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Pour Your Heart Out to a Best Friend, Get Legal Advice from Your Attorney |
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Don't make the mistake of wasting your precious dollars using your attorney to vent your anger, assuage your guilt, or comfort your feelings of loss. Instead, seek the help of a qualified psychotherapist. |
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One woman made the mistake of hiring an attorney who had the same first name as her husband. As her case dragged on, she became increasingly unhappy with her lawyer. What was taking so long and why didn't he return her calls? After a while, it was impossible to know whether she was complaining about her husband or her attorney. Eventually, she changed lawyers. She hadn't asked her lawyer to change his name, but had she expected too much of him anyway? |
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What Your Lawyer Should Be Doing, and When |
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The practice of law is not a science, but it's not exactly an art either. There are certain things your attorney can and should be doing. For some guidelines, refer to the following list: |
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1. Your lawyer should have an overall plan for your case. Maybe all this means is that she plans to meet with your spouse's lawyer within the next month and settle the case, have documents drawn up within two weeks after that meeting, have them signed within two weeks after that, and then submit them to court. |
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Or maybe it means she's going to make an immediate request for support on your behalf and start demanding financial documents, with the goal of having your case ready for trial within six months. |
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Or maybe your lawyer can't say when things will happen because too much depends on what the other side wants; still, she should have a general idea of how the case will proceed from your side given any number of scenarios. |
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One matrimonial lawyer tells us that clients often seek her out for a second opinion on their case. The most frequent complaint: Their case has no direction; they see no end in sight; and it seems like they're always responding to their spouse's action with no overriding plan of their own. |
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One such client eventually terminated his relationship with a lawyerafter five years of delay, during which he waited in limbo for decisions on child custody, child support payments, visitation schedules, and more. Often as not, delays were caused by his own attorney's exhausting schedule as her city's superstar divorce |
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