked about multiple times. She then proceeded to explain that contested adoptions is not something that they do and that she didnt see the need to disclose that at the beginning because it looked like it wasnt gonna be that way (adoptions period are listed as a service on their website and there is no specification about whether it is uncontested or not). However, they agreed to take the other parent to court if he didnt agree to sign the papers to surrender his rights and got all kinds of documents from me to do so. Obviously, if a matter needs to be taken before a judge is because it wasnt agreed upon. They caused me to waste months working with them just to later say that if I dont do all the leg work and all they have to do is file the paperwork with the court because the adoption was agreed to before hand, they cant take my case because they get a fixed amount from MetLife. These attorneys who have contracts with MetLife like to weed through the easy cases, lie and withhold information just to later drop the clients once its not worth it to them anymore. Ive had the same experience with other attorneys, Mr. Harker is just the one that bothered me the most because they began to act like nothing we previously agreed upon was true. Please beware as this firm seems great for a regular paying client but they dont act so professional if they feel like youre not worth their trouble. I was very excited and grateful for this firm at first so I have no reason to come on here and make things up about them. I thought this was really the one who would help me after so many failed attempts over the last 2 and a half years but they turned out to be the same as the other ones, it just took them longer to show that.
