1. Manage your emotions: Emotions usually run high when relationships end and the battle ensues over who gets what and how time with the children of the relationship will be arranged. While high emotions may be understandable, they are not helpful to your case. Highly emotional clients often spend an inordinate amount of time (and their retainers) conveying details which, although perhaps of great concern to the client, are legally irrelevant to the case. Furthermore, clients overcome by emotions sometimes unwittingly jeopardize their own cases by acting in ways that can be used against them later at trial (e.g., inappropriate texts or social media posts, threats of harm to others or self-harm, acts of domestic violence, withholding children or otherwise not acting in the children’s best interest, etc.). If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your emotions, consider talking to trusted friends or family or a mental health professional.
2. Be organized: Start gathering all the financial documents required in your case as soon as possible. The sooner your attorney has these documents, the quicker your case will progress. Save your communications with the other party as they may be needed at hearings or trial. Keep track of important information since the date of separation such as payments made for child support and continued involvement in the children’s lives (or lack thereof).
3. Be honest with your attorney: Don’t withhold information from your attorney because you think it will make you look bad or hurt your case. Your attorney needs all the relevant information early on in order to properly assess your case and prepare. What will certainly hurt your case is if your attorney is surprised by negative facts mid-trial or hearing.
4. Be realistic: Although litigation always involves some degree of uncertainty, an experienced Family Law attorney can apply the law to the facts of your case for a realistic prediction of the outcome at trial or hearing. You may not like the law or what your attorney is telling you, but you’d be wise to heed her advice.
5. Make the most of mediation: Mediation offers parties the opportunity to settle, or at least partially settle, their cases early on. This can not only save parties money, time, and stress, but it can provide a sense of agency over one’s own life, when the alternative is to leave such important and personal decisions up to a stranger (i.e., the judge).
6. Retain the services of an experienced Family Law attorney: Nothing increases the likelihood of the most favorable outcome possible in your case like being represented by a strong and experienced attorney.
If you’re in need of an experienced Family Law attorney, call the Rice Law Firm to schedule a consultation.