Complaint Review: Attorney Paul N. Schaefer

Hired this incompetent attorney in a guardianship case paid over 10K for his lazy, dishonest, unethical services. Schaefer is a one man dog and pony show that shares an office with at least one other attorney that is not a partner with Schaefer, he also uses the other attorney's secretary to do mineal things for him.

From the onset of hiring him it became clear he was unable to pay attention to detail and had emotional issues. He requested names of family members and other information via email, I provided him the information he requested. Later I went to his office to review and sign the court documents he had prepared. Upon review of the documents the information he had on the documents was not the information I had previously provided him. It was names and information concerning someone else. When I brought this to his attention he went to another room and returned after a very long time with corrected documents. He then became unhinged and made the following statement, "what do you want me to do hang myself for the mistakes I made"? I told him to get a grip.

Schaefer eventually filed the documents and motions with the court and opposing counsel. Opposing counsel objected  to the documents that Schaefer had submitted and got the judge to revoke a previous court order that made me temporary guardian due to supposedly the documents that Schaefer submitted to the court was missing required information.

After this fiasco that Schaefer caused, I then started to get bombarded with numerous emails over several days that Schaefer forwarded to me from the Clerk of the Court. None of the forwarded emails had an explanation by Schaefer of what the forwarded emails and the attachments were about. Apparently Schaefer does not feel he has to communicate with his client. Even though I requested numerous times to him to explain the attached documents in the forwarded emails he ignored me.

Apparently Schaefer was feeling the heat of my repeated emails and out of the blue with no prior warning or discussion with me, he emailed me his motion to withdraw from the case with no explanation as to why. He used the default excuse on the actual motion "attorney client relationship has broken down" BS. Schaefer quit this case after 30 days and made over 10K for being incompetent among other things. He left me with no legal representation which resulted in very severe adverse decisions and rulings against me. Schaefer is a money grubbing creep that should be disbarred. 

I wrote Schaefer via certified US Mail to return the money, he ignored my letters. I then contacted the Florida Bar to arbitrate the matter, Schaefer refused to participate in arbitration so there wasn't any arbitration. He did respond to the arbitrator that the reason why he witdrew was because i contacted the Credit Card company and claimed "fraud" was occuring but did not describe the exact fraud. This was news to me because I never contacted the Credit Card company about fraud or anything else.

I then made a complaint directly to the Florida Bar concerning Schaefer and his unethical conduct. The Florida Bar has done nothing concerning my complaint because they claim there is no probable cause to do so. The evidence against Schaefer is overwhelming but the Florida Bar prefers to ignore it and protect a fellow lawyer. The Florida Bar complaint number is 2017-31,099 (18A)

For anyone looking for a lawyer do not hire Schaefer, you will regret it if you do. He knows all the tricks to cheat his clients and then receive protection from the Florida Bar. Run from this incompetent dolt.