Ask Me Help Desk - Lawyer Concerns

Hi everyone. I have posted on here before about an adoption case. I will just briefly go over the story. My husband has a 5 year old son with another woman. She disappeared with him when he was 2 and 1/2. Just recently, she contacted my husband and wanted him to sign over his parental rights. He would not and expressed that he wanted to see him so she tried to have their son adopted with out his consent. I found the ad in the paper and we got a lawyer. Well, a court date was set and the lawyers brought their cases before the judge. The judge would not grant the adoption and said it needed to be handled between the two parties. Well, that has been months ago and we have paid our lawyer over $3,000. We are waiting on something to happen and our lawyer keeps saying that the mother's lawyer will not answer or return her calls. My question is can't my husband just file for standard visitation(his name is on the birth certificate)? It is obvious that the child's mother is not pushing for the adoption or anything at all really. Our lawyer is acting as if nothing can be done. I really feel as if something could be done but they know that we are willing to pay all this money. I am honestly starting to think that they are dragging it out. I am considering contacting another lawyer. My husband and I don't know too much about this kind of stuff and our lawyer knows that. I would just like to hear some thoughts and advice before we take any kind of action.

Beyond that, my husband had a court date set for another child's child support. Our lawyer told us 3 days before that she had the court date set for another time. So we didn't show up for court and then he got a letter in the mail from the circuit clerk saying he missed court and they set child support by what the mother wanted. This seemed ridiculous to me and also,once again, our lawyer is wasting our money.

Any comments at all would help.
Thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConcernedMommy08

Hi everyone. I have posted on here before about an adoption case. I will just briefly go over the story. My husband has a 5 year old son with another woman. She disapeared with him when he was 2 and 1/2. Just recently, she contacted my husband and wanted him to sign over his parental rights. He would not and expressed that he wanted to see him so she tried to have their son adopted with out his consent. I found the ad in the paper and we got a lawyer. Well, a court date was set and the lawyers brought their cases before the judge. The judge would not grant the adoption and said it needed to be handled between the two parties. Well, that has been months ago and we have paid our lawyer over $3,000. We are waiting on something to happen and our lawyer keeps saying that the mother's lawyer will not answer or return her calls. My question is can't my husband just file for standard visitation(his name is on the birth certificate)? It is obvious that the child's mother is not pushing for the adoption or anything at all really. Our lawyer is acting as if nothing can be done. I really feel as if something could be done but they know that we are willing to pay all this money. I am honestly starting to think that they are dragging it out. I am considering contacting another lawyer. My husband and I don't know too much about this kind of stuff and our lawyer knows that. I would just like to hear some thoughts and advice before we take any kind of action.

Beyond that, my husband had a court date set for another child's child support. Our lawyer told us 3 days before that she had the court date set for another time. So we didnt show up for court and then he got a letter in the mail from the circuit clerk saying he missed court and they set child support by what the mother wanted. This seemed ridiculous to me and also,once again, our lawyer is wasting our money.

Any comments at all would help.
Thanks

I don't know why with child #1 the Attorney hasn't recommended that your husband file for visitation. I don't know if your husband is paying support but I'm sure the mother will counter file for support. The current Court case MIGHT preclude your husband filing at this time - what State? That's something your Attorney should know off the top of her head.

In the second case the Attorney isn't just wasting your time and money - if she was on retainer, did not appear, the award was made without you and her she has committed a malpractice - unless there are some extenuating circumstances which I am not seeing here. It is the job of the Attorney to get this straightened out.

I'd go in and ask the Attorney point blank - why can't your husband file for visitation for the first child; what happened in the case involving the second. And I would go in IN PERSON and not conduct this business over the phone.

We live in Alabama. Every time we ask what's going on with the case, they say the same thing. They are waiting to hear from the mother's lawyer but she is obviously not doing anything. And we pay our lawyer $200/hr. We get charged for every phone call,letter, anyhting at all. I am upset because it is costing us for the lawyer to fix the mistake that she made. (The missed court date) I really feel like we've paid $3000 and nothing has really happened. We really don't have the money. We have 2 kids together as well. Our daughter asks about her brother all the time. So you agree that he should be able to file for visitation?

Thanks a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConcernedMommy08

We live in Alabama. Everytime we ask what's going on with the case, they say the same thing. They are waiting to hear from the mother's lawyer but she is obviously not doing anything. And we pay our lawyer $200/hr. We get charged for every phone call,letter, anyhting at all. I am upset because it is costing us for the lawyer to fix the mistake that she made. (The missed court date) I really feel like we've paid $3000 and nothing has really happened. We really don't have the money. We have 2 kids together as well. Our daughter asks about her brother all the time. So you agree that he should be able to file for visitation?

Thanks alot.

Well, unless I'm missing something, unless you are precluded by virtue of a case already being on the books I would think so - but your Attorney should be the one doing the explaining and fixing.

You most definitely should NOT have to pay for her mistake.

You have to have complete trust and communication with your attorney, if you don't have that trust, you need a new attorney.

See that's why I am considering it. I should not even think that our lawyer is trying to waste our money. That tells me something right there. It is a small practice. It is just the lawyer and her assistant. I feel like her assistant is very unorganized. I just feel like they could be doing a better job for $200/hr. At one point, when nothing was going on, the assistant was very short with me about us giving them more money. We had already paid $1000 and this was before the court case and before the second child was even an issue. So essentially,nothing had happened and she was acting as if we had to pay more money or the lawyer wouldn't show up. She didn't say that but that is the way it felt. I asked how we owed more money already and she gave me a list of telephone calls made from our lawyer(to us & the circuit clerk), we were charged for every copy of the contest papers that they printed,postage for the stamps,every second she spent even thinking about our case. The times seemed ridiculous. We were charged for literally 1 minute long conversations. The times spent typing seemed to be more than they should be also. It shouldn't have took 45 minutes to type a standard contest paper. I don't know. I really liked her to begin with and I still want to like her. I just feel like something isn't right.

Thanks for the comment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConcernedMommy08

See that's why I am considering it. I should not even think that our lawyer is trying to waste our money. That tells me something right there. It is a small practice. It is just the lawyer and her assistant. I feel like her assistant is very unorganized. I just feel like they could be doing a better job for $200/hr. At one point, when nothing was going on, the assistant was very short with me about us giving them more money. We had already paid $1000 and this was before the court case and before the second child was even an issue. So essentially,nothing had happened and she was acting as if we had to pay more money or the lawyer wouldn't show up. She didn't say that but that is the way it felt. I asked how we owed more money already and she gave me a list of telephone calls made from our lawyer(to us & the circuit clerk), we were charged for every copy of the contest papers that they printed,postage for the stamps,every second she spent even thinking about our case. The times seemed ridiculous. We were charged for literally 1 minute long conversations. The times spent typing seemed to be more than they should be also. It shouldn't have took 45 minutes to type a standard contest paper. I don't know. I really liked her to begin with and I still want to like her. I just feel like something isn't right.

Thanks for the comment.

OK, this concerns me - every law firm I've ever worked in billed in 10 minute increments, 1/6 of the hourly rate. If an Attorney or paraprofessional spent 30 seconds on a matter it is/was billed as 10 minutes.

In my area $200/hour is a bargain.

Not unusual in my area for you to be charged for every expense - postage, copies, paper clips (practically).

I just don't know why you are being billed for the SECRETARY's time typing papers - if that is what you are saying. I have NEVER seen that. I HAVE seen paralegal time billed, Clerk time billed, Associate time billed - I have NEVER seen the time spent TYPING (not preparing, not drafting, just typing) legal papers billed.

And how much an hour are you paying for the secretary's time? Ridiculous.

Another thing is the only person we ever communicate with is the assistant. She seems irritated when I ask questions. It almost feels as if she tries to make me feel like I don't know what I am talking about. She is always very short with me but not with my husband. I called one time and she answers and says "Hey Matthew."(They have caller ID) When I said it was me her tone changed and she said "What do you need? I have another call." I feel like she would rather talk to him because he never questions anything. I just do not know how to go about getting a new lawyer. Any advice on that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConcernedMommy08

Another thing is the only person we ever communicate with is the assistant. She seems irritated when I ask questions. It almost feels as if she tries to make me feel like I don't know what I am talking about. She is always very short with me but not with my husband. I called one time and she answers and says "Hey Matthew."(They hace caller ID) When I said it was me her tone changed and she said "What do you need? I have another call." I feel like she would rather talk to him because he never questions anything. I just do not know how to go about getting a new lawyer. Any advice on that?

OK, I guess you want an honest answer here and I would suggest that the problem is that your husband is the client, you have no legal standing concerning your husband's children, and that is her reluctance. I have worked in firms that will not give info to anyone but the client (not the husband or wife) because the info tends to be passed to the client something less than 100% of what was told to the spouse. I am certainly not saying this is the case here because you obviously know and understand the situation but it COULD be the problem. Of course, if that is the problem I have no idea why the Attorney doesn't just come right out and tell you.

And there is also a possibility the secretary has some sort of personality defect - hates her job, hates women, whatever.

OK. Changing Attorneys - at this time it would be costly. A new Attorney would have to review the entire file (after whatever time frame it actually takes to get the file from the old Attorney), bring himself/herself up to speed, meet with you, probably review the file at the Courthouse - and then try to correct whatever he/she thinks went wrong. And all of that is going to cost you at an hourly rate.

I still would make an appointment, go to the present Attorney's office, write down your questions and sit there and get answers as you go down the list of questions. Maybe in your State she can't open another "case" (by filing a Motion) when there is a matter open; maybe there is a reason a default Judgment was obtained - before you decide what to do, I would find out what happened... and why... and why nothing appears to be happening now.

Ive considered that too but the lawyer has no problem communicating with me. It just seems to be her assistant and that's the only person we ever talk to. Every time we ask what is going on, she tells us that the mother's lawyer will not return their telephone calls. I do not understand this. If her lawyer is not communicating with ours, there should be some way around that. Me and my husband have been talking about it and he is beginning to get discouraged. We don't have the money and nothing seems to be happening.