How To Change Lawyers In The Middle Of A Case

Yous walk out of the courtroom room with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.  Your instance just got connected for what seems like the hundredth time. It's been dragging on for well over a year. Your divorce lawyer has doesn't seem to care.  He told you not to worry. Now you're wondering whether a unlike attorney might move things along more rapidly. Does it make sense to change attorneys during your divorce?

Figuring Out the Problem with Your Divorce Attorney

Before you do anything rash, information technology helps to identify the problem with your divorce attorney. Why are you lot frustrated? What exactly is the trouble?

Is your example going besides slowly? Are you lot not getting the results you expected? Are you not getting any results at all?

Maybe the problem is that yous don't know whether yous are getting results or not considering your divorce lawyer never talks to you. Or, maybe you recall your lawyer is charging besides much.

Whatever your issue is, if y'all desire to accost it effectively, you have to start by identifying it correctly.

Fourth dimension for a Reality Check

Afterwards you know what the trouble is, your next step is to figure out the source of the problem. Is your divorce attorney the problem? Or, is it you? (Ouch! Hang with me here. You may not want to hear this, but if you're willing to be simply a little bit self-cogitating, it could relieve yous thousands of dollars.)

The divorce organisation, as a whole, doesn't work the way nigh people think it does. You can't just waltz into a court room and tell the guess your story the mode you would tell it to a friend in the bar.

Unlike the divorce court on T.V., people rarely get to speak to the judge, and but completely uncontested cases are resolved in 30 minutes or less. Cases often take months or years to air current their way through the organization. In the concurrently, lawyers go to court again and over again in the same case, attending endless status conferences, hearings, and pre-trial conferences.

Information technology's frustrating!So, when you're trying to figure out if the problem in your divorce is your divorce lawyer, you lot have to showtime by assessing your own expectations. Is information technology realistic for yous to have believed that your case would exist done by now? Are your settlement demands out of line? Exercise you expect your lawyer to win every hearing?

If your expectations are unrealistic, so irresolute divorce attorneys is not going to solve your problem. It'southward only going to cost you more money, while leaving you just equally frustrated as you are at present.

How Do You Know What You Don't Know?

If you don't know whether or non your expectations are realistic or non, become to another divorce lawyer and become a 2d opinion. You may have to pay for a consultation, simply even if you do, it will be coin well spent.

(A word of alarm, though: Beware of the divorce attorney who promises you the lord's day, the moon, and the stars!

If you are a celebrity, or you accept a lot of money, any divorce lawyer you go to for a second opinion may be salivating at the risk to take over your case. If the lawyer you go to for a second opinion seems a little besides disquisitional of your current attorney, or seems to be promising yous too much, take a step dorsum.

I know that talking to yet a third attorney is the terminal thing you probably want to do, merely nether these circumstances, it may exist worth it!)

What if Your Divorce Expectations are NOT the Problem?

Once you lot've ruled out your own expectations every bit being the source of your problem, the next pace is to take a expert, hard wait at your attorney.

If your attorney is doing whatsoever of these things, so changing attorneys during your divorce might make sense:

• Not returning your telephone calls or voice mails within a couple of days, or ever!
• Consistently missing court appearances.
• Not letting you know what is happening in your case.
• Telling y'all s/he will practice something and then not doing it.
• Yelling at you, calling you lot names, insulting you, or making you lot weep.
• Refusing to transport you a nib and then you can meet how your coin is existence spent (or how much you lot owe!).
• Doing something else that causes you to lose confidence in your chaser.

You might as well want to change attorneys during your divorce if y'all and your attorney no longer see eye-to-eye on your divorce strategy, or if you just don't trust your attorney any more.

Remember though, no thing why you modify attorneys during your divorce, doing and then comes at a price.

What Happens if You Change Attorneys During Your Divorce?

Just because you've determined that it's fourth dimension for y'all and your divorce attorney to part means, that doesn't mean that doing so volition exist easy – or cheap!
If your instance is in court, you may need permission from the judge to fire your attorney. While almost judges volition readily grant your asking, if you lot've got a trial date coming upwards presently or, worse yet, if yous're in the center of a trial, the judge may be reluctant to allow you to allow your divorce lawyer go.

Earlier allowing you to dump your divorce lawyer, the gauge may crave you lot to agree that your trial volition proceed equally scheduled, even if yous don't have a new lawyer by the trial date. While you may retrieve that'due south not a problem, a lot of divorce attorneys will be unwilling to take over a example that is going to trial in a week or 2. And so, unless you're prepared to attempt your example yourself (which is NEVER a good idea!) changing your divorce chaser at that point may exist crude.

Even if nothing is happening in your divorce case at the moment, changing divorce lawyers mid-stream will toll you money. How much information technology costs will depend on how complicated your case is and how close you are to trial or a major hearing.

The Cost of Changing Attorneys During Divorce

Your new lawyer will have to review everything that has gone on in your case up to that betoken. S/he will take to get through all of your financial documents, and your spouse's financial documents. Of course, yous will have to pay your new lawyer to do all of that.

If your divorce case has only been pending for a few months and then switching lawyers may not cost y'all all that much. The same thing is true if your divorce is relatively simple. But if you lot and your spouse have been locked in battle for years, or your case is circuitous, then paying a new divorce attorney to spend days going through your file can be expensive.

Remember, too, that your new attorney is probably going to desire a retainer earlier taking your case. Depending upon your case, that retainer could range from a few grand dollars, to tens of thousands of dollars. If you don't have that kind of money to give a new attorney, yous may accept trouble hiring one.

What if Your Attorney is Leaving the Constabulary Business firm?

If your divorce case is being handled by an attorney who is leaving the law firm that represents you, you lot have a unlike kind of trouble. Your lawyer may have been doing a great job, merely now you've got a dilemma. Exercise you follow the lawyer who has been treatment your case? Or, practice you stay with your constabulary firm (which finer ways yous will be getting a new lawyer)?

Like all good divorce lawyers, I will tell you that the answer is: information technology depends.

Obviously, if you didn't like your lawyer to first with, your determination is easy. But, if your lawyer was doing a good job, and you were satisfied with him/her, then you may feel like following that lawyer.

Before you make whatever decision, you lot've got to get the facts – including the facts related to coin.

If you lot stay with your original law firm, are you going to be billed for the time it takes a new attorney to review and become up to speed in your case? (HINT: If you don't know the respond to that question, ask now!)

If you have an unused retainer with your original business firm, what happens to that? Volition the old firm turn information technology over to the lawyer who is leaving? If so, then going with the new lawyer becomes much easier. Or, will y'all have to scrape together another servant if you follow your lawyer?

All of these questions tin bear on your decision.

You've besides got to think about the state of your divorce. If your case is shut to trial, then staying withyour original law firm mightcause your trial to go postponed. If yous don't have a trial date, or information technology's far away, then getting a new lawyer might not matter equally much.

Figuring it All Out

The bottom line is that changing divorce lawyers before your case is over is a big conclusion, and not one to take lightly. At the aforementioned time, if you lot accept a good reason to alter attorneys during your divorce, then Non making a change can be a big fault, besides.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.

If you've gotten all the facts, and gotten a 2d opinion, and yous're certain that the problem is your attorney and not your expectations, but you still tin can't decide what to practice, so maybe it's time to do a gut cheque. Patently, on some level, you lot're questioning your chaser.  If you weren't, you wouldn't even be thinking well-nigh making a alter.

And then, if all else fails, trust your gut.

dealing with divorce, divorce blog, divorce court, divorce lawyer, divorce strategy

Source: https://karencovy.com/can-you-should-you-change-attorneys-during-your-divorce/

Share this post