Called Monday August 13 2018 to schedule a consult for elder law with Attorney Ball. Was told to leave a voicemail on Ms. Ball's Assistant's phone and did so. No reply. Called again on Wednesday Aug 15, 2018 to follow up. Again, too busy to speak with me and leave another message. On Thursday morning I booked an appointment with Farr Law Firm also in Fairfax VA and scheduled in less than 3 minutes. The follow-up call arrived after this review was posted on Aug 16th at 12:30 p.m.. When you make it too difficult to schedule, there are other avenues available. Good luck in your future endeavors.

One year of BS with this firm. Finally stepped down in May and I have gotten more done without them. I hired another attorney to advise me of things to be filled and when. This firm is horrible, I have done more in 3 months then they did in 9 months. The estate is almost closed and done thanks to me. They did nothing but write letters and send documents and was concerned about things that we told them not to worry about. I would not recommend this firm to anyone grieving a family member and they don't listen to you or your families requests. Things were much harder with them then without them. Unfortunately, I am still dealing with things they did not do and have to deal with them to get things finished because they were to lazy to send letters in May to say they were off the case. I don't recommend them at all. one year is next month and all we want to do is grieve, but yet we are still dealing with this firms blunders and uncompleted tasks.

Before you retain Mr. Ryan Mattson, you should be aware of his dishonesty, carelessness and incompetence:

Mr. Mattson gave me a basic description of my divorce proceedings at our initial consultation but spent the next hour talking about the kind of “great and aggressive” representation he’s going to provide. He also made a lot of predictions in my benefit that were solely for the purpose of charging for them later. I know this now because almost all of those predictions did not apply in my case and/or were unachievable. Once he was retained, however, for the first four months I did not hear anything from him. He was very hard to reach and didn’t consider the basic courtesy of promptly returning phone calls to give me an update and/or answer my question(s). He never acknowledged any of my emails which forced me to call for days and when I could finally reach him through his paralegal, we started all over again simply because he hadn’t gotten anything done and again, he’d charge me for that phone call. Furthermore, all of his bills are padded and almost everything is completed by the paralegal while he charges top dollar for his time. After ten-month long delays, frustration and wasting money for no reason, there was a big discrepancy in the billing. When I looked into it, I realized that he charged me 2.7 hours ($1,120.50) for a telephone conference when according to my phone log it took exactly 39 minutes and 9 seconds ($161.85). He charged me $207.50 for another telephone conference which according to my phone log never happened. He also charged me for other services that were never provided. All of this was totaling $1,830.15. After I initially posted this review back in February and sent his paralegal a detailed email along with prove showing that the bills are blatantly padded, he immediately issued a refund for just $1,000 and I let him keep the other $830.15 so he can use that money as a retainer to finalize my divorce.

In summary, as they say that there’s no guarantee of competence and honesty when you hire a lawyer, this may very well be the case. I urge you to acquire your services elsewhere or you’ll be disappointed.

This place has wasted two years and $200,000 the two attorneys that were appointment to us have been horrible would not recommend this attorney’s office no compassion ! Very upset with this place.... Lisa was her name of the last attorney they appoint to us if you get her ask for someone else she is lazy .

My wife and I met with Ms. Ball concerning a Trust matter. We were greeted and lead to a conference room. Ms. Ball was prompt and very efficient and effective with the time we spent with her. She completely answered all our questions and gave us useful documents to use as guides and reference. We hope that we do not need to use her services in the future; but, we are completely confident that she can satisfactorily handle any legal matter concerning the Trust that may surface.

My mother and I have been clients of Hale-Ball for many years. We have utilized their services first for establishing and then later modifying a Will and Power of Attorney for my mother. Their treatment and attention to my mother’s desires were first and foremost - the most important aspect of their customer service. Jean Ball and the staff made my mother very comfortable and valued in the process of developing and adjusting the Will, which can sometimes be a bit confusing to the elderly. My mother was always made to feel that all was taken care of and that she could be at ease with what she had established. I cannot express enough how important that was to me, to have my mother content with her actions when creating her Will with Hale-Ball.

After my mother’s passing I enlisted their services again for Probate processing. Cecilia Sheil was very knowledgeable and thorough with the multitude of steps and forms and requirements for this process. I was informed of the various options available to me and decided to tackle the Executorship by enlisting their help with filings, form submission and accountings on an as-needed basis. With their help I was very quickly able to file the Will and Estate Inventory and initiate the process with minimal trips to the Probate office. With their guidance I was able to preemptively get all of the forms completed and get a quick jump on the distribution of assets which again with their help went exceedingly smooth from a Probate process point of view.

As the distribution neared completion, family dynamics made for some complex and difficult actions involving ‘tangible personal items’. Again Jean and the team provided invaluable advice on the possible courses of action which clarified and simplified the steps to be taken. Where family matters were outside of the Probate purview, they were able to draw upon additional resources and references and direct me to them for assistance. As an encore to the completion of the probate, family dynamics once again required that I enlist Jean’s help for hearings and testimony preparation. Without her help, I know that the results would have been quite different.

In the end everything was completed and their expertise exceeded my expectations. The probate process itself is long and complicated, but was definitely easier with their help. Aside from the outstanding assistance I received from Hale-Ball, the only thing I can impart to others that may read this is what Cecilia said to me as it relates to the family disputes…”sure, you can do this yourself if you want to, but in the end you may wish you hadn’t”. Even with the personal issues I faced, Jean and Cecilia were always there at every turn to help with the bumps in the road making it a much more manageable task.