Sorensen-Jolink Trubo Williams & Williams

Scott Sorensen Jolink was appointed our «parental coordinator» through Multnomah Family Court. Before his appointment I called his office several times attempting to find out how much he cost and what the specific nature of his services were. Mr. Sorensen refused to speak with me, to divulge his rates or the nature of his services. Mr. Sorensen costs $ 350 an hour. I was earning minimum wage. He works an hour and I lose a week’s wages. The first time that I sat down with Mr. Sorensen I told him how little I made. In my opinion, he should have said right away: «There is no way for you to afford my services, let’s get me off of your case so that I don’t unnecessarily impoverish you.» If the «best interests» of my son were Mr. Sorensen’s actual interest, I believe that he would have removed himself immediately from my case. He did not. Regarding how to pay him he told me to I had to «figure it out». This advice is, at best, irrational.
Additionally, Mr. Sorensen, threatened me, by email, to remove my first amendment rights. That he could prevent me from exercising those rights regarding any professional involved in my case. If he had done that, I would not be legally permitted to review him, here, as I am doing now. I quote from his email to me:
«I also should be considering a request that both of you be banned from publishing comments about each other in social media sites, or comments about anyone having to do with your case, including doctors, lawyers, therapists, etc., on any such sites or anywhere on the web or in direct comments to each other unless written in a letter, sent in the mail, or handed from one person to the other. The publication of this information in incidental ways is not uncommon, and many, many statements get everybody in trouble,»
Why would he threaten me in this way? To remove my most basic rights? The right to free speech? Well, firstly one should consider that Mr. Sorensen himself had failed to to advise me of both his fee and the scope of his services. It turns out that he was required to do this prior to services being agreed to. He was supposed to be following the Oregon Bar’s guidelines for Family Mediators, in which it clearly stated that services and fees were to be divulged before agreeing to services. It appears to me that he broke the law. Well he might want to prevent me from being able to write or speak about that. If I had any idea at all about how expensive he was I would have declined his services.
Again, I want to state clearly that Mr. Sorensen, in my opinion, failed to act in the best interests of my child, and was clearly far more interested in being paid his unbelievably exorbitant fee. Think of it this way: if the situation was reversed and Mr. Sorensen had to pay me a weeks worth of his income for an hour of my time he would have had to pay me well over $ 10,000. I hope that helps to clarify the reality of the situation that I faced with Mr. Sorensen. That it helps make clear the extent of the economic distress that his involvement created. His refusal to meaningfully address the reality of my economic situation, was, in my opinion, professionally negligent of him.
I can in no way endorse Mr. Sorensen or his services.

I wouldn’t go back to Herb Trubo to handle legal issues. I have had several friends ask about divorce/​family law attorneys since I had gone through one myself and each time, I steered them clear of Trubo. In my opinion, Herb doesn’t consistently have the best interests of his client at heart. He spent an awful lot of time regaling me with stories of cases past that had only tangential relation to my case. At $ 350/​hour I don’t have time to hear stories. I need a course of action.
Herb also gave me conflicting advice regarding purchasing a home while I was going through divorce. He also didn’t fight strongly enough for my request to have one overnight stay with my son during the week and in fact agreed with the opposition that this might be disruptive. I know numerous other divorced couples who share their children in a more balanced way than Herb was able to get for me. I only have my son about 20% of the time.
In fact, I felt I had to hire another attorney for an hour just to sanity check the things that Herb was telling me because I had lost confidence in Herb. In the end, I wish I had switched attorneys even in the middle of the case. The other attorney that I spoke with was Tate Justesen in Portland.

Perhaps Scott is pleasant socially, however, I have had the unfortunate experience of working with him as our parent coordinator for the past year. So far his attention to our case has been extremely unprofessional — does not return phone calls or emails, is not prompt in addressing issues and concerns, and has not shown the ability to be the neutral third-​party that is meant to be his role. Working with Scott feels like continuously beating one’s head against a wall; it is painful and accomplishes nothing.