Avoid harming your attorney-client relationship during your divorce by following these simple steps1/28/2020
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If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, The attorney-client relationship is the key to winning your Texas divorce case with the great process!
Houston Family Attorney: While your marital relationship will be the central focus of your divorce, it is the relationship between you and your attorney that will be the most integral to success or failure in your Texas divorce. While one relationship did not work the way that you intended it to, the other is an opportunity for you to build a strong and trusting bond with a person that will be in your life for at least two months. There are a lot of misconceptions that exist about attorneys. We’ve all heard the lawyer jokes, bad move premises and the general attitude of some in the media about attorneys- they don’t need to be repeated in this space. With that said, you can do a lot to help build a strong relationship with your attorney by focusing on the issues that we are going to discuss in today’s blog. Know, first of all, that your attorney is not there to work on your case by themselves. Quite the opposite- your attorney is there to help guide and advise you on issues that he or she is knowledgeable of due to their years of experience. However, the ultimate decision-making abilities lie with you. You are the person whose name appears at the top of any pleading or motion filed with the court. You are a parent to the children who are going through this divorce with you. It is your home, your business or your property that is potentially at stake in the divorce. Communication is key Stop me if you've heard that one before. When it is all said and done you and your attorney will either be done in by or thrive due to your ability to communicate with one another. This is not the sort of heartfelt, meaningful conversation that family members share. When I say "communication" in the context of you and your attorney I really just mean the sort of communication that allows the direct transmittal of information from one person to another. You will need to communicate with your attorney and update him or her on issues from time to time. Your attorney will need to do the same with you. It really is simple to figure this out as long as you and your attorney are both willing to work with one another. For example, the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan will bend over backward to help facilitate communication between ourselves and our clients. For example, it is not uncommon for us to ask a client if he or she has a preferred day of the week to communicate or a means of communication (phone, email, etc.) to utilize. We know that you have a busy schedule and we want to accommodate that as much as possible. Of course, there are some messages that need to be communicated throughout the week but for regular updates when there is nothing major to report we will work with you to figure out a time and means by which communication will work best. Think about your case and how you will argue your positions to a judge Houston Family Law Attorneys: It is likely that you will never actually have to go in front of a judge in your divorce case. We talked in yesterday’s blog post about how mediation has effectively made a divorce in Texas more about negotiation than litigation. This is a good thing for literally every person involved in your case. However, in the event that you will go to court, you and your attorney need to be prepared to present evidence that can help you. Begin by collecting evidence that could be beneficial to your case and provide that evidence to your attorney. Even if you think something is silly or not likely to be helpful you ought to provide it to him or her. Many pieces of evidence may need to be explained to your attorney and/or their staff to be fully understood. Some things- text messages, emails, etc.- have context-specific explanations that need to be provided. If this is true of your case, it is best to work with your attorney's staff to schedule a time for you to speak to them about the evidence that you are providing. How you came about the evidence, what it represents and its significance to your case are good places to start a discussion. Your attorney can sit with you and analyze the evidence to figure out how to best utilize it in your case. Do your homework and submit it on time If you struggled in school with completing your work in a timely manner your divorce will offer you an opportunity to try again at this skill. At the beginning of your case, your attorney will hand you some paperwork to fill out. These documents are requesting basic information about you, your spouse and your family. It is helpful for your attorney to have these documents back by the time he or she begins to file your Petition for Divorce or needs to file an Answer for you. If you fail to turn these documents back into your attorney on time it may delay and ultimately harm your case. Next, it is likely that your spouse will submit to your attorney what is known as Discovery requests. Discovery seeks to do exactly what you would think- obtain information about you and your life that can be used in your divorce case. These are not short or easy to complete requests. Some ask for you to answer “yes” or “no” type questions. Others will ask for you to fill in responses to some fairly detailed and complicated questions. Others will ask for you to collect and submit documents that are of interest to your spouse. These requests must be turned in no later than thirty days from the date on which your attorney was provided the questions and requests from your spouse. As a result, you and your attorney will need to be on the same page as to how to respond appropriately to those requests. This can be done through exchanging emails about questions that don't make sense, or by having periodic phone calls to help you sort through issues. However, it is my experience that your best bet is to set up a time to speak with your attorney about the requests in person. Remember- if it takes you 28 days to submit responses to these discovery requests to your attorney that only leaves him or her two days to review the material you provided, clarify any questions with you and then submit responses to their requests in an appropriate format. Like any good relationship, you need to think about your partner and how your actions will affect him or her. If you do not give your attorney enough time to do their job he or she may need to request an extension to submit your discovery responses. It is likely that an extension will be provided but your case may be unnecessarily delayed because of your actions. If you need to communicate with your spouse do it in writing if at all possible Divorce Houston: Have you ever been misquoted or misunderstood by a friend or family member? I think it is safe to say that we all have. It is a tough situation to be in, especially if that misunderstanding was due to something you told your friend or family member. We usually do not have an accurate record of what we say to other people so the misunderstanding can quickly evolve into a “he said, she said” battle. In the context of a divorce case, he said/she said, is a recipe for anger, resentment, and delaying of cases. If you and your spouse are going over important subjects like your children, money, property or anything related to your divorce I would recommend that you have those discussions in writing rather than over the phone. Certainly, details can be ironed out in quick phone calls but if you are trying to engage in informal negotiations then use email. This way you can track exactly what was said and what was not said. You will also have a clear record of what you and your spouse want out of your divorce. Gaining a window into the thought processes of your spouse can be among the more valuable benefits of better communication. Keep in mind that it is not uncommon for a rather small argument to blossom into something much larger in a high stakes situation like a divorce. Your attorney and your spouse's attorney can be great allies when it comes to calming down their respective clients. However, I can tell you from experience that the attorneys cannot help when each is relying on an entirely different set of facts than the other is. There is nothing more frustrating for two family law attorneys than to have upset, frustrated clients, who cannot get on the same page about what they are even arguing about. You can avoid unwanted and unhelpful arguments by sticking to the plan of just communicated via email or text messages. This way you will have a clear record of what was said and where negotiations are. Secondly, you will not give your spouse an opportunity to mislead a judge, their attorney or any other person associated with your case by telling him or her an untruth about something that you supposedly had said ... Continue Reading If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, What does divorce mean to you and your family? with the great process!
Divorce Lawyers Houston: Stop for a moment and consider what a divorce truly is. Beyond the anger, hostility, jealousy, false promises, bad decisions and harsh words. What do you think a divorce really is? Is it purely an emotional matter where you and your spouse are going to air all your petty grievances against the other in a public setting? If you've been waiting years to tell the world about his having cheated on you after your first child was born a divorce is a pretty opportune time to do so. Or is he angling to get out of your marriage so quickly because you haven't shown him any attention in a decade? The stories behind every divorce vary, typically based on which spouse you are talking to. Divorce can and often is all these things. At its core, however, a divorce is a family lawsuit. What's that? You've never really considered that a divorce is a real, live lawsuit? Like the ones you read about in the news or see on television, a lawsuit is a serious matter that involves the legal system, a judge and two parties that have often times have widely divergent views on any number of topics. Is it weird for you to think about suing your spouse? The fact is that you cannot achieve whatever goals you have for yourself and for your family without filing a lawsuit against him or her. Your name will be at the top of a lawsuit and the letter "v" will follow (as in, versus) with your spouse's name beneath that. Like the Super Bowl or the World Series, it is team "you" versus team "them". The stakes are high and the emotions likely are as well. However, this does not mean that this has to be a battle royal where two participants enter and only one comes out alive. You and your spouse can take many different routes to achieve a successful result in your divorce. I’ve seen so many different married couples go about their divorces in so many different ways that it could make your head spin. The end result is always that a divorce occurs and two people that were married leave the divorce no longer being so. The only question is, and what separates each couple, is how they went about achieving that end. Today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan will walk you through a number of our tips and tricks to get you through your divorce with your sanity and goals intact. Like I just said a moment ago, there are a number of ways for you to divorce your spouse but those ways are not created equal. Our sincere hope is that by reading our blog today you will set yourself apart from anyone else going through a divorce- most notably from your spouse. Act the part- act like a good student Family Attorney Houston: If Hollywood had their way, every person in America would think that a divorce was the sort of knock down, drag out fight that I was talking about in the opening section of today’s blog post. This is understandable, after all. Drama brings people to movie theaters. People acting like grown-ups and resolving their issues outside of court is not exactly exciting for anyone to watch. With that said, I would tell any client of ours to do the basics of orderly behavior. For instance, if you have a meeting with your attorney, a mediation date, a hearing date or a trial date you ought to show up early for that appearance. We all have smartphones nowadays. Whip that baby out and play a game or read the news or do whatever it is that you do on your cell phone. It is better to be early and bored than late and angry at yourself. The other thing that you can do is to keep track of things that happen in your case. Do not rely on your attorney to keep track of names, dates, appointments, bad/good behavior on the part of your spouse. You can track that sort of information on your phone, in an old-fashioned notebook or in a word document on your laptop. Either way, if you are a good note taker that skill will serve you well in your divorce. Speaking of skills, look at the underlying skills that I have asked you to take advantage of: be on time and take notes? That should remind you of your days in school. Very basic things that your mom harped on you about growing up. Hopefully, those lessons sunk in back in those days because if not you are going to have to learn them now. These are not difficult things for you to do and they can pay off in big ways. For instance, what if your spouse alleges that you mismanaged a pickup/drop off for your child on a random weekend? With as much as you have to go on in your life, it would be easy for you to lose track of what weekend it was and what exactly happened. Issues in family law cases are often "he said, she said" debates where the person with the more specific information often times wins out. You can be in the right and have nothing to hide but if your spouse can spout off with some specific issues and all you have are general denials then your spouse stands to win out on this one. Instead, wouldn’t it be great if all you had to do was show your attorney your journal entry for that weekend? What if, as it turns out, your spouse was actually the one who arrived at the pickup/drop off point two hours late because she had overslept her alarm? If you can recall this information with specificity it is probably going to be enough to get your spouse to back off and drop the whole issue. If you can’t counter her arguments with this degree of specificity it’s likely that an enforcement lawsuit is going to be headed your way. What not to do when it comes to acting like a grown up Divorce Attorneys in Houston: On the other hand, lots of people going through divorce suddenly forget how to act like an adult. Either that or they never really knew and now that their life is under a microscope it is becoming obvious to everyone involved that this so-called "adult" is really just a child dressed in grown-up clothing. Here is some advice that I can provide on how to actually act your age while in a divorce. First off, lay low when it comes to text messages and emails that could be considered threatening, aggressive, foul-mouthed or generally inappropriate. I see people come into our office all the time with a stack of papers a mile high that are just nasty text messages that their spouse has sent to them over the past few years. The thing about arguing over text messages is that those arguments are memorialized for the world to see long after the argument is over with. If you asked me what my wife and I argued about last week I probably couldn't tell you- that's how marital arguments typically work. Compare this to arguments that you and your spouse have over text message and everything- the bad language, nasty attitudes, and unflattering remarks- are always going to be there. Next, you should refrain from locking your spouse out of any of your bank accounts or other important online accounts. If you are the spouse who handles the financial matters for your family then it is probably tempting to take advantage of that fact during your divorce. It would be easy for you to swoop in, change a few passwords and then do with your money whatever you would like without having to first consult with your spouse. However, this is a big no-no in the eyes of the law and your judge will be quick to point that out and punish you for doing so. At the least, it will anger your spouse and cause there to be yet another issue that will be fought over the divorce. A side point to this issue is that it is never a good idea to withdraw a bunch of money at the start of your divorce and either hold onto it or deposit it in another bank account. The reason being is that if your spouse finds out about it and you fail to disclose that money to the court it could set you up for a big-time punishment. You could be made to return that money and then be fined for misleading the court. If you want to avoid paying your spouse’s attorney’s fees then it is wise, to be honest about the money that you and your spouse have ... Continue Reading If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, Family violence and family law in Texas with the great process!
Houston Family Law Attorney: When a family law attorney considers important factors in a potential divorce or child custody case, perhaps none is as quite as impactful as family violence. The reasons for this are obvious. Acts of family violence are irredeemable, despicable and any other term that you would want to use that connotes something extremely negative about the person who engages in that sort of behavior. I wanted to make note of this early on in today’s blog post because for the remainder of it I would like to take this opportunity to write only about the impacts of that behavior on a family law case in Texas. What family violence is considered to be Family violence is more than just hitting your spouse or your child. What’s more- the people that are considered to be in your family seem to grow every year, with a greater number of relatives potentially counting as family for the purposes of assigning a person punishment for having acted violently. If you are in a dating relationship with someone and he or she is violent towards you then this would typically qualify for a crime of family violence. The only major factor that needs to be mentioned at this stage is that while being found guilty of having committed a criminal act of family violence is more difficult (beyond a reasonable doubt is the criminal standard), in family court you must only present sufficient evidence that a judge would find that it is beyond the preponderance of the evidence presented that an act of family violence did occur. Imagine the scales of justice for a moment. A preponderance of the evidence means that one of the scales would be tipped slightly below the other. However, beyond a reasonable doubt means that the evidence you present must weigh your scale down significantly compared to the other side. The burden, therefore, is much heftier in the context of a criminal case. Conservatorship issues related to family violence If your spouse were found to have committed an act of family violence then he or she will be in for a tough time during a divorce or child custody case. For instance, rather than being named as a joint managing conservator of your child, which is what is done in the vast majority of child custody cases, your spouse would be likely named as merely a possessory conservator while you have Sole Managing Conservatorship rights. This basically means that your spouse will have times that he or she can see your child (often in a supervised location) but that his or her rights to make decisions on behalf of your child are severely curtailed in comparison to your own. Courts typically proceed with a great deal of caution when it comes to family violence From my experiences, family courts will usually err on the side of caution when it comes to deciding that family violence has occurred in a case. The reasons for this is that most judges will not want to move on from this issue without seriously addressing it. Furthermore, if something were to happen down the line in a case that was the result of additional incidents of family violence then that judge would be at risk of a reprimand. What types of punishments and restrictions will be imposed in a family law case when family violence is an issue? Let's consider that protective orders are usually very effective at deterring harmful acts in the context of a family law case. We will discuss more protective orders later in this blog post but I wanted to introduce the topic at this stage. Safety is the number one priority of a judge when it comes to a family law case, and being overly cautious in this area is something that is very difficult to argue with. The family violence in question does not have to be something that resulted in major injuries or even the police. However minor the incident may have been it is something that could result in your case changing dramatically for the worse if you are the perpetrator of the violent acts. An example from our time in the family courts Divorce Lawyers in Houston: In a recent case, an opposing party made an allegation of family violence against our client that was quite over the top. The incident in question involved our client getting upset at the opposing party’s use of a cell phone in order to contact other men. Our client took the phone out of her hands in order to see what it was she was doing. Well, that act led to his wife alleging that he has acted violently towards her. A divorce was subsequently filed and this issue was taken up with the judge. What ended up happening was that the judge did make a finding that family violence had occurred but that finding carried with it no immediate restrictions on conservatorship rights or anything related to that. However, what did end up happening is that in the final decision of conservatorship the judge made rulings that were not favorable to our client and I couldn’t help but think that it was because of the family violence issue. False allegations of domestic violence are unfortunately a reality in divorce cases What I have found to be the case is that family violence allegations become more and more common in divorce cases. The reason, I believe, why this is the case is that people are willing to go to greater lengths in order to ensure their goals are met in a divorce. Family violence can impact conservatorship issues as we have already mentioned as well as the division of property in a divorce. When courts are as willing (rightfully so) to take all allegations of family violence seriously it makes sense that some people would be willing to bend the truth or make outright lies that family violence has occurred in order to meet those goals. This is not to say that if you think you have been the victim of a violent act by a spouse or significant other that you should hesitate to bring those issues before a judge. On the contrary- a judge is there to keep you safe and to keep your family safe as well. However, if you are in a position where you have been accused of having committed an act of family violence it can spell disaster for you in your case both in the short and long terms. The bottom line is that you need to think hard before you commit any action towards your spouse or significant other. You never know what he or she may be thinking or who is watching you. Acts that could be totally benign or non-violent in your mind may actually end up being considered to be violent by your spouse and more importantly by a judge. Protective Orders and Family Violence Protective Orders are one of the means by which a court can seek to diminish the future impact of acts of family violence. It can take a great deal of courage in order to bring acts of family violence forward to the authorities especially if you are a person who has been a victim of family violence for years. Violence between spouses or even people that are merely dating can be about control as much as it is about the anger or other emotions that are behind the acts. What is a protective order in a Texas family law case? Family Lawyer Houston: Safety is the name of the game when it comes to a protective order. Many people think only about a judge’s responsibilities when it comes to conservatorship, possession, visitation, property division and similar subjects in conjunction with a divorce but a judge’s top priority in your case will be to keep you and your children safe if you are the victim of an act of family violence. We can extend family violence to incidents that involve sexual abuse and dating violence as well in order to get a full picture of what a court will be guarding against by considering the possibility of implementing a protective order within a divorce case. You would need to produce evidence that family violence has occurred but typically police reports, witness statements, photographs, and visible injuries are sufficient for this purpose. If a judge believes that it is likely that acts of violence could likely occur in the future then you can expect a protective order request to be granted. The goals of a protective order are to create a situation where your violent spouse is held accountable for their actions while best ensuring your safety in the case moving forward. Your spouse will likely not be allowed to come within a certain distance from you or from your children unless your children are being supervised ... Continue Reading If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, So you’ve been served with a family lawsuit in Texas- what should you do now? with the great process!
Divorce Lawyer in Houston: Routine is not a bad thing. I think that we as human beings do better when have a fairly set routine for ourselves. A certain bedtime, a certain time to wake up, a work schedule to follow, etc. Our bodies adjust to a routine and eventually rely upon that routine to provide us with signals to drink, eat, sleep and take breaks. Along the way we become so used to our routines that variances in that rhythm can really throw us for a loop. “I’m a creature of habit!” is something that you may have heard from friends or family members in your life. One of the things that can seriously throw you for a loop when it comes to our daily lives would be to walk to your front door or to the reception area of your office and be handed paperwork by a stranger. When you open up the envelope or look down at the papers you see that you have been handed what look to be legal documents. Your name is there and your spouse’s name is on the paperwork too. Or it could be an ex-spouse’s name in the event that you previously got a divorce. What’s the meaning of all this, you may be wondering. When you finally get a chance to catch your breath and read through what you’ve been handed you come to find out that your spouse has filed for divorce from you. This could catch you by surprise or maybe you were expecting it. The question that you will inevitably run into no matter what is- how do you proceed from here and what should you do next? Today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC will seek to answer that question for you. What responsibilities do you have after you’ve been served? To begin, you should know exactly what needs to be provided to you for proper service to be effectuated. The first document is called a citation. A citation is nothing more than a notice from the court where your case has been filed that tells you in (somewhat) plain English that you are being sued. The other document that you will be served with is called a Petition. Your spouse will not coincidentally be called the Petitioner since she filed the lawsuit and you will be called the Respondent since you will be responding to her Petition. The Petition is a very basic document but it contains important information nonetheless. For starters it will name you and your spouse. If you have children their initials and ages will be included as well. Next, whatever grounds for divorce your spouse is citing will be noted in the Petition. For most parties it is irreconcilable differences, i.e., that you and your spouse have grown apart and there is no chance at reconciliation. Insupportability is the other term that might be used in reference to this situation. If you and your spouse have children there is a child custody component to your divorce and the Petition will specify your spouse’s contentions with how conservatorship and possession issues should break down as well. Finally, there may be a notice of hearing included with these documents informing you of the pendency of a hearing in your case. You will be provided with a date, time and location for the hearing. In divorce cases a Temporary Restraining Order will typically accompany a notice of hearing. These are temporary orders that basically seek to keep everyone’s property and person safe until a court date can be had and formal temporary orders can be laid out. Basically you will be asked to not harm your spouse, their property, their vehicle or to withdraw your children from school or otherwise hide your children during the time period before your hearing. These are the documents that you can expect to receive from a process server or constable in the event that you are sued with a family law case. Now that we know what you will receive in your hand it is time to discuss what your actual responsibilities are moving forward as far as responding to a Petition. Getting an Answer filed Divorce Attorney Houston: If you are sued for divorce you will need to file and serve an Answer to the Petition. The Answer needs to be filed in the court records for your case and will need to be served upon your spouse. If your spouse has an attorney you can fax, email or a PDF version of mail a certified copy of your Answer to that attorney’s office. Many times you can simply select their email address when you file the Answer online and he or she will be served using that method. Technology is nice sometimes, isn’t it? Please keep in mind that it is important that you file your Answer within a certain period of time for that to be a validly and timely filed Answer. These are not suggested time frames or anything of that nature. Don’t think of it as something that you can get away with if you happen to wait an extra week or something “major” comes up in your life. Texas law requires that you file an Answer to your spouse’s Petition by 10:00 a.m. on the first Monday after the expiration of twenty days from the date you were served. This sounds more confusing than it ought to be- and it is in my opinion. What you need to know is that you should count twenty days after your date or service and then jump to the next possible Monday. That is your deadline. In many cases it works out that you have closer to 25 or more days rather than twenty days to get your Answer filed in a timely manner. This “problem” will not go away if you ignore it It’s human nature to want to push to the side those things that we find to be unenjoyable, annoying or frustrating. This divorce lawsuit that you are facing may be all three of those things but I can tell you that it will not go away just because you bury it under other paperwork in your home. There is the potential for your spouse to be able to go to court and have her own final orders established without your knowledge or consent if you fail to file a timely Answer. The Answer, once filed in a timely fashion, means that you must be notified of court dates or other filings by your spouse. Without the Answer you may be left in the dark. Issues regarding your children and property can be decided without your say. Most people at this stage in their case will look to hire an experienced family law attorney to represent them. I don’t have the space today to go over this specific sub-topic in greater detail but I can tell you that our website has many articles regarding tips on how to interview and hire the right attorney for your family law case. Simply go up to the top of our website and use the search mechanism to read through our advice on this subject from other blog posts we have written. Hiring an attorney does not take away your responsibilities to respond to the divorce petition in a timely fashion but it does give you some help in responding properly and in a fashion that protects you and your rights. In tomorrow’s blog post we will continue to discuss this topic in an effort to prepare you for the steps and processes to come in your own family law case. Questions about divorce, child custody or other family law case? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC Houston Divorce Lawyers: The attorneys and staff with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC take a great deal of pride in representing people in our community just like you. If you have any questions about the information contained in today’s blog post please do not hesitate to contact us today. We offer free of charge consultations six days a week with our licensed family law attorneys ... Continue Reading If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, Follow these steps to win your Texas family law case with the great process!
Houston Family Law Lawyers: Suppose that you are going through a divorce and are beginning the process of hiring an attorney. How would you go about doing that? Would you drive up and down the busiest street in your area of town and look at the names on the buildings around your home and make a decision that way? Sounds a lot like walking up and down the snack food aisle and picking a bag of chips based on how snazzy the packaging is. You’ll probably take a bite when you get home and be disappointed that the chips don’t taste as good as the packaging made them out to be. Hiring an attorney to represent you in a family law case is sort of like this. You can do a quick run-through of the attorneys in your area and make a selection based on how their name looks on a sign and you may get lucky. That may end up being the best attorney in the world for you and your family. Or you may be disappointed. That lawyer may not even be a family law attorney- he or she could be a general practice lawyer who takes whatever case walks through their door because their landlord charges a lot of money to keep the lawyer’s name lit up outside on the sign in front of their building. What you should consider doing is research into the attorney that you hire. Don’t hire a lawyer because their office furniture is nice. Don’t hire a lawyer because you think that person “looks like an attorney” (whatever an attorney is supposed to look like based on your opinion). Ultimately if the attorney’s office furniture looks really nice it’s probably because the lawyer paid a lot of money for it. If it was purchased with a credit card he or she needs to pay that card off and will do it by charging you and the other clients that lawyer represents a lot of money in all likelihood. Finding a good attorney is important. Finding a good attorney who makes you feel confident is even more important. Finding a good attorney, who makes you feel confident and that you can afford is the most important thing. You can have all the legal knowledge in the world in the form of your attorney but if you find out halfway through your case that you can no longer afford to pay the attorney’s fees you will soon be looking for another attorney. Your rather expensive attorney will turn and file a motion to withdraw from your case as soon as you are unable to pay your monthly fee. All of this is to say that there are so many components to a family law case that to not pay attention to each one would be to do yourself a huge disservice. In today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC we will discuss how to manage and succeed at your family law case in Texas. There’s a first time for everything Family Law Lawyer Houston: Most of the people that hire our office to represent them are going through a family law case for the first time ever. Many of these people have never had any sort of involvement with the legal system before or had even been inside of a courthouse. Rather than think of this as a disadvantage, I will usually tell these folks that in my opinion it is a sign of a life well lived if you have never had to become involved with the courts before your divorce or child custody case. These cases are not fun but they are, many times, essential to your life. I’ve already waxed poetic about hiring an attorney the importance of doing your due diligence and finding one that checks all the boxes that you have set out for yourself. There are lots of attorneys out there for you to choose from, and fortunately for attorneys there are lots of potential clients out there who will make a determination that any one of us is the best fit for him or her. You have that little voice inside your head that tells you to move forward or run the other way when it comes to hiring someone to perform a service for you. Listen to that voice and you will fine in all likelihood when it comes to retaining an attorney to work with you on your family law case. The initial consultation with an attorney will tell you a lot about that person If you’ve conducted some research on attorneys and feel confident that you would like to meet with him or her to discuss your case it’s likely that their website provides you with multiple contact methods by which you can set up a meeting. Some attorneys (like the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC, for example) will allow you to set up a free of charge consultation. We will allow you to come into our office and sit with one of our attorneys in order to have a private and confidential meeting about your case, your questions and your concerns. Many attorneys will charge you money to come in and have a consultation. You will need to make a decision for yourself whether you would be willing or able to pay to speak with a lawyer. Ultimately whatever lawyer you end up deciding to hire you should feel confident that this is the person who will be looking out for you and your family rather than for their own interests. In the consultation you should try to pick up on how well your attorney listens. Attorneys love to hear the sound of their own voices and if you find an attorney who allows you to speak in complete sentences and doesn’t cut you off in the middle of a point then I think this is a good sign that you’ve found a humble, reasonable attorney. The attorney that you meet with should be able to provide you with some preliminary thoughts on your case and what you may be able to do in terms of working to achieving the goals that you have set out for your case. See if the attorney has been paying attention to what you’ve been saying. You should mention your goals more than once to the attorney. If the attorney starts discussing a possible path for your case and doesn’t incorporate anything that you have told him or her then he or she probably hasn’t been listening to you all that closely. Hire an attorney only after conducting a thorough review of candidates Kingwood Divorce Attorney: If you own a business and put out an advertisement for a job opening it wouldn’t make sense for you to close down the ad as soon as you get one resume. The purpose of putting your ad out there is to accumulate as many qualified candidates as possible, interview the best of the best and only then to make a decision as to what candidate should become an employee. The vetting process is incredibly important when it comes to hiring a new attorney. In tomorrow’s blog post we will start off by discussing what happens after you have selected your attorney to represent you in your family law case. What are the next steps in the process? How will your attorney communicate with you moving forward? For those of you who are new to this process I would highly recommend returning tomorrow to read more about it. In the meantime if you have any questions about the material that we have covered today, please do not hesitate to contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC. Our licensed family law attorneys are available six days a week to meet with you. In a free of charge consultation we are able to sit down with you in a pressure free environment and answer your questions, listen to your concerns and address the issues that are the most important to you. We appreciate your consideration of our office and hope that you will return tomorrow to read more about the process involved in a Texas family law case ... Continue Reading If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, Be aware of these dirty tricks that may be used against you in your Texas divorce with the great process!
Divorce Houston: Anything is fair in love and war. So goes the old saying that I’m sure we’ve all heard a time or two either in real life or a movie. From my experiences as an attorney I think it’s fair to say that that quote could be extended by a few words to include, “and also family law cases.” There is something about family law cases, specifically divorce cases, that brings out the emotions of the parties. It makes sense to me- after all, a family law case is centered around your marriage and your children. There are no more personal subjects than these in the world. The reality of a divorce is that most cases are civil and most parties work together as much as possible to ensure a drama-free case. On the other hand, some divorces feature one or two parties that are difficult to deal with where drama is the norm. These divorces are not straight forward and bring out the worst in one or even both parties. The tough part is you can never be sure that yours won’t be one of these divorces until your case starts. What would you do if you found that your spouse was going to make your life extremely difficult during the course of your divorce. Suppose that at the beginning of your divorce your spouse made it abundantly clear that information was not going to be easily obtained, violence may be a possibility and threats were going to be a common occurrence? Would you know what to do or how to counteract these measures to influence you and the court? In today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC we will take this opportunity to share with you some examples of the “dirty tricks” that many spouses employ in divorces against well meaning persons like yourself. Do not assume that just because your spouse has never displayed these characteristics before that he or she will not choose your divorce to start doing so. With that said, let’s begin by addressing the “whys” associated with bad behavior, dirty tricks and divorce. Why do seemingly “normal” people act poorly during their divorce? The reasons why people do bad things or employ dirty tricks in a divorce are varied. No two people are created the same so there are as many reasons and explanations for bad behavior as there are people. I’m not going to attempt to sort of every possible reason why dirty tricks may be used against you by your spouse. We simply don’t have the space for that sort of thing. However, I do have opinions that I have formed based on my time serving our community as a family law attorney. Fear, as it is in many areas of our lives, is a key motivator when it comes to employing dirty tricks in a divorce. Your spouse may be concerned that you will attempt to “take” your child from him or her. There may be financial concerns that you don’t know about that he or she is having. What if paying a couple hundred dollars in child support had convinced your spouse that he or she would go bankrupt? Do you think he or she would want to do anything possible to prevent that from occurring? When an animal is backed into a corner he is at his most dangerous. The same goes for people, unfortunately. If your spouse believes himself to be in a position where he must do whatever is necessary to protect himself and his interests he will do so. The result of that fear are the dirty tricks that we will be discussing today. The best thing that you are doing is working to identify these dirty tricks and learning how to combat them. Preventing them from occurring in the first place is the best plan but mitigating the damage that they cause and anticipating their usage is the next best thing in my opinion. Violence being alleged that did not actually occur Family Lawyers Houston: I will say that most allegations of abuse in a divorce case do have merit. People are forced into positions where they need to ask a court for protection for themselves/their children due to the bad acts of their spouses. For these people, asking for a temporary restraining order is justified. However, in regard to divorce cases it is unfortunately not that uncommon to be confronted by a false allegation of family violence. Sometimes the allegations are so unreasonable that for anyone to believe them the person would need to cease using their common sense. There is a certain degree of strategy at stake in doing so. Many people believe this to be a good mechanism to obtain a leg up in their child custody or property battles. The restraining order will not only keep you from coming into contact with your spouse, but it will eliminate any contact between you and your child for a period of time. These episodes can become especially detrimental to a case in the event that the allegations are in relation to a child custody situation. Often times you will be served with paperwork where your spouse alleges that you engaged in some act of violence against him/her or your child. Hearings can be held as soon as three days after you are notified of the application for the restraining order so acting quickly is very important. The end result of a restraining order hearing is that your contact with your children could be severely curtailed. This would put you at a severe disadvantage when it comes to fighting for your rights as a parent in the custody portion of your divorce. An affidavit (written statement made by your spouse under oath) will usually be attached to the application that specifies the act or acts that are the basis of the affidavit and application. The tough part of this type of situation is that the temporary restraining order can be obtained by your spouse on an ex parte basis from the judge. This means that he or she does not need to notify you or your attorney of the hearing and can obtain an order without you present. Right or wrong, an affidavit is usually enough if the allegations made are significant or credible enough to substantiate the allegations(s) being made. More on divorce dirty tricks to be posted in tomorrow’s blog Family Lawyer in Houston: As it sometimes happens around our blog, I got a little too wordy today and could not fit all of the dirty tricks that I wanted to share with you into one post. With that said we will continue to discuss this topic in tomorrow’s blog post. Showing a false interest in your child’s activities (when none was shown before) or attempting to keep you from obtaining the best lawyer available are the topics that we will be discussing. When it comes to combating these dirty tricks knowledge is power. You can do quite a bit of good for yourself just by educating yourself on the issues and figuring out how to identify them before it is too late in your case ... Continue Reading What you need to think about before filing for divorce when your spouse lives outside the U.S.A.12/22/2019 If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, What you need to think about before filing for divorce when your spouse lives outside the U.S.A. with the great process!
Divorce Attorney in Houston: I don’t think you could find anyone who would try to argue that filing for divorce is a pleasant process. While every step makes sense in its own way that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some things that can frustrate even the most patient person. After having represented many people in divorce cases across Texas I can tell you that most of those folks have great intentions but are not thinking all that clearly during their case due to stress, anxiety and a mix of perfectly understandable emotions. The tough part about a divorce is that the mistakes that you are capable of making within the case may not have any ramifications of effects on your life until years later. Many issues surrounding divorce are made to be more complex when your marriage was conducted outside the U.S.A. or your spouse lives outside of the country. In today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC we will discuss what issues are most important when it comes to an international divorce. What makes a divorce international in nature? You may be asking yourself what exactly constitutes an international divorce. In a state like Texas where many of us were born or at least once resided outside the State or country there are a lot of people whose cases may fairly be termed as an international divorce. Let’s first establish what an international divorce is. An international divorce involves persons who were marred in another country, own property outside of the United States, have adopted a child not born in the United States during the course of your marriage or were simply married in a foreign country. If your marriage or family life meets one of these qualifications then your divorce may involve international issues. What this means on a practical level is that not only will the laws of Texas be relevant to your divorce but the laws of another country may also come into play. It is not a given that our laws are the same or even similar to the laws of the other country. In many instances those laws may differ a great deal. When you are having to deal with the sort of complex issues that your divorce will likely represent it is wise to have a representative (like those with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC) who have helped other people find solutions for themselves in situations like the one you are facing. What do you need to do when you file for an international divorce in Texas The tough part about having to file an international divorce is that the laws in Texas may not even allow you to file in our state. To be fair these laws apply equally to persons whose divorces could be qualified as international or domestic but they absolutely bear mentioning here. For starters, you and/or your spouse must have resided within the state of Texas for at least the past six months and the county where your divorce will be filed for at least the previous ninety days. How can you establish residency for these purposes if you are ever called to do so? Household bills like a utility state would seem to do the trick in most situations. Payroll receipts from a job work well also as frequently as people work from home these days it may not be as proof positive as in previous years. Overall, you will want to collect documents that can potentially be used as evidence to establish residence before you move forward with your international divorce. Once you meet the jurisdictional requirements of Texas you then need to concern yourself with the various jurisdictional requirements that are in place in whatever country’s laws will come into play for your particular divorce. We don’t have the space to list out the particular jurisdictional requirements from every country around the world but suffice it to say that you need to know what they are before actually filing for divorce. Google can be an effective tool in many applications of our lives but I do not recommend merely “Googling” the divorce laws of Mexico or Canada and then moving forward with a divorce. It is best to have an attorney by your side who can conduct research that is more detailed and based on knowledge that you likely do not possess. What can be done if your spouse does not live in the U.S.A. Houston Family Attorney: In some situations you spouse may be living outside the United States. It is not out of the question that a Texas court can take jurisdiction over the case and therefore have the case here right here in the Lone Star State. The best way that I can think of to have Texas take jurisdiction over your case would be to have your spouse served with divorce papers while here in the country. From personal experience, I can tell you about an instance where personal service of divorce papers probably would have worked much better than having to serve someone internationally. Our office had one case in recent years where we represented a man who met a woman on the internet and eventually married her in Texas. They then moved to her home country, Colombia, and started a life there together. They built a house and lived together as husband and wife for many years. Our client ran into some health problems that required that he return home to Texas for surgery. His wife and he flew back to Texas and went to a local hospital where he had a procedure. When he woke up from the surgery our client came to find out that his wife had essentially dropped him off at the hospital and left immediately afterwards. She had returned to their home in Colombia without him. Our client had family that he could lean on for assistance in Texas but his property and his wife were in Colombia. What could he do? He came into our office where we advised him of the jurisdictional requirements to actually file for divorce in Texas. Surprisingly, he had waited months to speak to an attorney about filing for divorce in Texas so he had just about lived here long enough to establish residency for divorce purposes. Remember, even though they were married in Texas that didn’t automatically qualify him to be able to file for divorce here upon his return to the United States. He would still need to be a resident of Texas in order to file for divorce in Texas. Next up, we had two practical considerations to deal with. First of all, his property was pretty much completely in Colombia. It is unlikely that a Texas judge would implement any orders that would affect that property due to those orders have little to no weight in a Colombian court. We had to unfortunately inform our client that while we could help him get divorced in Texas, it would likely have no effect on his Colombian property or whether or not his spouse would file for divorce from him in Colombia. The final issue, which proved to be most difficult, was actually getting his wife served with divorce papers so she could be notified of the proceedings in the United States. Our client could not convince his wife to return to the United States so that we could serve her personally. The alternative was that we would need to serve her via the United Nations’ method for serving a person internationally. While it was not impossible it was difficult, took a great deal of time and cost more than serving a person domestically. Divorce is complex and international divorce is more complex Houston Family Law Attorneys: After reading today’s blog post if you have any questions about the material that we covered please do not hesitate to contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC. I understand that you may have specific questions about your circumstances that you need to have answered. We offer free of charge consultations six days a week where we can answer those questions and address your concerns in comfortable and pressure free environment. Our attorneys practice only in family law and serve clients just like you from across southeast Texas ... Continue Reading |
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