John P. Forest II pursued my case, NOT the way I repeatedly requested, but the way he wanted to in order to pad his time-sheets and enrich himself and his firm. From the start, he intentionally subverted my express, written instructions and pursued my case the way HE wanted to despite my opposite demands. At one point I told him verbally and in writing to non-suit a motion, he argued against it, I remained firm, and he reluctantly agreed. Then he did NOT non-suit it! Because I thought he had abided by my request, I did not appear in court and the case was postponed. However, Forest never alerted me to any of this and I had no idea until I received a future court date from the county courthouse. I narrowly missed losing the motion by missing an appearance AND narrowly missed being held in contempt of court. When I told him all of the above, instead of being contrite and apologizing for all the problems he’d caused for me, he actually had the arrogance to defend and justify his refusal to abide by his client’s wishes and his inaction!
Also, when I retained him in May 2006 to get the estate executor off the dime and put my parent’s house on the market ASAP before the real estate market imploded, as the media was widely predicting, he “hip-pocketed” my case, sat on it, and did nothing FIVE MONTHS, until October 2006, one month after the traditional END of the real estate season (when in September it had the single biggest drop since the Great Depression). Again, he acted in defiance of his client’s express verbal and written directive, and in so doing, fatally damaged my case and the estate. As a result of his inaction, the executor didn’t put the house on the market until October 2007, when banks and mortgage companies had closed ranks and no buyer could get a home loan. As a consequence of his inaction, the house sold for one-half of its appraised value.
Not only did he NOT achieve a SINGLE ONE of my objectives, his repeated failure to act when action was called for actually caused MORE (and more costly) problems for me and the estate. Woefully unprepared, he also actually misunderstood motions and lost documents.
In 2013, Susan W. Forest successfully sued him as executor of her husband’s Christopher M. estate in the Court of Appeals. See law.justia.com/cases/virginia/court-of-appeals-unpublished/2013/0836-12-4.html
Removed from reality, he is deep in denial and suffers under the delusion that judges are the mommy and daddy he could never please.
Do NOT be fooled by his high ratings on Martindale-Hubbell and other sites! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!