Zachary J Markham is the most pompous, arrogant, condescending attorney that I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. And I have dealt with a lot of attorneys in the last decade through my job, US immigration, divorce and child custody issues. This guy should be barred from practicing law.
Once Zack got the second and final payment from me up front for his services, his attitude and demeanor towards me did a 180 degree turn and he became a collasal a****** to deal with. And that was just the beginning. To step back a bit here, I had hired Gary Kazragis - another shining example of lawyer puke - out of Sedona to help me through a divorce and child custody battle. I thought he had helped me get primary custody of my 4 kids, but it turned out it really wasn't his doing at all. He really did NOTHING, and is now barred from practicing law in AZ for doing the same - nothing - and ripping off so very many of his clients at the same time (which I didn't know about until later). Anyway, other than getting me primary custody of my kids, Kazragis left me in a huge mess. I felt I was forced to file a series of motions on my own. So I did. This all has a lot to do with another lawyer puke - Judge Michael Bluff.
Judge Bluff ordered me to have primary custody of all 4 of my teenage children - which was the right decision over my adulterous, lying, spending machine, religous hypocrit X-wife. But Bluff did it because the kids requested it. He really wanted to give them to her largely because of the poor showing that my lawyers had on my behalf prior to Kazragis (Justin Vaughn - more lawyer puke and the slickest rip-off artist of them all - started this off for me). So, to make things "fair", Bluff took it upon himself to completely ignore the AZ child support guidelines and drop my X's child support to $0. YES, you heard it. Thats $0 per month child support payments for 4 teenage children when she was making $42+ as a medical professional. Yes, the court totally disregarded its own child support guidelines, which were specifically set up to counteract dead-beat parents, and instead endorsed the dead beat Mother to not work, not pay support, and load the Father to the maximum possible extent in every conceivable way. Thanks Judge Bluff, who clearly wanted me to fail and did his best to set me up for it. There is a much longer behind this which I wish i could get into here.
Anyway, after the child custody award it didn't take long to find out how utterly useless Kazragis had become. So I fought pretty much on my own for the next 1.5 years to have child support raised. But by the time that started I was already well over 2 years into litigation and was really wore out. But I pressed on and filed motions for all the issues that the scum-sucking lawyers I had already hired (and fired) could not find time to address. But they sure took my money for it. Things did not go well because Bluff was still on the case. So somewhere in there I hired Zack Markham, and what a mistake that turned out to be.
As I said above, Markham did an about face as soon as he got my money. I'll never forget my first and only face to face meeting with him in Flagstaff where he constantly "shhhhh'd" me and poo-poohed whatever it was I started to say in answer to his questions. It was really humiliating. By this time I just wanted the scum-bag to get my case over with, so I wasn't aggressive or rude in any way. And still, his extreme arrogance persisted. It was sickening. Zach seemed to have this huge hangup about these motions that I filed. Then came the biggy......this a****** lawyer should be barred from practicing law for this.....
I found out that Zack-the-Puke told my X's lawyer that I should be "taken out to the wood shed and flogged" for filing the motions that I did. He told opposing counsel this. I couldn't believe it......MY LAWYER - who I paid $5000 to help me with these motions - told opposing counsel that I should be taken out to the wood shed and flogged for filing my own motions.
When I found that out I wasn't so nice to Zack-the-Puke anymore.
Zack-the-Puke eventually advised that I dismiss all of my motions, and I eventually said I would under one condition.....that I can turn around and re-file right away one of the motions - the motion for modification of child support to raise the pathetic $0 awarded to my X by the infinitely wise Bluff. He said. absolutely I could do that. So thats what I did - without Zach-the-Puke's help. And it was denied. I was furious.
So I phoned up Aspey at AWD and I complained long and hard to him about Zach-the-Puke's advice and his whole arrogant, pompous and condescending attitude towards me. Aspey was great. Soon, Zach-the-Puke was refiling for my child support modification - and he was forced to do it for free. And that really pissed him off bad. Now he was 3X more arrogant and rude. but this time the refiling was successful and Zack-the-Puke signed off - but then tried to charge me another $1500. I told him that I would rather go to jail than pay his arrogant, pompous, rude, condescending a*s another nickel. I told Zach-the-Puke that he should barred from practicing law for what he had done for me, and that he really should be taken out to the wood shed and flogged for it.
My case was passed to Trebesch (good riddance Bluff) and she found it in her heart to award me a whole $278 per month fo child support - still a pathetic amount, far below what is just and fair, even for 3 teenage kids at home by that time. I faced not one, but two of my X's lawyers in court that day, $550 per hour of lawyer-puke against me, the man who should be taken out to the wood shed and flogged. And the expensive lawyer puke lost.
But, as is always the case when lawyer puke gets involved, no one wins except the lawyer puke. The precedent had been long established by this time by the courts, that my medical-professional X wife should be allowed to sit on her a*s and work maybe 10 hours per week, and pay hardly any child support, while I work full time and do it ALL. Her paltry payments never even paid for half the medical insurance on the kids, let alone anything else.
And get this, to date (Dec 2015) my X is almost $4000 in arrears on child support to me, but has found the resources to change careers, start a company in her husband's name, and even buy land through that comapny. And Bluff really wanted to give her primary custody of the children, and he treated me throughout like I am the lying, cheating piece of s*** that she is.
There are few good lawyers around, but very few. And then the scum-bags become judges. I found out tonight that a friend of a friend, who has two small kids and needs a lot of help with a seriously deadbeat husband, is considering hiring none other than Zach-the-Puke. After hearing about their conversations and telling her my story and that I think she is being set up to be fleeced, I decided to write this review.
If you need a lawyer, stay away from the likes of Zack Markham (and Justin Vaughn).