Marble Law review: Legal errors that destroyed my case

In the summer of 2024, I retained Marble to represent me in a custody modification case where I was the petitioner. My first assigned attorney quickly withdrew, stating he was not staffed to handle the opposing side’s aggressive legal team. This was days before a scheduled hearing. I was then reassigned to a second attorney, and from there the case unraveled.
During discovery, the opposing party repeatedly filed motions to compel while refusing to clarify their requests when asked by my attorney. I asked my attorney to seek the court’s help i.e. a motion to compel the other party to comply with clarification , but he refused, claiming nothing could be done and warning that my case might be dismissed. Instead, he advised withdrawing my petition and refiling after thirty days to “reset” the case and evade the discovery abuse. He specifically asked whether a counterpetition had been filed, and I said I wasn’t sure. He couldn’t find it but wouldn’t ask the opposing side for a copy because he didn’t want to “tip off” them off and proceeded to withdraw my petition. In reality, a counterpetition had been filed, so pulling my petition ended up leaving me at a severe disadvantage.
At trial, my attorney failed to properly submit my exhibits electronically, and the judge excluded all my evidence. Despite insisting he had filed them, he did not object to the case moving forward without them or request a continuance. His overall trial performance was inadequate: he was unprepared, asked very few questions for examination and cross examination, made almost no objections, and often sat silently while I was on the stand waiting for him to ask me anything at all. The long drawn out silence while I was on the stand was excruciating. After judgment, I was not given a chance to review the final orders before they were signed, and the opposing party added terms that should not have been included.
Following the ruling, my attorney filed a motion for reconsideration, again claiming the evidence had been submitted. Once the motion was denied, however, he abandoned the case completely. He stopped responding to calls, emails, and texts, leaving me without guidance. Because of this, I missed the deadline to appeal and lost my opportunity to challenge the judgment.
This series of missteps—including the petition withdrawal, exclusion of evidence, ineffective trial advocacy, and abandonment—caused serious harm to my case, financial hardship, and a permanent loss of my appeal rights. My monetary loss is upwards of about 90k including my attorney fees, and judgements. This doesn’t even address the inability to fight for my child’s best interests. That can never be recouped.