As attorneys, we’ve all had them. They come in different packages, but today, I want to deal with the person who is not emotionally ready to end the relationship.

This client starts to fight about minor things–just to prolong the fight. The client often makes general statements without the ability to give any specific examples. The client starts taking out his or her frustration out on you and your staff. This client persists in providing information on issues that are not legally relevant to the case.

The reality is that the other spouse is ready to just have it over. That spouse may be offering a great financial deal-just to have it over. The “difficult client” spouse is just not ready to stop fighting. Quite frankly, I can understand from a personal standpoint. I’ve been in arguments where I haven’t said my thoughts when the other person says “I’m done,” and walks away. Oh boy, I’m not done, so I follow sharing my thoughts as that person leaves the room. I was just not ready for the argument to be over.

This client is my greatest reminder that this process is an emotional one more than a legal or financial one for some people. For these clients, I just do not know if any attorney can help get them to the end. Settlement has to happen at just the right time, and for a client like this settlement is not going to come in the early days of the case.

I’ve had at least 2 or 3 clients like this in the past, and sometimes I’ve battled through to the bitter end, and sometimes I’ve cut bait. It’s at times like this that I wish I had a psychologist on my staff to join in every meeting with that client as I believe that may be the only solution. It’s impossible for me to do my job unless my client is ready to settle the case, which is a difficult pill for most attorneys to swallow.

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Over the past couple of days, I’ve gone over the major changes in the Wake County Family Court Rules. Believe me there are a great number of additional changes, and if you are interested in reading our new local rules and forms, please go the www.nccourts.org website and click on Courts>Rules & Policies>Local Rules>Wake County.

No system is perfect, and these changes will make the rules better. There will be problems (new and old) because this is simply a system. I have been impressed with how the bar and the judges worked together to change these rules. Nothing seemed to be off limits when it came to changes. I’ve also been impressed with the attorneys who devoted time and money to get these rules revised. Excellent showing of attorneys who care about parties going through this process.

If you are going though a divorce in Wake County, NC, you need to learn these rules. Better yet, hire a family law firm that knows the rules. Our firm take pride in our work and pride in the service we provide to our clients. Trust our firm at this difficult time.

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So far I’ve discussed the changes to the required financial disclosures and changes to the temporary hearings, and now, I want to discuss the change that will have the largest impact on attorneys-scheduling of matters and calendar call. These changes have a direct impact on attorneys, but clients know that if things are easier for an attorney, that translates into less attorney fees for the client.

Before to calendar a case, we had to call/email/fax the clerks for each of our assigned judges. The clerks have tons of work to do beyond giving out court dates, so often you would wait a day or longer to get a response. Inevitably, you would get dates, and for some reason, the dates wouldn’t work, and we’d end up calling back the clerk to start the cycle over. In addition, there was always the guessing game of trying to decide if your case could actually be heard on the date you agreed upon. If you waited for a date where you were “guaranteed” to be heard, you could easily wait 5-8 months for that court date. The whole process was just a mess.

Now, the lawyers of Wake County have contributed their own funds to create and run a court date website: www.wcfcc.com. (WARNING–this website is not live, and it is not scheduled to be live until later this year). The goal is to be able to go to the website and see the calendars for any judge. This website will alleviate the work of the clerk and will give attorneys accurate views of the calendar at the click of the mouse.

The next change has to do with calendar call. In the past our calendars ran from either Monday-Thursday or the single day assigned. Calendar call started the day and took about on hour. After this hour, the court actually started hearing cases if everyone was ready to start. Since you never knew when you would go during the day or week, it was scheduling nightmare for attorneys, parties, and witnesses. Now, there is a two-week calendar for the main courtrooms, and prior to the session starting, there will be a meeting for everyone on the calendar. After the meeting, the clerk will give you a specific time that session to be heard. You will either be heard on that day or the next day. If not on those two days, you won’t be heard. This  is called the two-day rule.

Hopefully these scheduling changes will allow for a more efficient process for attorneys and parties proceeding on their own. These rules can be difficult, and our firm knows these rules and we will be happy to guide you through the process if you are divorcing in Wake County.

Tomorrow, my final thoughts.

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Yesterday, I discussed the changes to the required financial documents, and today, I want to deal with temporary hearings and the use of affidavits.

Under the old rules, if you requested a temporary hearing on child custody, child support or postseparation support (pss), you would have a hearing scheduled in approximately 45 days, have one hour to present evidence per issue at the hearing, and have the ability to use affidavits. If that seems tight, believe me it is.

Now, child custody hearings are handled differently than child support/pss hearings. You can no longer use affidavits in temporary custody hearings, and instead of one hour, you have two hours to present your evidence. These hearings will continue to be heard in 45 days or less. These changes may be small on the surface, but for anyone who has been through a temporary hearing, you understand the significance of these changes.

Affidavits (the bane of my existence at times)are submitted in bulk. Each affidavit goes through how that parent is the best parent, how the child loves them, blah blah. Rarely did I see affidavits that were powerful. By powerful, I mean an independent person with important specific information about the care of the child. It would seem as if some firms decided that number was more important than content when using affidavits.

It can take hours upon hours to interview and compile these affidavits, and I’ve never been confident that they have a tremendous impact on a judge as they always just want to hear testimony from the parents. Now, we have more time to let the parents talk–double the time. It’s still an impossible situation, determining custody of children based on 120 minutes of testimony and arguments, but it is a better situation than before.

For child support/pss, the rules remain the same EXCEPT these hearings have a longer time frame to be heard. Affidavits can still be used in these types of hearings.

With these changes, parties are going to see a reduction in costs to conduct these temporary hearings. That is excellent news. Our firm works hard to help clients make the best decision for themselves while keeping an eye on the bottom line.

I’ve discussed two major changes to the Wake County Family Court Rules, but we’re not done.  Tomorrow, I want to discuss our new calendering system for cases.

Remember if you are going through a divorce in Wake County, NC, our firm can guide you thorough the process.

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On March 1, 2010, Wake County, NC adopted new family court rules.  Originally, Wake County adopted domestic rules in 2002, and even though there have been periodic revisions, this edition is the biggest overhaul yet. There are lots of major and minor changes, but in this series I’m going to detail the four (4) biggest changes in my views:

The biggest change is to the financial documents that need to be automatically disclosed. Before, our rules included an exhaustive list of required documents that generally required hours of work for the client and for the lawyer to get the documents together. The rules have pared down the list to what most would consider the basics.

In addition, in cases were someone brought a property claim (equitable distribution) there was another exhaustive list. That disclosure rule is gone and replaced with a better form and a general statement of provide what you need to prove your case. Again, this limits the documents that need to automatically discloses, and it helps people who have less property to deal with in that they are not subject to such an exhaustive list of documents to gather.

There are many more changes, and tomorrow, I will talk about the next big change–temporary hearings and affidavits.

Remember our site is the source for the best and latest information on divorcing in Wake County, N.C. If you are going through a divorce, our firm can guide you through the process.

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In my email this morning, I found this note from a current client . . .

“You’re always so good about answering questions quickly and concisely.  I appreciate that. . . . .  I, too, hate that we have to talk, but what can you do? I’m just thankful that I found you.”

Our firm is proud to promise every client a response within 24 business hours. When you are divorcing, you want a firm who can respond to your questions as soon as possible so that you can have a little less stress in the process.

Testimonials

A friend of mine, Bob Wattral, sent me an article from MSN Money titled,  ”A recession divorce: no one wants the house.” (A link to the article is below) It is a good article discussing the difficulty with handling the house when parties divorce. The house is often an emotionally difficult issue, but these days it is also a financially difficult one. Houses sit on the market for a year or longer. Houses are no longer worth what they were purchased for just a couple of years ago. People loose their jobs and the pay to cover the mortgage is gone.  Attorneys try to do their best to predict what will be financially beneficial to his or her client; however, we cannot predict the future. This article has basic tips on your options when you are divorcing.

To me the more interesting part of the article is the discussion. All I can say is wow. I know these feelings are out there, but I was just shocked that such a mundane article would bring out such strong feelings. I guess that’s my daily reminder that divorce is the most difficult time that most people will ever go through. Our firm’s commitment to minimizing the difficulty of divorce is a commitment that must be renewed every day for the sake of our clients!

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomeFinancing/a-recession-divorce-no-one-wants-the-house.aspx?GT1=33006

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I recently spend some time visiting with almost all of the individuals that are listed on our firm’s referral page, and I have updated the page to reflect some new individuals. If a client is looking for a referral in any of these areas, these are the names that we provide.

Each person listed is someone that our firm has worked with in a professional capacity or someone I know and respect in the professional community. Part of our customer service to our client is to provide quality referrals. I take a little time every couple of months to touch base with the people listed on the referral page to make sure that they can provide quality service in the area indicated. When you are considering the choice of an attorney to assist you with your divorce give some thought to whether they provide any “service after the sale.” Our firm is happy to offer continued to support to our clients after our work is completed.

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So you’ve waited weeks (maybe months) and finally, your attorney tells you that the judge has made a decision. You’re excited; ready to follow the judge’s order. Or maybe you hate it, and don’t want to follow it. You want to appeal immediately Well, hold on . . . the judge giving his or her decision is only part of it.

One attorney is responsible for writing the order; the other attorney has to comment; and the judge has to decide what changes need to be made before signing the final order. That sounds simple, but that process could easily take a month or longer. I once had it take eight (8) months.

Just keep in mind that you want the order to address as many issues and scenarios as possible. Many times it takes some time to consider appeal issues. There are more issues than just typing up the judge’s order that need to be considered. My suggestion is to be patient while your attorney drafts the orders and be involved in that process by considering potential problems in the order.

If you want to appeal the order, keep in mind that in North Carolina the time for filing a notice of appeal does not begin until the order is signed by the judge and file-stamped.

Just keep in mind that just like everything else this too is a process, and one of the most important ones.

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The division of personal property is always one of the most emotional issues to address. Now, apparently, I can advise my client just to create a divorce registry to get what he/she did not receive in the divorce. Brilliant idea?

UK department store Debenham’s has just launched a divorce gift registry. This goes along with the divorce cards, cakes and parties that now seem to be available to people going through a divorce.

All I can say is interesting . . . you can learn more at cnn.com as I did not find any information about this registry on the store’s website.

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