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THINGS LAWYERS AND JUDGES PREFER YOU DON'T KNOW
There are many reasons that you hire a lawyer and then have your case settled out of court instead of having a judge hear the case, especially in family law situations. There are many unwritten court rules that lawyers obey at the cost of your case and constitutional rights.
If you have ever gone to court and been ushered off to another room, or down the hallway, moments before the scheduled hearing and been presented a stipulation from the other party by your attorney then you may know what I am talking about. The hearing was never held and court orders are later drawn up and then the judge signs them and your lawyer explains that you cannot appeal this.
Lawyers do not want to bother the judge with making, and taking responsibility, for open court decisions based on evidence presented because the judge does not want to be bothered and judges have ways of making attorneys comply with these unconstitutional, unwritten court rules. Your only real defense is to hire a better attorney, or be a better attorney than the one you hired.
There are many things that both judges and attorneys prefer you do not know when you have a case that needs to be resolved in court.
1) The truth about timely responses.
2) The truth about raising and preserving timely objections.
3) The truth about timely filing for appeal, either as of right to appeal, or by leave of the court.
4) How to file timely grievances against attorneys and get your case reheard based on negligent representation.
5) How to make the evidence that you have presented to your attorney a matter of record and documented.
6) For under $20.00 you can get your own copy of the Court Rules for your own state.
7) How to document a case and get transcripts of hearings without having to pay attorney fees for obtaining these documents.
8) How to get copies of your case files without paying attorney fees for getting copies of these records.
9) How to obtain court transcripts and make sure that court orders are drawn up consistent with what was agreed to in court. Attorneys will say anything in court and then draw up court papers and file them and these may not be what was said in court and then once the judge signs these your are stuck with the need to appeal, when you can get it right before your lawyer submits them to the court.
There is a lot of information that you can obtain by yourself and avoid expensive fees for having an attorney do these routine tasks. Where and how is fairly simple.
1) Get a copy of all your case numbers in order to review and obtain copies of all papers that are already filed with the court clerk. (You should maintain a complete records with copies of everything in your own records and files)
2) Learn how to use and file a Freedom of Information Act Request.
3) Keep and maintain current records for all your children, medical, school, etc.
4) Contact your State Senator, or Congress Representative, and request a copy of "A CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO STATE GOVERNMENT."
5) For about $20.00 you can purchase a copy of the current court rules for your state from: West Publishing Company, St. Paul Minnesota (800)-328-9352. Included will be federal court rules and child support guidelines.
6) You can get some excellent legal material from the University of Notre Dame Law Department very cheaply, keep in mind many of the items available are over $700.00, but there are many excellent items, books, and legal texts that can be had for a total of under $50.00 from this same source attorneys and law firms pay thousands of dollars for. I highly recommend "MODERN TRIAL ADVOCACY, Analysis and Practice, by Steven Lubet (ISBN 1-55681-266-3) (NOTE: This book could be an In Pro Per, or Pro Se litigant's Bible) National Institute for Trial Advocacy Notre Dame Law School Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 (800)-282-1263 "N.I.T.A." This is an excellent source for legal material and self study.
N.I.T.A. refused to allow me to post some of their sample legal text chapters on this website. So if you click this link you will go directly to their "preview page" and be able to view the first chapter of some excellent legal instructional textbooks. I highly recommend"Modern Trial Advocacy!"7) Taking a mail order paralegal legal assistant study course will help you get familiar with what goes on in an attorney's office and how things are supposed to get done. You'd need to work for an attorney to realize how things really get done.
Look at the page FOIA link for a sample Freedom of information Act Request and how to file it. I recommend that with all of your legal and professional contacts that you tape record your contacts, interviews, and incidents from now on. Document, document, document.
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