When my ex filed for divorce, she went out and found the most dishonest lawyer she could find.
Even the other lawyers hated this guy. When he sat down in the court room they would move away from him.
And then she stiffed him. (He demanded $350,000 in fees).
It is unbelievably hard and expensive to stop a crooked lawyer. The judges would yell at him, but never find him in contempt.That’s why I ended up with such a high end lawyer myself.
When it was all over, I was pretty much living on vinegar sandwiches.
Thanks for the info, cmu. How did you find her? Maybe at the next gathering we can talk a bit more and you could give me her contact info. I’m gonna need a mentor for this for sure.
Well I think not many share my visceral aversion to dealing with a lawyer. But I do know 2 others who went the mediation route.
Mediator: this one is a lawyer, charges 350 so you’ll be on easy street ;). Presumably you have to be a combination therapist, lawyer and arbitrator.
She basically restated everything we said in presumably legal terminology, mentioned relevant statutes (child support calcs), etc. At one point I told her I wasn’t signing anything more than 2 pages and she looked at me like I had 2 heads. Final doc was 22 pages, much boilerplate and much back-and-forth considering we had no disputes. When one small disagreement came up about son she suggested we might consider a ‘child representative’ to guard his ‘rights’, and I nearly choked. I ignored it and the issue was not repeated. In retro, we did well: about 20 hrs in all including drawing up the actual court doc and filing. Until this year, one of us had to ‘sue’ the other and only one of was the child’s ‘guardian’ (in spite of the shared custody agreement) and she kept saying ‘this is all legal fiction’ which endeared her to me.
cmu- my ex (who was cheating on me) was the first one to get a lawyer. His girlfriend’s mother was a lawyer and advising him and she was a real shark. She filed a slew of stuff from California, where he moved to, and between the two of them they wiped out everything i had. He even claimed he wasn’t responsible for the medical bills from the ectopic pregnancy that nearly killed me less than 4 months before we split up.
Jessi, if you are interested in that, you should participate in the Court-Sponsored Volunteer Attorney Program. They have a matrimonial section you could work in. Easy to learn a lot about the divorce mediators, etc. and any other info you want to know. http://www.courts.state.ny.us/attorneys/volunteer/vap/index.shtml
“man – the OT is a real bummer today! 🙁 ”
Yep, Holmes.
bxgrl, I can relate.
When my ex filed for divorce, she went out and found the most dishonest lawyer she could find.
Even the other lawyers hated this guy. When he sat down in the court room they would move away from him.
And then she stiffed him. (He demanded $350,000 in fees).
It is unbelievably hard and expensive to stop a crooked lawyer. The judges would yell at him, but never find him in contempt.That’s why I ended up with such a high end lawyer myself.
When it was all over, I was pretty much living on vinegar sandwiches.
Thanks for the info, cmu. How did you find her? Maybe at the next gathering we can talk a bit more and you could give me her contact info. I’m gonna need a mentor for this for sure.
man – the OT is a real bummer today! 🙁
Well I think not many share my visceral aversion to dealing with a lawyer. But I do know 2 others who went the mediation route.
Mediator: this one is a lawyer, charges 350 so you’ll be on easy street ;). Presumably you have to be a combination therapist, lawyer and arbitrator.
She basically restated everything we said in presumably legal terminology, mentioned relevant statutes (child support calcs), etc. At one point I told her I wasn’t signing anything more than 2 pages and she looked at me like I had 2 heads. Final doc was 22 pages, much boilerplate and much back-and-forth considering we had no disputes. When one small disagreement came up about son she suggested we might consider a ‘child representative’ to guard his ‘rights’, and I nearly choked. I ignored it and the issue was not repeated. In retro, we did well: about 20 hrs in all including drawing up the actual court doc and filing. Until this year, one of us had to ‘sue’ the other and only one of was the child’s ‘guardian’ (in spite of the shared custody agreement) and she kept saying ‘this is all legal fiction’ which endeared her to me.
Now in CA, I would’ve done it myself…no fault!
Ok…time to take off my useful attorney hat and put on my cat-petting and tv watching hat. Later folks!
Thanks, Snappy!
cmu- my ex (who was cheating on me) was the first one to get a lawyer. His girlfriend’s mother was a lawyer and advising him and she was a real shark. She filed a slew of stuff from California, where he moved to, and between the two of them they wiped out everything i had. He even claimed he wasn’t responsible for the medical bills from the ectopic pregnancy that nearly killed me less than 4 months before we split up.
Jessi, if you are interested in that, you should participate in the Court-Sponsored Volunteer Attorney Program. They have a matrimonial section you could work in. Easy to learn a lot about the divorce mediators, etc. and any other info you want to know.
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/attorneys/volunteer/vap/index.shtml