Today was a typical, marginally productive day in my life as a family law lawyer.
Woke up, drank coffee, toasted whole grain bread, drizzle with olive oil, shave and shower. Seeing a new client in the morning, and court in the afternoon, so pick a nice shirt with matching tie. Off to the office - arrive a little late, around 9:00.
Review messages from yesterday, give some instructions, check e-mail. Not much of interest - people arguing over nothing. Found out my receptionist's cold is worse than before - reach for the Purell frequently.
Interview new client - unfortunately, typical problems. Her divorce was over 3 years ago, and she's still trying to get the final paperwork finished up. She needs orders signed dividing pensions and IRA's, getting her husband to sign a deed for a property awarded to her, getting her the money he was to pay to equalize the division, they type of problem that reasonable people should have been able to settle. He won't agree to anything. Typical problems.
Then, the wrinkle: Husband wants to set aside a 3 year old judgment claiming he paid too much for a piece of real estate in the division of assets - like everyone on that side of the deal, it looks worse 3 years later. His motion is so convoluted that it's hard to figure out what legal theory he is advancing. He is just trying to create problems for his ex-wife, for no good reason other than that he can. The kind of motion I hate to see because it's make work, caused by an attorney who is an idiot, doing what her idiot client wants. It is so much more interesting to deal with a legitimate, factual or intellectual dispute.
Well, at least it has some challenge for me, because the case is in front of a judge with absolutely no background in family law. He's been in the department about 38 minutes, and all my friends are afraid to take their cases in there - as a result, no one knows what to expect. All I know is that I have to explain a lot more to him, than I would have had to explain to the last guy - that means a lot of extra time organizing, research, and drafting. Because I have to approach him as though he knows nothing, the client will have to pay for extra effort in preparing the paperwork - you want the judge to be able to track the issues without being confused, in the hope he'll be on your side before the hearing starts.
About 3 hours after I started, I'd been retained, started my research, and outlined my approach, and dictated the start of my client's declaration and points and authorities - a good jump on the hearing. Letter to husband's lawyer - she served the wrong person, so she needs to agree to continue the hearing [she will probably refuse because "my client wants to get it over with", so the judge will do it for her - another useless hour in court, however].
Then an hour doing the normal letter writing, and e-mailing. There is a letter from a lawyer demanding I provide him with legal authority for my position - dictate a response that his client has fiduciary duties, and if she doesn't exercise them it will be a lot worse for her. That's "my authority." I've got a big gun in the law for people who won't produce documents or information, and I'm not afraid to use it.
A long letter from a real estate broker about all the efforts she's used to sell a house under a court order - husband refuses to sign the listing agreement despite a court order, and claims the broker hasn't done anything to sell the property - letter from his lawyer, critical of the broker for not aggressively marketing the property. Type a response: "What the heck do you expect her to do, she didn't have a listing agreement signed by the guy."
A couple more letters, a few e-mails. There is a recurring theme: All these things could have been worked out by reasonable people trying to solve a problem.
Finally, off to court, stopping for lunch on the run, for a 3:00 p.m. hearing. The traffic was horrible mid-day, for no apparent reason.
At least while I was waiting, I got to watch an inexperience lawyer wiggle around trying to explain why he should be allowed to get off a case because he wasn't getting paid and couldn't communicate with his client - a Marine, possibly in Iraq. The judge tried to explain that she couldn't let him off the case because of the servicemen's protection act designed to protect clients who can't be in court because of active military duty. She explained he's entitled to a lawyer, or the court can't grant an order against him - to her, that meant she couldn't grant the attorney's motion to get out of the case. The judge told the lawyer he had to stay in the case - at that point, the Marine walked in, and the case proceeded - my interest in the outcome flagged at that point, I was only interested in watching the lawyer twist in the wind, making arguments that made no sense trying to get free of the non-paying client he'd agreed to help.
After reading my file, outlining my argument, and sitting there for an hour, the judge decided she won't have time to hear the case today. "Would you be able to come back Friday afternoon?" You can imagine how I wanted to answer that one, but I agreed to come back [I had a case that day fold up. The husband on the other side is self represented, calling in on a cell phone from the east coast, so he could go on to his 2nd martini at 6:30 EST.
At the freeway on ramp, the lights control access. They allow two cars to proceed at a time. No one ahead of me could count, so only one car went forward at a time, as light after light changed. Sort of like being in court behind a bunch of self represented people. Back into heavy rush hour traffic. A total of 2 hours devoted to a hearing that didn't come off.
Back in the office, I was very tired, so I did a little routine paperwork, a few e-mails back and forth with a nervous client, corresponding with another experienced family law lawyer to get his input into a case. Went home. My wife was shocked: It was only 6:00 and I was already home....
As boring as this was, remember that I've left out the really boring stuff because it was too insignificant to remember.
