Once you have hired a lawyer and signed a retainer agreement with him or her, that lawyer will then go to the Court where your case will be heard and sign an Appearance Form indicating to the court that he or she is going to represent you.
Once that Appearance Form has been signed, this means that the lawyer has told the Court that he or she advocates on your behalf and all notices sent from the Court or by the opposing attorney should be sent to the address that he or she has provided on the form. This means that every time you go to court regarding a matter, this attorney will step forward and speak on your behalf and negotiate agreements on your behalf.
The law governing the appearance of an attorney on behalf of a client in the State of Connecticut is detailed in the Connecticut Practice Book 2011 Chapter 3-1 to 3-21.
The one question I have most frequently heard regarding the appearance of an attorney is whether a self-represented party can join his or her attorney and represent him or herself along with the attorney side by side. I looked all over the Practice Book to see if this was possible. While I never saw this arrangement expressly denied in the Practice Book, the attorneys I spoke to simply dismissed the idea and all the clerks spoke to said it just isn't possible. I've seen other self-represented parties give it a try before the judge, but judges don't buy it either. So, I don't think there is any possibility of trying that approach.
However, even though you can't join your attorney shoulder to shoulder in representing yourself, you can have multiple lawyers representing you. This means that not only does the appearance form allow lawyers to check off a box on the appearance form indicating the lawyer is appearing "in lieu of" another attorney it also allows lawyers to indicate that they are appearing "in addition to" another attorney.
Sometimes this allows you to assemble a dream team. But more often than not it is a good way to get rid of a bad attorney without making yourself look bad, because you can just bring one attorney to the forefront and leave the other behind, not out of the case, but not doing anything either.
Where this becomes relevant is when you get to your third attorney or so. That is when the opposing side will begin the litany of "He or She has been represented by more than one attorney"--Oh my God, Call out the National Guard!!!" or worse, "He or She has been represented by several attorneys!". Of course, in high conflict divorces, particularly with the losing side, several attorneys do get involved in the case. Usually, the lawyer saw you were losing and didn't want to be in a losing case and quit, or the lawyer was helping the opposing side and got angry when you objected to him or her doing so, or you simply ran out of money and the attorney was unwilling to work for nothing. It really shouldn't be held against you, but it is.
According to their professional ethics, an attorney cannot simply walk out on you and abandon you right in the middle of your case, but they do it all the time, so don't start feeling secure as though they can't do it, because they can and they will. In order to do so, they have to withdraw their appearance. However, they can't do so without getting a judge's permission and so they are required to file a "Motion to Withdraw" which must be heard by the judge.
They can't put down as a reason for their wish to withdraw something as crass as you haven't been paying them, or they don't like you or your dang case, because the Judge won't want to hear it and they don't want it public in the courtroom how much money or character matters in the legal system. Instead, what a lawyer will put down as the basis for a Motion to Withdraw is something vague like "a breakdown of the attorney client relationship."
My best advice here is DO NOT SHOW UP FOR THIS HEARING. Let the attorney obtain permission from the judge to withdraw by default because you were absent from the hearing. Otherwise, the lawyer will invent very damaging reasons for needing to withdraw and those inventions will end up being on the record and will follow you from motion to motion, hearing to hearing. Yes, in these situations attorneys are dirty, lice ridden ugly scum. You are right. Now run away as fast as you can.
Moving along, likewise, you cannot just get rid of an attorney who is representing you and has an appearance filed on your behalf by telling them something as clear and understandable as "You are fired!". I have heard frequently of people who fired their attorneys only to have them show up unannounced at the next hearing and try to take over. And "no", you cannot just fire your attorney and replace him or her by filing an appearance as a self represented party. The only way you can actually get rid of your attorney is to hire another attorney and have that new attorney file an appearance "in lieu of" the old attorney and send a copy of that appearance form to the old attorney you want to get rid of.
If you didn't start off as a self represented party and you want to replace your lawyer with yourself as a self represented party, you have to get a judge's order in order to do that. No Fair! Well, get used to it. There is lots of "no fair!" in family court. Where this situation can be difficult is when you are trying to become a self represented party and replace an idiot attorney who was sucking up to the opposing side. Then the opposing attorney who really, really loved the old suckup will come to court on your motion to represent yourself and oppose your motion vigorously. In that case, you could end up legally ordered to continue on with an idiot attorney you hate. So you end up being in quite a bind.
It's quite a mine field as I well know, having gone through it myself. All I can say is, despite it all, I did end up being able to represent myself. What was particularly persuasive to the judge was that even before I became a self represented party I was bypassing my lawyer and submitting my own motions, so the judge simply said, she is already doing it, she might as well keep on with it. I am not necessarily advising you to do what I did, but it tells you how things can go in court sometimes.
Anyway, look up Chapter 3 of the 2011 Practice Book for more information. Also, I will provide here the URL of a video presentation prepared by the Connecticut Judicial Court explaining how to fill out an Appearance Form. Good Luck!
See the URL: http://www.jud.ct.gov/forms/Filing_an_Appearance.pdf
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