Complaint Review: Jill Jones Soderman - Hewitt New Jersey

I have received the strong suggestion from my attorney that it would be wise to respond publicly to my public defamers, instead of ignoring them as I have done for the most part heretofore.

In the spring of 2014 Christine Sirgent and her boyfriend called me, for her to tell me about the high-conflict divorce of the boyfriend from his wife. 

After the initial call and my declining to engage with the girlfriend of the potential client, they called back, speaking with a sympathetic staff member who convinced me to help them in spite of this issue.

I agreed to review documents and provide a consultation, giving them the address of my New Jersey office, which is the FCVFC Safe House, and telling them the time frame when I would be available there to receive the documents and the payment.

They failed to keep their appointment, but called many hours later. I wasn’t available then but told them they could drop off the box of documents and the check at the front door.

They left the box at the front door of the Safe House later that evening, but there was no check included; if they have evidence of that, I would suggest that they produce it and take me to small claims court.

Because of the missing payment, and because the person communicating with me was Ms Sirgent rather than the actual potential client, I ultimately declined to take the case, calling her to tell her to come pick up her box. I never met them face to face.

Regarding the FCVFC Safe House, where Ms Sirgent says she and her boyfriend met me. That house was not “in the middle of nowhere,” but in a pleasant community outside of Manhattan, a spacious house of 2400 sq ft, built in the mid-2000s. In 2014 it was a place for clients of the FCVFC, both children and adults, to find safe shelter without cost. Their animals, so necessary to them in times of crisis, were also welcome. 

The way Ms Sirgent described both the Safe House and me, it is a marvel that she would ever want her boyfriend to engage me as a professional advocate. She did succeed in painting me as a doddering fool, but what kind of fool would want to engage the services of a person who is as they described? 

On her defamation website, Ms Sirgent told a long fabricated story about my dictating a letter to her (which I would never do--I write all letters myself and have attorneys review them). 

However, I do know that not long after my declining to interact with them further, a certified letter was in fact sent to the judge assigned to the boyfriend’s case. (The fact that it was a certified letter is significant because I never send documents by certified letter; I use UPS.)

I became aware of this letter when the judge’s clerk called me to ask if the boyfriend was a client of the FCVFC. The judge thought the boyfriend was using the name of the Foundation falsely in his accusations against her, and she intended to give him some jail time for doing so. I dissuaded the court from putting the boyfriend behind bars.

After this call, I contacted Ms. Sirgent to tell her that I was terminating all contact with her and her boyfriend and would not agree to any further contact with them via the FCVFC.

Following that interaction, I received an incessant barrage of threatening emails and phone calls from Ms. Sirgent and her boyfriend. 

On the Starz website, this individual said, “Eventually I will sue her to get my money returned.” Such a lawsuit has never occurred.

Those who have further questions regarding anything about me or the FCVFC in regard to this situation can contact me at [email protected] for further information.

~ Jill Jones-Soderman

 I wanted to believe in Jill Jones-Soderman. Charles, a long-time acquaintance of mine with whom I had previously worked as a paralegal introduced me to Jill, and recommended that Jill hire me. It seemed like a dream job for me, since I had worked with the Mississippi Department of Human Services and seen how much families and children suffer. I was so proud to become the very first and senior paralegal for Jill's Foundation for the Child Victims of the Family Courts. But this dream job of working with Jill rapidly became a nightmare that I hardly know how to describe. To begin with, she persuaded me to accept a low hourly rate of $17.50 (about as low as any paralegal with 13 years experience could ever go). And then she told me that the pay might be "irregular". But she said, "we work 24/7, no bathroom breaks"---and that was a pretty fair description of what started for me on June 9, 2017.

On Saturday June 24, 2017, we had our first major blow up, when she interrupted a client conference screaming at me that I had no right to be in direct contact with the clients...even though she was there on the phone. I almost quit after that---I sent her my first invoice for hours at that point and she asked "is this your notice of resignation?" And I said, "no, but we had agreed I would submit invoices every two weeks." But I think by then the writing was on the wall---because she immediately asserted that she couldn't pay.... And then she said she had absolutely no money because the ONE paying client she had kept paying her in "small" increments of $5,000.00.... but I got money in increments of $100-$750. Once I started working, I got about ten different assignments every day, no days off for about the first 50 days.... by which time I had accumulated unpaid legitimate hours (not counting overtime---and some days I worked 16-18 hours) of approximately $7,000.00.

One excuse after another---she had to pay Westlaw (except that she never paid it); she had to pay Charles (except she never paid him directly more than $75-$400 a week, since she was providing him with a house---for which the rent was always dangerously late). But basically, the money she said she received just disappeared and nobody knew where it went. Now I had thrown myself into this job with heart and soul because her Foundation seemed like such a beautiful concept. So far as I know, she never paid Westlaw at all. She certainly never paid me anything approaching what I had earned. And then, after I told the guy who brought me on that she was advertising to replace him, she fired me and told me that I was just a consultant and had been paid in full, that she owed me no hourly wages at all....

Jill you are such a lying and manipulating creep! I can't wait until the law catches up to you. This is so obviously you writing the rebuttal and I hope anyone reads it can see through your lies. YOU, and YOU ALONE stole my money from me, YOU took advantage of me at my time of need!

I hope you are punished, I hope you do jail time, I hope your life is as miserable as you made mine by writing those horrible and disrespectful letters to the judge that punished me for it and ruined my life!

Jill is the worst human being I have known. She preyed on my emotions when I was at my lowest point in life and fighting a corrupt court system. She took my money, made an excuse and dropped me.

She is disgusting and should be arrested.

Anyone with any intelligence can see that this rebuttal was written by Jill herself. These accusations made in the original report are not up for debate. These are cold hard facts witnessed by myrself and others. Jill thinks she's going to squirm out of yet another debacle in her so called career. She is simply not a professional and she hides behind the fact she calls her business a Foundation. I plan to file several complaints and will make sure her privilege to operate as a foundation is stripped from her and that she is no longer allowed to represent herself as the founder. She is nothing more than a con artist. Anyone who would like to discuss what can be done to stop this fraud is welcome to email me.

Is this the same Jill Jones Soderman that has helped me on several cases? I think not. Perhaps, this person is an unhappy camper of the opposition in one of Ms. Jones-Soserman's victories for her clients.

Other than disgruntled, opposing cases, I have yet to come across anyone who was disappointed in the results that have been provided by Ms. Jones-Soderman.

She is attentive, understanding, compassionate and gets the results needed for the case.

I find it curious that this person would personally attack Ms. Jones-Soderman through examples of home and other irrelevant matter. I have never found her home/office in any form of disarray, let alone what was presented in this tawdry example. I doubt very much that this poster was ever at the home/office.

Anyone that wants results, needs to contact Jil Jones-Soderman.