It's too easy to pay a Rhode Island lawyer money to handle your representation and then just believe you are handing over your troubles to him or her. Too many people do it. Can you imagine what the natural result is? Lawyers just handle your divorce and you have no clue what is going on because you don't understand what the heck your divorce lawyer is doing.
Consider Giselle's Rhode Island Divorce situation.
Giselle hires Attorney Shelly Melatonin to represent her. She pays her retainer fee and waits to hear from her attorney. Giselle gets a questionnaire in the mail and is told to fill it out and send all the information back to the attorney, including a 9 page financial form that she does her best at filling out. A few weeks after Shelly sends the papers back to her attorney, she get's a voice mail asking her to come in to meet with her attorney.
Giselle meets with her attorney and is told that the paperwork is standard and that she must sign the divorce documents in various places and the Attorney says she'll take care of notarizing the documents. Giselle trusts her attorney. The attorney flips from page to page and points to the signature line where Giselle needs to sign and she quickly signs each page.
Giselle feels rushed and isn't sure exactly what she just signed. Giselle mentions that she wants things to be as amicable as possible with her husband and she is worried about her husband getting upset. Attorney Melatonin reassures her that he will be fine. Shelly asks what's next. and her attorney answers that they have to have some of the papers delivered to her husband so he knows about the filing and then they will all start talking about how to resolve things nicely. Giselle feels reassured.
Two days later Giselle gets a call at work from her husband, William. He is furiously screaming at her on the phone. Giselle doesn't understand and is partially in shock.
Giselle can't understand why William is upset. Giselle calms him down and asks him to bring the papers and meet with her at Dunkin Donuts for a coffee after work. William is still shouting but reluctantly agrees.
Giselle and William meet at Dunkin Donuts. William is screaming and waving the papers in a crazed rage from the moment he gets out of his car. Giselle rushes into the Dunkin Donuts hoping that a public place will calm him down as she tries to figure out why he is all upset. William enters the Dunkin Donuts and quiets down slightly as he comes over to Giselle and starts to raise his voice again.
Giselle offers to buy William coffee and whatever else he wants and asks him what he wants. Thankfully it diverts William's anger so he can select something. Angrily, William orders several dozen donuts to take back to his new apartment and two extra packages of coffee to take home.
Giselle is still puzzled and sits down and waits for William to come over to the table. William sits down and begins to open his mouth. The conversation goes like this.
Giselle: Will, you knew I was filing the divorce papers. I told you. So I'm really surprised that you're so upset. I don't have anyone else if that is what you are thinking. What is going on?
William: What is going on? How could you do this? What is this crap? Sure, file for divorce but now you're trying to screw me over. Don't think for one minute that I'm going to stand for this. You humiliate me and then want to leave me penniless and keep me from being part of our kids lives. I thought you were going to be reasonable but I must have been stupid for thinking that any woman could be reasonable in a divorce. You all want everything isn't it!!! [William is shouting again.]
Giselle: What are you talking about Will?
William: THIS! THIS is what I'm talking about! [Squeezing the Divorce papers in front of her face so hard they begin to rip.]
Giselle: May I look at those?
William throws the divorce documents on the table. Giselle starts to pick them up to read them.
William: I just can't believe you want this divorce so badly that you went so far as to have a Sheriff serve me at work in front of all the guys at the job first thing in the morning. I was the talk of the office all day and no one would even talk to me.
Giselle: [Raising her Voice.] WHAT?!? I didn't know anything about that or have anything to do with that at all.
Giselle grabs the divorce papers quickly and starts reading them. The more she reads, the agrier Giselle gets. The divorce papers ask for literally EVERYTHING and that William be given minimal visitation with his children. The papers even ask the court to award her sole decision-making power for their two children.
Giselle: Will, I didn't want this. I didn't even know about this.
William: Isn't that your signature Giselle? It looks like it to me!
Giselle: Yes, but I didn't know that was in there.
William: How could you not know it was in there? You signed the damn divorce papers under oath Giselle? You had to know it was there!
Giselle: I didn't Will. I swear I didn't and I'm going to straighten this out right now. Giselle grabs her celphone and calls and leaves a nasty message for Attorney Melatonin that William is angry with good reason and she wants to know why she wasn't told about all of these things and nothing was said about a Sheriff embarrassing her husband at work.
William: Well, the damage is already done at work Giselle. How are you going to fix that? I'm humiliated. I can't talk anymore. I'm just too angry. I'm getting the best Rhode Island divorce lawyer I can afford tomorrow. I'm not about to let you or anyone else take me to the cleaners.
William quickly grabs the papers out of Giselle's hands and storms out of the Dunkin Donuts.
Giselle speaks to Attorney Melatonin the next day and demands copies of all the papers. She also demands an explanation about why papers were delivered to her husband by a Sheriff at work and why in the world all those demands were made in the divorce papers.
Attorney Melatonin: First, it is standard that service is performed by a Sheriff. It's in the Domestic Rules of Procedure. The language in the papers you signed is standard. It's a template Giselle. As soon as your husband got a lawyer, the lawyer would tell him that.
Giselle: I just wish I would have known about these things. I think we're going to war with William now. He was so upset.
Attorney Melatonin: I'm sorry that your husband is so upset but this is how it works. I'm simply doing my job for you. That's why people find divorce so difficult and get attorneys, because they don't know how the process works and they get all upset. If your husband asked his own attorney instead of yelling and screaming at you, then he'd know everything is just fine. It's just paperwork.
Giselle: Oh.
Attorney Melatonin: So are you all set now Giselle because I don't like receiving nasty voice mail messages like that on my cel phone in the middle of the evening.
Giselle: No, we're not really okay. You're fired. I want my file documents and I want the balance of the monies I paid for my divorce returned to me right away.
Attorney Melatonin: Why?
Giselle: Well, William might have had to get his own lawyer and ask questions to get these answers. But I already had you as my lawyer and I trusted you. I trusted you to keep me informed about things and for you to take time to go over and explain things with me that are important and you didn't do it. Now you've made things worse. I don't need that kind of lawyer.
Please have my file and my refund check by Wednesday. I'll come by during lunch break to pick them up. [Giselle hangs up.]
TIP
Don't put so much trust in your Rhode Island Divorce Lawyer so that you don't think on your own. Think about what you are doing. Ask your lawyer questions. Read Everything!
Lastly, if your lawyer makes a mess as was done in this case, don't be afraid to fire him or her before the mess gets so big that your divorce could never be cleaned up.
ISSUES IN THIS SCENARIO
There are several issues that present themselves here.
First, Giselle trusted the lawyer a bit too much to act in her best interests. She trusted her lawyer so much that she didn't even bother to read divorce documents that she was signing under oath. That is a huge mistake on her part.
Second, Giselle shouldn't count on the fact that she paid a decent amount of money to Attorney Melatonin to be her security that her attorney is doing things right in her divorce. You are the client. Things should proceed reasonably as you expect and as you request but that only works if you know what is going on and remain informed.
Third, even when you ask your questions and your attorney gives you the answers, don't be afraid to question those answers if your attorney has already done something that has caused a foreseeable mess that you didn't expect or agree to.
What do I mean by the third issue?
Well, Attorney Melatonin wasn't fully truthful about the service of the divorce documents. A plain clothes constable in a plain car could just as easily have served William without the traumatic problems that were caused. William didn't need to be served at work either. He could just as easily have been called and he might have agreed to meet the constable at a comfortable location for William. Using a Rhode Island Constable might have kept things reasonably amicable.
Also, there is no set "template" for wording that must be used for men or women when it comes to divorce. The wording was present because Attorney Melatonin may have a template she uses but to say it's a standard template is rather deceptive. Attorney Melatonin should have taken the time to go through all the divorce papers with the client and explained the wording and significance with Giselle.
Thankfully, in my humble opinion, Giselle made the right call by terminating Attorney Melatonin. She should have been told about the options for service of the divorce papers on William. Giselle also shouldn't have been told its a template. That very fact that Giselle fired her attorney due to her anger over the situation is likely to calm William back down because it will show him how upset she is with the way William was treated.
Summary
1. Think.
2. Question.
3. Read.
Realize that no one is in a better position than you to protect your own interests.
I'm Attorney Christopher A. Pearsall and I am "The Rhode Island Divorce Coach."
My Sincere Wishes to All Who Go Before the Rhode Island Family Court,
Chris
Rhode Island Divorce Lawyers Ponder whether getting at the Truth is Prohibited in Rhode Island Family Court?
A particular Rhode Island Family Court issue arose a little more than four (4) years ago. It was in the form of a particular question that I discussed with no less than nine (9) lawyers only a few of whom I even remember and who shall remain nameless.
Yet it doesn't matter who the lawyers were. It matters that I overheard several lawyers who were unfamiliar to me discussing the same question not long ago relating to their own experiences in the Rhode Island Family Court.
The Rhode Island Family Court judges each have discretionary power by law. Most assuredly they are the authority as to what can and cannot be done in their courtrooms short of a directive from the Chief Judge of the Family Court.
One of the main things that the Rhode Island Family Court judges generally endeavor to do is to protect and preserve the family unit as a whole. I have not found this wording in any specific manual, statute, treatise, case law or Administrative Order of the Court. I have learned this consistently from numerous judges over my years of practice in the family courts and before various judges.
Yet I am not the only Rhode Island Attorney who been thwarted in his or her divorce and/or post-divorce efforts at presenting the best representation possible for clients by a judge's prohibition of calling a child of the parties as a witness in a divorce or post-divorce case.
Now, I understand and agree with the preservation of the family unit. I am a strong advocate for uncontested divorces, reasonable people, counseling for those who need it, reunification of parents with their children if it is reasonably possible without psychological injury to minor children.
Ultimately I believe this should be a concern of the RI Family Court as a judicial institution as well as the individual family court judges appointed to serve the people and address the countless issues they hear day in and day out both fairly and equitably.
Yet it is disconcerting as a Rhode Island lawyer representing a party in, for instance a post-divorce matter involving the violation of the court's order to (1) be prohibited by a judge from calling a child of the parties as a material witness to defend my client or prove my client's case when the "child of the parties" is no longer a minor and/or when the child of the parties has insisted on testifying to reveal the truth of what he or she knows has occurred, and (2) to then have the judge berate or accuse me or my client of trying to take steps to undermine and possibly destroy the family unit.
Most assuredly, if the child of the parties were a minor of younger years then I might expect some skepticism on the judge's part and the attorney and/or client might well deserve a rebuke in the eyes of some judges. Yet some judges have prohibited children of the parties who may be as old as 23 and who are married, have children of their own and who may have developed a career that rivals their own parents. In such cases, wouldn't the prohibition of testimony violate a person's right to present either their case or their defense, notwithstanding a RI Family Court Judge's concern for the preservation of the family unit?
Perhaps a proper alternative for a 17 year old might be for the RI Judge to speak with the minor child of the parties in camera with counsel so that the judge might determine the nature of the testimony, the level of it's material significance, the weight that might be given to the testimony or even the maturity level of the 17 year old minor child to determine the appropriateness of the testimony.
Clearly some attorneys might simply call a minor child to the stand and ask questions designed to emotionally injure the other parents by using the minor child merely as a tool. Such conduct should not be tolerated. Yet to jump to the conclusion that this is what is happening when one party calls a child of the parties to the stand without further examination or consideration by the judge may place blind faith in mere allegations made by counsel who is zealously representing his or her client and who might clearly benefit by the exclusion of say, the 22 year old daughter who saw and/or heard the father violate the court's order directly and without hesitation.
However, might a better route be for the Judge to suss out the nature of the testimony offered by the child of the parties and it's purpose, determine any possible bias of the child, and consider other pertinent factors.
This would seem to be a more prudent route that would result in a more equitable decision and the pursuit of justice via hearing what may be the clearest indicator of the truth as to what did or did not occur rather than a family court judge simply setting a rule that in his or her courtroom a child of the parties shall not be allowed to testify regardless of age, maturity level, or the direct importance or content of the testimony itself.
There is always the fear that as practitioners before the Rhode Island family court, that if we mention an issue that may be considered by some to be controversial that as legal practitioners we might then become a persona non-gratis (a person not in favor with the court) and thereby risk that judge's will suddenly rule against our clients at every turn.
However, I choose to believe that the members of our judiciary are above such a juvenile standard of conduct. Absent an extreme and direct encounter with a particular judge to a significantly greater degree, I believe that our judiciary is always cognizant that our family court judges are always aware that they are capable of improvement in their roles in the Rhode Island Judicial System just as we should be as Rhode Island lawyers.
This seems to simply be a matter of counter-balancing the two issues of family preservation with the search for truth with lies in each parties right to present evidence before the court to either made their case or to defend themselves against what may be unfounded allegations.
Therefore, I bring this issue to the forefront more for the consideration of the judiciary and for the betterment both of practitioners and the clients they seek to serve.
I certainly welcome any comments from the court, fellow practitioners and from the general public as I am certainly not beyond learning which I find to be a daily and never-ending practice of improvement to better serve my clients and present information to the court in a way that does not waste the court's time but also presents to the court the information needed for our judiciary to make well-informed, equitable, and just decisions for all.
Happy Holidays to the Members of the Rhode Island Family Court and to all who read my articles.
Posted by Attorney Christopher A. Pearsall on December 14, 2011 at 10:38 AM in Commentaries, Divorce & Questions, Divorce & Trials, Divorce Hearings and Trials, Divorce Lawyers, Divorce Lawyers & Practice Philosophies, Divorce Principles, Divorce Questions, Family Court & Children, Family Law Protective Measures, Minor Children, Post-Judgment Divorce Issues, Protection from Abuse, Rhode Island Divorce Articles, RI Attorney Misconduct, RI Divorce and Perspectives, RI Family Court and Witnesses, RI Family Court Judges - Philosophy, Tricky Divorce Issues | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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