Attorneys (lawyers to you ‘foreigners’ on the wrong side of the Atlantic) have always had a bad rap. They are often portrayed as amoral shysters just out to milk whoever they can for whatever they can. And having witnessed them in close range recently (thanks to my ongoing and increasingly-acrimonious divorce), the reality is even worse.
Divorce in the U.S. is a strange thing. And considering that the most recent statistics claim that a full 50% of marriages end in divorce, they certainly make you jump through some hoops to get one. Firstly, you can’t really get a divorce without going to court and seeing a judge, and filing all kinds of paperwork. And before you even start the judge may lay certain conditions on you even applying – like taking parenting classes if there are kids involved, seeing a counsellor to try and work things out, and so on. But assuming the judge does indeed let you file, navigating through the process is an art form – which means that you really need an attorney, even if you both agree to the divorce – and definitely if there is any possibility of a disagreement over anything.
The attorney’s job is – in theory – to navigate you through the legal minefield and in the process make sure that you don’t get screwed over by your spouse. Or, as is more likely the case, make sure that you don’t get screwed over by your spouse’s attorney – because they will find ways to screw you over that you know your spouse can’t have thought of for themselves. So really, when it comes down to it, it’s just a pissing contest between attorneys, whilst the poor saps just trying to get on with their lives look on, occasionally lifting their head above the parapet only long enough to throw more money at their attorney.
When you file for divorce, you get a day in court (eventually – I filed in December 2010 and the court date is set for September 2011), and as with all court cases, there is effectively a prosecution (me) and a defense (her), and all of the ‘disclosure’ clauses that go with that. If you have evidence to support your claims, you must disclose this to opposing counsel well before the court date, so that they can plan their defense (no sudden ‘reveals’ to gasps of the jury, here…). So there are a whole lot of ‘Requests for Disclosure’, and ‘Responses to Requests for Disclosure’ and a lot of arguments about allegedly incomplete or obtuse answers. And this is where the attorneys really make their money. (And I deliberately use the term ‘make’ and not ‘earn’…) There seems to be a standard set of requests that all attorneys use, as the requests made by my estranged spouse’s attorney seemed to be almost verbatim the requests made by mine. Most of these are fairly innocuous, although some are irritating to have to provide – like the last three year’s bank statements and credit card statements, supervisor’s names and phone numbers for the last three years, and so on. I also received a request to provide my Credit Report from any of the three supported credit agencies (another big business over here). Although it chafed my ass to do so, I reasoned that this was a legally-binding order so duly obtained my Credit Report and sent it off to my attorney (along with sheaves of other requested documents) for her to send to opposing counsel. My attorney submitted an identical request to the estranged spouse, but when I received my copy of the spouse’s disclosures, I saw that she (i.e. her attorney) had declined to provide a Credit Report, stating that it was “information that is private”. WTF‽ She asked me for this information, and then refused to provide the same thing herself? I complained to my attorney. “Yeah, I didn’t send them yours either – I just objected for the same reasons.” !!! So both attorneys know that they are not going to provide this information themselves, and know they are not going to get it from the opposition, but both ask for it anyway. It was the same with many of the other requests, which were met on both sides with stock answers of “…seeks information that is already in the possession of…” or “…unnecessarily burdensome…” or “…after diligent search no relevant information was found…”. Why ask for it in the first place if you know you’re not going to get it? Presumably because it all takes time to process, and attorneys are paid by the hour.
Sometimes there are questions or requests for information that you really can’t answer yourself in good faith. Like “How much do you think your spouse can earn?” and “What education do you think they need to achieve this?”. My ‘favorite’ question was “How much do you think your spouse needs per month?”. I responded – quite reasonably, I thought – that I had no idea, but the attorney could probably find out this information by asking her client. Her response by return was: “Not good enough. Put a dollar value on it. And if you need some ‘help’, attached is our estimate.” So she basically wanted me to look at the number she had provided, and then provide that same number back to her (because any lower figure would be rejected, and I’m hardly likely to put a higher figure on it, am I?). And all of this at a not insignificant hourly rate! (And from the invoices I’m seeing they must type these requests and responses reeeaaally slowly…no 120 words per minute going on there…).
But the real scam is in stating something (anything – it doesn’t have to be fact) and then sitting back and waiting for it to be denied. My wife’s attorney has made some wild claims (not even ‘allegedly’, but stated as fact) that are absolutely untrue – and that my estranged spouse knows are pure lies – but once they have been ‘put out there’ (i.e. filed with the court) they have to be vociferously defended. Her attorney gets paid for filing this pile of crap, and my attorney gets paid for refuting it (which I always manage to do successfully, for a net result of ‘no change’). Now, either the attorneys are in cahoots (unlikely as they don’t really seem to like each other), or her attorney is trying to bankrupt me by forcing me to pay my attorney to work on rebuttals to statements that shouldn’t even have been made in the first place.
Attorney fees are also an interesting point for disclosure. Apparently attorneys have the right to ask the opposing attorney to disclose what they have charged for their services in the case. This information makes no difference whatsoever to the divorce, so I can only assume that it is also for the attorney’s benefit (or just because they are nosy). And strangely, every time that the opposing attorney asks for (and gets) my attorney’s fees, their next invoice seems to equal the same amount – it’s like they’re thinking “well, if X is getting so much then I need to be getting the same…”. And what really burns my ass is that I have to pay both sets of fees. I know! Apparently, because the hopefully-soon-to-be-ex is brassic, any attorney fees incurred by her would simply become ‘community debt’ for which we are both liable (Texas being a community state), and as she allegedly has no money, it would effectively become my debt to pay, so I may as well just pay it now and net it out when we divide up our assets and debts in the final settlement. So for now I am enduring the ignominy of having to pay to have someone try to screw me out of everything I have – and a lot of what I don’t have but they claim I do. That just doesn’t seem right to me. Screw healthcare reform, Obama needs to reform the divorce courts…
So now, five months and several thousand dollars into a divorce, I have a much greater appreciation for the art of attorneying. I may not like it, but at least I know to bring my own vaselene to the court dates now. If only opposing counsel would stop slipping sand into it…
(With apologies to my attorney – I didn’t mean you, I meant them other attorneys.)
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