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ScottGem · Nov 16, 2009, 09:04 PM

Ask the judge to prosecute them for perjury

ProudMommy09 · Nov 23, 2009, 07:20 PM

Well we have a court date set in January which means that the adoption did not go through automatically, thankfully. So we have a shot. Any suggestions on what he should bring to the table? Should he just get up & tell his side of the story or should we try to bring evidence of her role in the non-communication?

ScottGem · Nov 23, 2009, 08:15 PM

You should bring CONCRETE evidence. Bring copies of the original action to show that he responded. Bring physical evidence of attempts to contact and to see the child.

ProudMommy09 · Nov 26, 2009, 03:01 PM

My husband is the biological father of a child whose step-father is trying to adopt him. My husband contested this adoption & has a court date set for Jan 4. He has not physically seen his child since 2005. The mother disappeared with him when he was 2 & re-married. We were never able to find them. However, in 2007, she reappeared married to a different man & wanted my husband to allow him to adopt their son. He refused & he has been trying to convince her to allow him to see his son. I know the big issue is that the court is going to want to know why he never did anything legal about it. We have never been able to afford to. We thought that she would come around to the idea. She tried to have him adopted last year with out my husbands consent but we hired a lawyer & contested it. It wasn't granted & the mother moved away out of state again immediately. We have not known where they were but we have kept in contact with her through the computer. We spent every bit of money we had on that lawyer and yet, the mother still managed to run off with him again. When the mother continually refused to allow communication, we asked for her address because we were going to get a new lawyer. She would not give us the address. She then went & filed a petition for her husband to adopt the child again, saying we have not tried to communicate with them in 4 years. We have contested the petition without a lawyer & we have the court date set for January.

My husband is really nervous about this since we will not have a lawyer to speak for him. What kind of hard questions are they going to ask him? I know their lawyer is going to try to make him look bad. Does any one know exactly what the judge is going to say & want to know? My husbands version of the story would be that she's crazy & keeps running off with him. That will not fly with a judge. I am trying to help him prepare for this court date since I will not be allowed to speak for him. Any one know any of the specifics they ask? He just wants to be allowed to see his son.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

ProudMommy09 · Nov 27, 2009, 09:38 AM

Can some one please move my last post back to the adoption forum? I was not asking for legal advice. I wanted some input from someone who had been through the situation.

ScottGem · Nov 27, 2009, 11:43 AM

Sorry, but it looks like you are asking for legal advice. Also it will help people help you if they know the whole story.

So it stays here.

ProudMommy09 · Dec 27, 2009, 02:01 PM

If a lawyer types up a motion to file & makes a typing error, such as typing Donnie instead of Dannie, should we have to pay for her to fix that? We did not supply her with the wrong name. She just typed it wrong.

Also, if the lawyer does not show up in court, should we have to pay for her services on that case? Here's the case - A man has a child who was adopted by his step father a year ago. The mother did not turn in the final adoption papers to the DHR. Therefore the bio father is still being charged child support. The mother decides that she wants back child support arrears from the bio father & also wants him to pay for the child's insurance. A court date is set. The bio father's lawyer does not show up for court & the mother is granted the child support arrears at her request. The father also receives a letter stating that he had a failure to appear in court. The lawyer did not tell the bio father that she did not go. He found out from the letter in the mail! My question is - should the father have to pay the lawyer for anything done with this case?

Any answers would be helpful. Tha attorney is saying he owes her money but I believe the lawyer should actually be refunding the father some money! Some one help me out. I need to be sure I am not incorrect before responding to her. Thanks!

Fr_Chuck · Dec 27, 2009, 06:52 PM

Well first the bio should have went to court even if the lawyer was suppose to be there, since they had a court order to appear.

Next depends on what the payments were for, often court appearances are extra money, and was the original contract to court appearance, my last hiring of an attorney was paperwork only, and did not pay for appearance. So what was the agreement for.

Also on the type error, they should fix, ( it is saved on their computers normally and would require little if any work) but also to be honest most of the time, you can cross out the error, correct it and initial it and still submit it to court.

Also the person who hires the attorney is suppose to proof read it before they sign it to submit it.

So there is not enough info as to the original agreement, how much was paid, since just for writing up doc would be 1000 to 2000 often, and that 3000 to 5000 if they were to appear in court also. * and that is just retainers, and the attorney would submit a bill for hours against the retainers paid
Unless they agreed to just provide specific service for a set fee

ProudMommy09 · Dec 27, 2009, 07:37 PM

The agreement was for her to do what is necessary for the set fee. Her fee was $200/hr. She told us not to appear in court on that date. We called ona Thursday to see what time we needed to be at the courthouse that Monday & she told us not to come. That court was cancelled. Then he got a letter saying he was set to pay child support & he failed to appear in court.

Yeah, on the typing error, it says it took 1.4 hours to revise it! That's over $200! According to the list of fees, she made copies & sent the first one out. It was when we proof read it that I found the mistake. I didn't think she sent out the first copy but according to her fees, she did.

Also, another thing I noticed was when she was our attorney, my husband asked her to file for visitation many times. (Not for the adopted child) She kept telling us that she could not get in touch the mothers attorney. According to her fees, she supposedly spoke with him about more than once. But she never filed for my husband because she said she couldn't get in touch with the other attorney.

Also, the day before my husband decided not to use her as his attorney anymore, they said we had a balance of $800. Now she is trying to say that we owe her $200. The only thing she did was close out the case & I know it doesn't cost $1000 to do that!

We've been thinking about going to the bar about it but we have no idea how to go about doing it. We spent $3500 & he still does not have visitation of his child.

ProudMommy09 · Dec 28, 2009, 10:16 AM

Who moved this post? The lawyer errors are not on this same case. I do not need advise on this case. I just want advise on the money issue.