MY FILE!

I spent a good part of yesterday going through my file making sure that I had all of the motions, letters, and court orders that should be in it.  I started with printing out my case detail and then went through my pile checking off what I did and did not have.  My stack of motions, etc. has expanded considerably since I started, but still I only have around 60% of my file.  How did that happen!  

I assume that this is simply because I am a litigant in a high conflict divorce.  As we all know, once you go over two years in family court, your brain becomes fully scrambled and you can no longer keep track of anything in your life.  Still, I thought I was better than that.  I have always thought to myself, I have had training as a secretary and so I have learned about organizing systems.  This won't be a problem for me.  

Unfortunately, it did become a problem for me because I relied on someone else to do the job.  Have you noticed how whenever you do that, the job gets f**ked up?

I have a friend who volunteered to come and help me.  She comes by every once and a while and gets busy with the court file, putting documents here and there, spreading them around on counters and floors, really looking like she is getting something done.  But really, the whole time she hasn't been doing anything else but getting the file more disorganized and losing more motions, etc.  

Deep down I always knew this was going on, but since I have been preoccupied running around going to hearings or putting together other motions, I never had adequate time to address the problem.  So while occasionally I would confront my friend and say, "What the heck are you doing?  I see no organization here, she would respond indignantly and say she had everything under control, and who was I to challenge that, knowing that she was my friend and supposedly on my side.  

However, I finally have had a stretch of good time to look into the situation, and boy have I been sorely disappointed to see what has been going on.  I am trying not to have a fight, so I am just calmly saying to my friend things like, we are missing the year 2007--that kind of thing.  Nothing judgmental, just stating facts.  But inside I am like, how can you lose an entire year, you complete and utter idiot!  

Of course, I should forget yelling at this friend.  She wasn't paid and she was trying to be nice and she just got lost in the shower of paper, the same as anyone would.  I should know better than to hand over this entire job to another person.  Ultimately, this is my file and I am the one responsible.  I know more than any other person how central it is for me to have an exact copy of my file.  Without such a copy, the opposing side can invent motions, rulings, and letters that don't exist or deny that I filed certain documents when I did and this have wreak havoc with my case.

Anything that I do for trial court requires a solid basis, and that solid basis fundamentally arises from a fully complete duplicate record of my trial court file.  I know that, so I should never have left this task to any other person than myself, because I am ultimately responsible, the buck stops right at my doorstep, and whatever consequences I have to bear because my file is not complete I will solely have to bear, not anyone else, not even my good friend who has been so hapless.  

This situation has caused me so much distress and anxiety that I stayed up late looking for missing motions until 2:00am last night and then I woke up fully aware and ready to go at 6:30am.  The real bummer is that if I can't locate most of the motions, I will have to go to trial court and request copies for $1.00 per page which could get to be expensive.  

I am so delighted when I find copies which are clearly stamped with the item # placed on the front.  Unfortunately, I am one of those people who created more motions than I filed and I did not think in advance to put a special notation on those motions that I created, but did not file.  So there are additional complications there.  

I would have been in such better shape if I had simply maintained my court file on a daily basis, keeping it constantly updated with every document verified as exactly the same as the original in the courthouse.  

But I am too hard on myself.  We all know how difficult it is to do the most simple common sense things when you are being pounded by family court.  

Still, for all you readers out there, I want to remind you, take another look at your copy of the trial court file.  Is it complete?  Is it exact?  If not, make it so.  The fundamental basis for a strong and effective lawsuit is a well kept court file.  

After that, take a look at your correspondence file.  Is that in chronological order as well?  Is it accurate and complete?  Make sure it is.  There is nothing more effective than being able to say with confidence, "I wrote you a letter on such and such date and said the following, and then you stated this, and I stated that."  Without such an ability your case will become crippled.  Again, if your correspondence file isn't straightened out, straighten it out now, without delay.  There is nothing more crucial to the health and success of your case than your ability to speak clearly and accurately.  

As for my friend, I will never trust her again with this task.  As they say, fool me once--shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.