This post is the fourth post in a series where we alert you to the pitfalls of the Do It Yourself divorce.

Pitfall #4  Letting your spouse hire the attorney.

You decided not to hire an attorney.  Instead you will trust your spouse to hire the attorney to do the paperwork.  After all, you know your spouse will be fair.  Besides this will save a ton of money.

The Risks

That attorney your spouse hired?  He doesn’t represent you.  Your spouse is the client and the attorney owes a loyalty only to your spouse.  The attorney will work to get only what his client, your spouse, wants, not what you want.  That attorney does not have a duty to explain to you the implications of your agreement with your spouse.

Example:  You agree to do something without understanding the repercussions:

You and your spouse bought a home and there is a mortgage payment due every month.  Your spouse files for divorce. You agree to make the house payment while the divorce is pending or until it is sold.    The attorney writes the agreement up saying you make the house payment as spousal support.  You think, no big deal, I agreed to make the house payment, and you sign the agreement.  The court approves the agreement and makes it an order of the court.  Do you see what happened there?  If not, you needed an attorney.  You just cost yourself some money in your property division.

Example:  You don’t know your rights:

Your spouse’s attorney advises them to wait the separation period before filing for a divorce.  You go along with this plan.  You know you can’t get a divorce in Louisiana until you have lived separate and apart for 365 days if you have children.  Its 180 days if you have no children.  So you wait.  In the meantime, your spouse starts galavanting around the world, spending his paycheck on himself, taking trips and generally living it up.  You, on the other hand, are slaving to make ends meet.  He gives you a bit of cash here and there to “help” with the kids.  That’s only fair because he makes 3 times what you make.

As the separation time gets short, things start to go south quickly.  He stops giving you any cash and jets off on a vacation.  Its then that you make an appointment with an attorney.  You find out that he should have been paying you a lot more, enough that you would not have struggled over the past 11 months.  But, those months are gone, and he isn’t going to have to pay retroactive because you had nothing on file at the courthouse.

Avoid The Risk

Don’t risk a disaster.  Instead, hire an experienced family law lawyer to protect your interests and make sure you know your rights.  Shelley Goff at Goff and Goff Attorneys has been practicing family law for 28 years.  Call us. We can help you navigate the process as smoothly as possible.  318-255-1760.

 

This post is the third post in a series where we alert you to the pitfalls of the Do It Yourself divorce.

Pitfall #3 Failure to understand court procedure.

Louisiana procedure is technical and not intuitive.  Lawyers are required to take classes in law school to prepare them for courtroom procedure because courtroom  procedure is complex.  Not only does each state have its own rules for courtroom procedure, nearly district within Louisiana has its own “local rules.” To add more to the mix,  each judge has his or her way of doing things.  You need to know all three sets of rules to be successful in court.

The Risks

If you don’t know and follow the rule, you can not show the court your side of the case. For example, you want the court to consider a document you brought with you.   But, if you don’t know the rules of evidence, the court may decline to consider your document. Perhaps you didn’t “lay foundation”  or you didn’t “authenticate” or the other side objects.   You may miss deadlines related to your case resulting in your case being dismissed.

A court proceeding is no place to wing it. You will be spending hundreds of dollars on court fees with our without an attorney.   Your will have wasted that money if your case is thrown out or your claims denied.  If you don’t like the outcome, you will probably be stuck with it.  Appeals are very expensive and winning an appeal is not easy.  The best place to win your case is in the trial court, not the appeals court.

We recently spoke with a woman who represented herself in the child custody phase of her divorce.  While she had a strong case, she lost custody of her kids.   She lost because she did not understand how to get her evidence before the court for consideration. The court made the decision without her evidence and awarded custody of the children to the husband. It will be very difficult and expensive change custody now.

Don’t risk a disaster.  Instead, hire an experienced family law lawyer to protect your interests and make sure your divorce is valid.  Shelley Goff at Goff and Goff Attorneys has been practicing family law for 28 years.  Call us. We can help you navigate the process as smoothly as possible.  318-255-1760.

 

 

Recently Shelley Goff has become a registered to conduct family law mediations for child custody and visitation cases.  A mediator is a neutral third party that helps couples going through a divorce try to work out issues without the expense of going to court. In doing so, she does not render legal advise.  The parties to the mediation may, but are not required to have legal representation at the mediation while they try to work out their differences in hopes of limiting or eliminating the issues that they raise in court.  Often mediations are an efficient and economical method of handling family law issues.  Under some circumstances, courts require parties to attempt to resolve their disputes through mediation before litigating the issues in court.