Avrin Valerie

The Summary:
My wife and I utilized the services of Valerie Avrin as our attorney for the sale of our home in 2015. We were less than enthused with our experience with Valerie, so let’s get right into it.
The Service:
Rating: 1 out of 5
First, when we used Valerie as our closing attorney, we did NOT work directly with Valerie. We were assigned to a paralegal who took care of our closing. I would not have thought this was bad, except for the fact that our paralegal lacked the general experience and knowledge to handle our closing properly. We experienced more errors and oversights from this office that we could have ever imagined.
The Knowledge:
Rating: 1 out of 5
The lack of knowledge by Valerie and her staff regarding our specific closing is really where most of our problems occurred. Our paralegal didn’t know much, and what she did know was either wrong or not explained to us properly. Speaking with Valerie wasn’t much better.
Valerie spoke in general legal terms and almost never regarding our specific closing. She gave us incorrect information more than once, and caused numerous problems during the closing.
The worst offense occurred four weeks after the closing, when I received an «intent to foreclose» from my lender. When I called the lender to explain that I had closed on the property a month earlier and was no longer the owner, they informed me that they never received the payoff check. Valerie attempted to blame the buyer’s attorney, blame my wife and I for not sending the proper payoff statement, and blame everyone else in the world as long as they weren’t employed in her office (not really but for exaggeration purposes it makes my point. She would not accept even an inch of responsibility as she blamed us for her oversight). This resulted in an accrual of $ 520 in additional interest in which Valerie attempted to make us pay. After we refused, she offered to «split the difference.» After another refusal and 30 minutes of arguing, she agreed to pay for her mistake. Wow. Just wow.
The Responsiveness:
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
The one area in which I have to give some credit is the responsiveness of the office. Our paralegal responded to emails very quickly, usually within a few hours. The only thing that could have made our experience worse would have been if we had to wait days for responses/​replies from the office. But, luckily that didn’t happen.
I actually would have rated their responsiveness higher if Valerie wasn’t so difficult to get a hold of. There were many times that our paralegal just didn’t know the answer to a question, or worse yet, gave us incorrect or conflicting information. It was at these times in which we asked to speak with Valerie. Unfortunately, Valerie was always «on a conference call» or «in a closing.» We would wait a day or two before having to follow-​up again. It was only after our follow-​up would we receive a call back from Valerie.
The Professionalism:
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
Professionalism was essentially non-​existent with this office. The emails we received were short and most times very difficult to interpret. We rarely received an explanation for anything that was requested or happening, and often major things were just overlooked.
For example, our paralegal forwarded us the settlement sheet, which was prepared by the buyer’s attorney, which shows all the financials for the sale. We found numerous mistakes that would have resulted in us losing thousands of dollars. When I asked our paralegal about the errors, she replied, «I didn’t look at it, I just forwarded it directly to you.» I’m sorry, but isn’t my lawyer (or paralegal who is employed to do all my lawyer’s work for them) supposed to ensure accuracy in the documents they send to me (that is rhetorical, obviously)?
Finally, the lack of professionalism came to the forefront when Valerie attempted to make me pay for her mistake when forgetting to send the payoff to the bank and actually pay off our loan. The lack of professionalism continued as she argued with me and only offered to «split the difference.» By the time she finally offered to pay for her mistake, it was too late for professional redemption. I don’t think they know what professionalism is in this office.
The Cost/​Value:
Rating: 2 out of 5
The fee for Valerie’s services on our closing was $ 850 plus any other associated fees such as mailing or overnight fees. We did end up paying a $ 40 overnight fee, so our total cost for Valerie’s services was $ 890. This would have been reasonable and expected had she done an adequate job. This may have even been a decent value had the closing went smoothly and she didn’t make a cluster fudge out of everything. But, that’s not what happened. So, while the cost was very average for a house closing in New Jersey, the value we received was extremely low.