Ok, I have posted quite a bit on my story on here so I will briefly go over the story.

My husband has a 5 year old son with another woman. She disappeared a little over 2 years ago and he has not seen his son since. November of last year, she contacted me via a Myspace Page. I gave her our telephone number and she called my husband. He asked to see his son and she refused. She said that she wanted her husband to adopt him. My husband refused. She then placed an ad in the newspaper to "Unknown father,unknown location" to have her husband adopt their son. We found the ad and got a lawyer. Our lawyer was able to stop the pending adoption. The judge said that this was a case to be handled between the two parties.

Our lawyer has tried to contact the mother's lawyer many times since then. He will not return her telephone calls. We have tried to reason with her on many occasions but she refuses visitation. This has been many months ago and my husband is wanting to pursue his visitation rights. Our lawyer told us that it will be more costly to go through the court to get visitation but that we can do it that way,seeing as how the mother will not cooperate.

Okay,that is the back story. The lawyer is supposed to be sending a chart showing where we are financially. My husband also has another son( different mother;different case), who has been legally adopted. A few months ago he had a court date for back child support. We used the same lawyer and she told us that court was continued because she had to go out of town. A week or so later,my husband receives a letter stating that he had missed court. Apparently,the continuation was denied. Our lawyer then tried to get things straightened out with the circuit clerk(finding out what happened, making sure he would not be charged with contempt). We told her to not worry about this case. He decided to pay the amount that was awarded at court and we decided to use the money on the case of his 5 year old son and receiving visitation.

My question is- When I receive this chart, should we be responsible for paying for the events of the court date and the events after? I do not feel that we should have to pay for her time when she was responsible for the problem.

I want some advice and opinions on this. I do not know much about family law(thus so many questions from me all the time) so I would like to know if I am being unreasonable.

Should we have to pay for that time or should we refuse??

Any answers would be helpful. Thanks a lot.

Stephanie

My question is- When I receive this chart, should we be responsible for paying for the
events of the court date and the events after? I do not feel that we should have to pay for her time when she was responsible for the problem.

I want some advice and opinions on this. I do not know much about family law(thus so many questions from me all the time) so I would like to know if I am being unreasonable.

Should we have to pay for that time or should we refuse??

Any answers would be helpful. Thanks a lot.

[F]Stephanie


You don't know if you're going to be charged for her time, if I read this right.

If you do get billed, I would talk to the Attorney. You should not have to pay for any ADDITIONAL appearances caused by her failure to get a continuance. However, if she made, for example, 3 Court appearances and would have had to make 3 Court appearances if the continuance had been granted, I believe you owe her.

She shouldn't be "enriched" by her failure to appear but you should not receive free legal services.

This would be an easier question if he had taken this to the end instead of settling; however, I'd talk to the Attorney (if you are billed) and see what her position is on the matter.

She never made any court appearances for this case. This was the only one scheduled and she never appeared or re-scheduled. We did not tell her to drop this case until quite some time passed. The court hearing was just to set a back child support payment and my husband was happy just to pay what was awarded in court.