Emilee K. Lawson Hatch

Working with Emilee Lawson Hatch has always been a wonderful experience. She handled my sister-in-law’s estate planning as well as acted as Executor. Emilee was an excellent listener and made sure the estate was properly taken care as per the stated wishes. Emilee hired firms to clean out her apartment and donate items to local charities. Emilee was very knowledgeable in knowing the best way to file long term care insurance claims, complete the paperwork needed to collect life insurance, and how to close IRA accounts. About three years later, Emilee worked to close my sister-in-law’s Living Trust and worked with a foreign attorney to settle foreign property ownership issues. That task took extreme patience and diligence and I compliment Emilee for her organization and communication skills in resolving the issue. Emilee is a kind and caring person who loves her work and her clients.

No one knows more about her area of the law. Emilee is the go-to person in central New York. If you have an elderly loved-one or you are an elderly loved-one, you want Emilee in your corner. She will take care of you like you are her own mother or father. She really listened to our needs and helped us figure out the best plan for our end of life decisions. We would trust her to help anyone we cared about.

I retained Emilee to help me deal with my mother's estate. However, she largely ceased working on the estate after a few months, leaving me to deal almost entirely with her paralegal, Peg. Peg made a lot of mistakes in the preparation of legal documents, from letters to financial institutions, to tax forms. As the attorney I retained, Emilee should have supervised Peg and verified the accuracy of her work, but this did not occur. Instead, as the client, it fell to me to recognize and correct Peg's multiple errors, many of which would have had very serious financial consequences if I had not caught them. When I objected to the repeated errors in Peg's legal work and asked that Emilee take a more active role, she responded by terminating her representation. She told me that no other attorney at the firm was available to take her place. However, I later learned from a managing partner that Emilee had actually advised against any attorney at the firm working with me.