Portia Christchurch

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Reviews

1. Piotr Nowak ★☆☆☆☆

   After meeting with Portia’s senior solicitor, my impression of the firm was good... until real work started. 1. After receiving documents drafted by my lawyer, I was concerned after seeing how many grammar, spelling, and factual errors I had to correct. Keep in mind that the documents were prepared by a senior solicitor, plus that English is not my first language. 2. After some back and forth, we managed to finalize the documents. They then asked me to file those with court, even thought this was part of the services they were supposed to provide (their Schedule 2A Classic). Anyway, I filed those documents in court myself. Before you ask, their invoice was for the full amount quoted in their schedule i.e. as if they filed the documents on my behalf. For your information, the way they operate, they require you to pay a deposit, then they do the work and draw funds from that deposit. So if you think of disputing any or part of any invoices, good luck with that! 3. Two days after I filed the documents, the court requested a confirmation that I completed a Parenting Through Separation (PTS) course in the last two years. A less than two years old certificate from a PTS course provider is an essential prerequisite to making application in the family court, and Portia Law as family lawyers should have advised accordingly. In essence, my application was at risk of being struck on the spot, but I managed to enroll into a PTS course the same day, and the court accepted the application. 4. Reaching your Portia lawyer over the phone is very difficult, if not impossible. Most of the time you will reach their receptionist who will take a message. If you request a call back, sometimes they will call you back, sometimes they will not, and often they will send you an email instead. Many emails from my lawyer started with “Sorry for the delay…”, “Sorry for missing your call…”, etc. In summary, they are difficult to reach, and slow to respond. 5. They just don’t like talking on the phone and simply prefer emails instead you will say? Not really. If you email them with your concerns, sometimes they will respond in a completely new email thread ignoring some of the concerns you raised. Occasionally they will ignore you until you keep chasing them every few days or so with follow up emails and/or phone calls (left messages I mean). 6. A few times my lawyer failed to follow clear and simple written instructions, which has been detrimental to my application. 7. On Monday a couple of weeks ago, Portia received a without notice application to be served on me (the application was concerning my daughter’s international travel). Since they were on court’s record as representing me, technically I was served those documents that Monday. In case you are not aware, without notice applications are urgent, and if the court gives you an opportunity to respond at all, the time for the response is sometimes reduced. In this case it was reduced to 7 days (or 5 working days if you prefer). Do you think Portia got on the phone straight away to tell me this and recommend appropriate course of action? Or maybe the next day at the latest? No. They casually emailed me the documents 4:35pm on Thursday that week. It was at this point when I decided it no longer made any sense to be represented by them. 8. After I had asked them to transfer me my file, they asked how I would like it received. When I responded that via dropbox or similar, they said that due to security reasons they could not do that (so why would they ask such question in the first place?), and then posted me a memory stick (USB). 9. So allegedly for security reasons they could not send files via Dropbox, but at the same time the file they provided me with on the memory stick included correspondence concerning someone else’s case (family violence matter!). That’s very secure, isn’t it? 10. I subsequently sought independent legal advice from other lawyers. I was told that SOME of the legal advice given to me by Portia (not ALL to be clear) was not correct. I could go on, but you get the gist!

   1 year ago
2. Stephen Lowndes ★☆☆☆☆

   Poor service, bad advice. My experience was not at all acceptable.

   1 year ago
3. Kamena Porteous ★★★★★

   A++ Law firm, the lawyer I had was amazing, the time and help I received was impeccable. I Highly recommend Portia

   almost 4 years ago

1. Wendy Vanderzwaan ★★☆☆☆

   This is a very hard place to contact. When you ring there is no one there to answer yr call. It just goes to voice-mail. Very frustrating.

   almost 4 years ago
2. Andy Nikolic ★☆☆☆☆

   Have a first interview on October 2020 with someone in the Firm, she set all my papers to apply for Legal Aid, after I waited two weeks for a response and nothing happen, I decide to call Legal Aid to my surprise that nothing was been filed. I went to the firm and they apologize, as apparently this person who interview me was working her last day and she throw my papers away. They make me fill everything again, after another two weeks pass and nothing happen, I call one more time Legal Aid and they do not have my papers filed yet. I went to the Firm again and they started to behave as I was annoying them, basically I was causing them a problem, acting very rude and not giving me any answers. They said that they would do the Legal Aid application as urgent (whatever that means). When finally was approved and after losing 6 weeks trying to start anything, they gave an interview with a relatively new lawyer Maria R. with not much experience. This lawyer spend a good amount of time talking wonders about my ex's lawyer Ms R. Walsh, which father is a Senior Family Court Judge, and seems like they all bow to her. So after losing 3 months without anyone to defend me or giving me any real advice, Ms Maria R. told me I should just give up and no defend it, as anyway legal aid would not paid them if the case was likely to be lost. That was my last day with them, a complete waste of my time. Four years ago when Esther McNally represented me was very different, unfortunately she is no longer with Ebborn/Portia.

   almost 4 years ago
3. Lynda Leppard ★★★★★

   Good solid legal advice. Highly recommend

   almost 5 years ago

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