Legal Aid of Western Michigan

Emily Evers got involved in a civil case that our neighbor was meddling in. It had nothing to do her. She was just poking around, phishing for information. We were not using Legal Aid, we had hired our own attorneys.

If I could rate these services a zero I would . I filled out an online app, I called , and filled out another app . I expressed in the app that I am low income and can’t afford an attorney . They matched me with one attorney that when we had our free consult conversation he completely rushed me through the call and kept interrupting me . Which I didn’t expect from a fellow black man . I didn’t feel heard at all for him to then quota me 450/hr or 950$ for limited scope to get me through the next week of my custody investigation. I’m not sure what’s the point of lega ain’t for people in need if the goal isn’t to connect them with help they can afford or WANT to help for a discounted price.

I should've reviewed the reviews before placing my hope on getting guidance from here. The lady I spoke to was rude, short and extremely unhelpful. No professionalism in her tone or demeanor. She left a voicemail to call her back, and when I did she did not answer so I left a voicemail, but she never called back, I had to call again a few hours later and she answered so snarkily when I said I was returning a call for Legal Aid, she said "Yeah, I work at Legal Aid, what do you need?" I explained the situation briefly, "Yeah, okay, so who are you?" Like, what is that? She never even told me if she was an attorney or not. Just started asking me questions annoyed. Did not provide any useful information and would only get flustered and frustrated when I would explain I already did the very basic first suggestions she made and that's why I needed guidance, and she just kept saying "I don't know why they wouldn't answer you." Neither do I, that's why I wanted help! Nothing she told me really made sense, and made audibly annoyed sounds when I didn't understand, even after I told her I am not familiar with legal language, she did not change her approach at all, and made it uncomfortable to ask any clarifying questions. She also just laughed at me when I said I wasn't comfortable talking to one of the debtors because they've been harassing me and said, "Yeah, well, cause that's their job, so... yeah" Said it exactly like that, so callously. I can't believe that this agency works to support low-income communities who have enough to deal with and do not train their attorneys to be trauma-informed in the slightest. At least not this person, Jamelle or Demelle, was her name. I felt even worse after talking to this place. I wish I could afford a real attorney, this sucks.