WHEN FISH START TO STINK, YOU CAN SMELL THEM ANYWHERE!

I always believe in going with my gut, and when my gut tells me that there is something fishy about a person I'm usually right. That's why if I keep on getting that little nudge from inside telling me I should check up on someone, I usually follow it. 

There are several ways to get information on people in the judicial system.  One way is to drop by the various support groups for domestic violence held around the state.  It is within those groups that all the gossip takes place about different judges and lawyers, GALS, and mental health professionals. Some of my best conversations about lawyers, judges, and shrinks and what they are up to have taken place within those groups. 

 Members of these groups swap experiences and elaborate on all the details you might have missed about a particular lawyer or judge or mental health professional, unhampered by the obstacles of convention and the presumption of respect for a professional.  Once you have been threatened and/or tortured either emotionally or physically and have watched your attorney or judge make fun of your attempts to obtain the protection you need all that respect disappears really quickly. 

One way to obtain information about attorneys is to look up their case load on the judicial website at:  http://civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov/.  If you review these cases online, you can get a good overview of the kinds of cases your attorney takes on and find out what happened in each of those cases. The case details (list of all pleadings and rulings in a case) will be available online and in many of the civil cases you can actually view the documents in a case online. 

If you are unable to obtain those documents online, you can then go to the clerk's office in family or civil court and request any files that you want.  The majority of case files are readily available to the public upon request. 

The other thing that you can do is use the internet to locate the contact information of litigants who have been represented by a particular lawyer.  Once you have these litigants on the phone, you have a good chance of asking questions which will provide further detail about that lawyer.  As I have said, if an attorney is doing it to you, he is most likely doing it to everyone else.  If a judge is doing it to you, all the way down the line, that judge is probably doing it to everyone else.  If a mental health professional is doing it to you, he is most likely doing it to others. 

Don't just check the judicial website, also make sure you investigate the records of the Statewide Grievance Committee which are also online and see if any of the attorneys who wrecked your case, wrecked other people's cases.  You'd be amazed at the information you will find out about what these scummy lawyers have done to other people just like you.  

And don't forget google.  I recently typed the name of a therapist I had a few decades ago onto google and found out that he had been involved in medicare fraud.  That really blew my mind.  I mean, here I had spent several years in therapy with this person and it turned out that he was a common criminal.  Really, think about it, how many of these white collar criminals are out there along with my old therapist.  I'll tell you now---a whole lot of them! 

When I was observing Judge Herbert Barall during my visits to the courthouse and saw how outrageously he behaved, all I had to do was google him on the internet to find out that he had a history of behaving outrageously in the Wiegand/Wilkerson case. 

Really, evil behavior is addictive.  People who indulge in vicious criminal behavior will never be able to do it just once.  So look around, ask around, check the internet, go to meetings, talk to people, check in the clerk's office, follow the stinky trail straight to the fish bodies.  At the very least, you will meet your suffering comrades in arms, and at the very best, you will have found others who will validate your experience and strengthen your resolve to fight on and achieve success in your case and change the system for the better.

DO IT YOURSELF DISCOVERY RE REAL ESTATE

In the final days before the dissolution of my marriage and the crummy financial agreement I got stuck with my attorney insisted that I get an expert to do a title search regarding the real estate in my case.  That must have cost me around $400.00 or more. 

Before you get pulled into this kind of nonsense consider doing the title search yourself!

All you have to do is look up the land records for the particular town you live on by googling online.  So if you live in Farmville, for instance, you would type Farmville Land Records into the search engine and hit return.  Once you have gotten to the land records for the town you live in, all you then have to do is type your name or your soon to be X's name into the search engine and include the timeframe you are considering. 

Anything and everything related to real estate and your X and you will be listed on the land records.  This means that the title deed to your home, any mortgage documents, release from mortgage documents, liens, will all be there. 

Next, if you click on view next to any particular document, you will see that a copy of the document is available online--most towns have scanned them all into their computers--and you can then print out a copy of your own, all without even leaving your house, or the library, wherever you do you work. 

You can pretty much get good copies of these documents from any town or city in the entire United States wherever you think either you or your X may own real estate.  Doing this yourself saves you the money you might have to spend to have someone do it for you. 

There is another reason why a search of this kind is helpful. Many men siphen money out of the marriage by taking out mortgages without the knowledge of their wives.  In the sixteen years of my marriage, my X took out or attempted to take out as much as one or two mortgages per year.  There is no way to track those mortgages if your X didn't tell you about them except through examining the mortgage documents listed in the land records. 

At least if you review the land records you can find out which mortgage companies your X made applications to and you can find out how much money he borrowed.  Once you have that information you can then subpoena the mortgage companies for the mortgage applications which include even more financial information which could be helpful to you in tracking down hidden assets or simply confirming the accuracy of what you know already. 

Not only can you get the names of the mortgage companies, you can get the names of the lawyers who were involved in the transactions and also the names of the mortgage company representatives, so you have the names of people who could really help you with your inquiries. 

These records generally go back at least two or three decades or more, so you can obtain a substantial amount of information from them.  For those of us whose X's have kept us completely in the dark regarding financial matters, a review of these documents can be truly revelatory.

HOW TO GET THE HELP YOU NEED. DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK.

A few years ago when I was in the middle of the worst of my divorce, I got out of bed in the morning, went into the bathroom and started the shower and dangled my fingers in the cold spray and waited for the water to warm up, and waited, and waited some more.

As it turned out, if I wanted hot water that day, I could have waited forever.  You see, there was this little problem with my furnace.  It had run out of oil.  Since I couldn't afford to buy any more, but I still had some play left on my electric bill, I pulled out all of my electric heaters and placed them strategically around the house. 

On another day, I was watching TV and all of a sudden it went dead.  Then I went to the bathroom and flipped the light switch on, but the room remained dark.  Oops, it turned out that the electric company I had been stringing along with a small payment here and a small payment there had finally gotten sick and tired off me and cut off the juice. This meant that for a while, the kids and I were positively old fashioned lighting up the house with a multitude of candles. 

For the children, those days were full of adventure, days when they all slept companionably in one room so that I could save money on heating, days when they ran around playing tag in a darkened home because there wasn't enough money for electricity. 

In contrast, for me, these were days of horror as I imagined what the GAL would say or the judge would say if they had any idea that my children were living in these conditions.  Now in a world of common sense, such people would immediately demand that father pay more child support, but in the world that we live in, the world in which abusers reign supreme, a situation of this kind simply represented an opportunity for those involved in our case to prove that I shouldn't have custody of my children because I wasn't responsible enough to pay my bills. 

So what could I do in a situation where I had an electric bill of over one thousand dollars that CLP demanded I pay in full before they would restore power to my house?  

One answer is Town Social Services.  In my particular case, I went to town social services and they paid the entire bill, cutting out the check, and making personal phone calls to make sure that once the money had been paid everything would be put back in order and the electricity restored.  At the same time, they connected me with programs that would be able to give me further assistance for the future. 

Another is the church or temple:  One good friend of mine temporarily lost child support for a few months, and so what did she do?  She went to Catholic Charities in Hartford and filled out an application to cover the cost of her mortgage.  Not only the Catholic Church, but also many other denominations and faiths maintain funds which are intended for average folk who find themselves in need of emergency money, and you don't have to be indigent to get it, just reasonably respectable.  

How about food banks, the ones you contributed to in better times?  Also, keep in mind that most communities have some sort of food bank or else they will know where free food gets passed out with a minimal amount of questions asked. 

Also, keep in mind that school systems have free lunch programs for those at or below the poverty level, and many of us are put right at that point by inadequate support orders judges often put into place during the pendente lite period. So do not assume you are not eligible just because your ex makes a good salary; what he makes has nothing to do with what you are getting, and what you are getting and supporting yourself with is what you report. 

As the word spreads that you need help, more people will come to you either offering you their personal assistance or providing you with more suggestions on how to get your needs met as well as that of children.  There is a safety net, but you have to go out there and find it.  This is not to say that there are always solutions to the problems, but it is worth your time to find the ones that are out there.

COURT FILE MANAGEMENT

As you may know, I talk to quite a few people about family court and often end up having folks talk to me about their cases.  Sometimes, if a case interests me enough, with the permission of the person involved, I might end up looking at the court file for a particular case.  Which leads me to this particularly important point: Make sure that you have an exact copy of everything that is in your file. 

What do I mean by the court file?  According to the 2011 Practice Book 7-1 the clerks are required to keep a record of all pending cases, including applications and petitions made to the court, together with a record of each paper filed and order made or judgment rendered therein, with the date of such filing, making or rendition.  The record of your pending case is what is known as your court file.  What is in this court file is sometimes referred to as what is in the record or on the record. 

The court file includes whatever documents your attorney sends to the court and/or whatever documents your attorney receives from the opposing attorney which was sent to court.  It also includes court orders. 

You should have your own personal copy of all these documents. Also, always get copies of the court orders that the clerks put in your file, because if you don't see the exact wording of the order, you may not entirely understand it, and if you don't fully understand it, you may not require that your X obey it, or you might just inadvertently disobey it yourself. 

Also, sometimes orders can be worded in ways that you might interpret differently than your own attorney or the opposing attorney interprets it, or the judge could provide explanations in writing on the order which provide insight into the judge's intentions. If you understand the order differently than other parties to the case, or you have trouble understanding it at all, you need an exact copy of the order so that you can obtain further clarification either from your lawyer or the court.  Without an exact copy of what is in your file, you cannot expect to be on top of what is going on in your case. 

This leads me to my next point, which is, most divorce cases in Connecticut, particularly high conflict divorces, take at least a year or more to resolve.  Since this is true, always make sure that you go personally to the courthouse every couple of months and review the documents that have been placed in your file. 

There are two reasons for doing this.  One, I know this is against the rules, but every once in a while the opposing attorney could be tempted to slip something into the file without giving you a copy of it. Two, every once in while your own attorney could be too lazy or avoidant to send you a copy of documents he or she receives and/or sends.  Unless you personally review your court file, you are not going to find out about it. 

Plus, every once in a while a judge or a clerk might just scribble a few words on a document or court order that will provide some explanation of the thinking in your case that is going on in court.  Another consideration you should keep in mind is that sometimes clerks will simply fail to include a document that you have submitted to court.  This may just happen with self represented parties like me, but even so, you want to be sure that all documents relevant to your case which you submitted in good faith and believed were in the record are, indeed, in the record. 

A good way to make sure that everything that should be there, is there, is to print out the case detail from the judicial website:  http://www.jud2.ct.gov/.  The case detail is the listing of all documents that have been submitted to the court in your case along with the individual number provided for each document.  Match all the documents listed on the case detail with the documents you have in your file.  This is helpful because whenever you refer to these documents in any motions you submit to the court later on, you can use those numbers as an additional means to identify them.  Also, if you have more documents in your possession that you have submitted to court than you have numbers, you can be alerted immediately to any problems with clerks not listing your motions in the file. 

Finally, it is important to think about what kind of impression does this file, your file, convey regarding the kind of person that you are?  Remember, sometimes the first impression a judge will get of your case will arise solely from the opportunity he or she has to review your file.  And first impressions are often indelible. 

Are there any unanswered accusations that should be responded to?  Make note of that as something that should be addressed at a later time.  Has your attorney stated that he or she filed certain documents, but you can't find them in the court file.  Again, this is something to make note of and bring up with your attorney.  Is there anything in the file that could compromise you in any way if seen out of context?  Make note of that as well and plan on providing the appropriate context. 

They say that the devil is in the details.  Make sure he isn't in YOUR case detail!

JOIN PMA'S NEW FACEBOOK GROUP "DV BY PROXY"!

On the facebook page "DV by Proxy" Protective Mother's Alliance's Executive Director, Janice Levinson takes the time to comment on the difference between Parental Alienation Syndrome and Domestic Violence by Proxy.  Here is what she says:


As more and more abused women lose custody to batterers in family courts, they are wrongly embracing the very ideas that enabled their abusers to gain custody in the first place. False accusations of “parental alienation" are often used by batterers to gain custody and to defend against accusations of abuse.
Some unfortunate women after years of enduring domestic violence have lost custody to the batterers who abused them. In these cases, batterers have made good on their threat to attack their ex-partner in the place she is the most vulnerable—by taking her children away from her. After separation, these batterers continue to wage their campaign of manipulation and abuse by attempting to convince involved children that their mothers never loved them. Looking for a way to describe their batterers' behavior, some mothers have called what their batterer is doing "parental alienation syndrome."In reality, what these women are describing from their ex-partners is better termed Domestic Violence by Proxy (DV by Proxy), a term first used by Alina Patterson, author of Health and Healing. DV by Proxy refers to a pattern of behavior which is a parent with a history of using domestic violence or intimidation, uses a child as a substitute when he no longer has access to his former partner. Calling this behavior “parental alienation” is not strong enough to convey the criminal pattern of terroristic behaviors employed by batterers.


If what Janice has to say strikes a chord with you and you recognize it as your own experience, take the time to join PMA's new facebook group" DV by Proxy" and share your experiences with other women who have endured similar experiences.  Go the the link listed below:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_102452536503180&ref=ts

HE IS HEALTHY, BUT ARE YOU???

I have talked to you guys about how important it is, in anticipation of possible divorce, that you stash away some money so that you will have financial support during the tough times ahead, particularly during the pendente lite period.  


I have also talked to you about how important it is to remain spiritually centered and to maintain God, however you perceive God, as the center of all your endeavors, so that you can remain strong, even under the most difficult of circumstances.  


However, there is another area of concern that I bet you haven't considered--your health.  


Did you know that one of the factors taken into consideration during a  custody evaluation is your health?  I'll bet you didn't, or you probably would have taken care of it a lot better.  


You can be sure your ex has been taking care of it very well.  That's something I noticed somewhat bemusedly in the years before my divorce.  While my ex husband always seemed to have a good reason for canceling my appointments to the doctor, or creating a crisis just before I had to go to one, he always seemed to make his.  


While there was always some financial emergency when I was supposed to have some procedure done, which meant that I ended up not having the procedure because we couldn't afford it, all of his procedures got done, you can be sure of it.  


By the time my divorce rolled around I hadn't had a doctor's appointment in years and I didn't even have a personal physician with any record of my medical treatment over the years.  I'm not sure how that happened.  I guess one month ran into another while I was so busy taking care of babies and running around taking care of the small business my ex denied I had a share of once we came to dissolution.  


Then we got into the divorce and my blood pressure shot up through the roof, my heart was skipping beats, I couldn't breathe, I had migraine headaches, my weight went up by thirty pounds, I was anemic, and I was plagued by nightmares, anxiety and insomnia.  Plus I still had not undergone basic testing that was ordinarily expected of a woman my age such as a mammogram, a bone density test--things like that.  I might has well lived in the third world during my entire marriage.  


Of course, all of this happened during a period in my life when my ex was saying to me and to the world how much he loved me.  Boy, are words cheap.  


The bottom line is that well before the divorce breaks out, you need to make sure you have a primary physician and specialists in line, such as a urogynecologist and a cardiologist who can become familiar with your case so that you are receiving the care you need in a timely manner and who can provide you with medical care during your divorce.  Also, you need to make sure you have a mental health counselor, hopefully one off the record, who supports your position and who will assist you in coping with the stresses of divorce.  Also, you need to make sure you follow up on regular exercise and that you eat well and do not gain weight.  


From now on, make your physical well being one of your top priorities.  Don't make the mistake of thinking other things are more important.  The other things are built upon the priority of your physical health.  If you are destroying brain cells with your high blood pressure, how well are you going to be able to think?  


While making it through a high conflict divorce, you have to be just like a highly bred race horse--you have to be carefully groomed, so you look good, you have to have the optimal diet, so you have the strength and energy you need, and you have to be in the very best of health, both spiritually and physically so that you have sufficient stamina to endure in the long run.  


In other words, a high conflict divorce is like a marathon--make sure you run it the right way so that you are at the right place at the finish line.

GETTING RID OF A BAD JUDGE!

Do you have a bad judge?  Does he yell at you?  Threaten you with contempt? Tell you that you are no good?  If this is so, you might consider getting rid of your judge.  Honestly!  You can actually do that. 

Ordinarily, a judge has the duty to hear all cases brought before him.  However, there are statutory reasons why a judge can be automatically disqualified from a case.  These reasons are covered in the Connecticut General Statutes Section 51-39.  These statutes provide detailed information about disqualifying a judge because of relationship, i.e. the judge has a family relationship with one of the litigants and/or because of interest, i.e. the judge has a personal or financial interest in the outcome. 

Otherwise, the disqualification of a judge does not come automatically.  Instead, a judge him or herself must decide to remove him or her self from a case because he or she has not lived up to the judicial code of conduct. 

Improper behavior on the part of a judge is simply not acceptable, and upon the motion of the offended party, a judge should rule to recuse himself from a case if he violates the judicial code of conduct.  In this regard, consider Canon 2 of that code which states that a Judge shall perform the duties of the judicial office impartially, competently, and diligently and Rule 2.6 which requires that a judge accord to every person involved in a proceeding, or that person's lawyer, the right to be heard according to law.  In other words, if a judge is busy mistreating you, he or she can't possibly be obeying the judicial code of conduct and should recuse him or herself. 

What is involved in getting rid of a judge?  What you have to do is file a motion for disqualification or the title you would actually use on your motion:  Motion To Recuse.  The Connecticut Practice Book 2011 provides specific instructions for filing such a motion and they are as follows: 

Sec. 1-23. Motion for Disqualification of Judicial Authority, A motion to disqualify a judicial authority shall be in writing and shall be accompanied by an affidavit setting forth the facts relied upon to show the grounds for disqualification and a certificate of the counsel of record that the motion is made in good faith. The motion shall be filed no less than ten days before the time the case is called for trial or hearing, unless good cause is shown for failure to file within such time.

Don't forget that once you've written up your affidavit for the Motion to Recuse, you can go to the Court Service Center and have the clerk notarize the affidavit for free. 

The irony to a Motion to Recuse is that the judge who hears your motion has to be the judge you are actually attempting to recuse.  So the judge has to judge himself as having in some way violated the judicial code of conduct to the extent that he has to order himself to step down. 

As you can imagine, there are some problems with making a motion like this.  One, the judge can deny your motion and continue on being the jerk she has been so far, but now she is a really angry jerk, an angry at you jerk because you had the nerve to call her on it with your motion to recuse.  Now she is really going to be nasty. I had that situation.  I made a Motion to Recuse which the judge appeared to take calmly, but at a point in the hearing where she injured my case with a bad ruling she basically spoke up with the equivalent of something like, "Well, you can dish it out, but you can't take it."

Second, the judge could go ahead, recuse himself from the case, and then assign his best friend to the case, someone who is equally if not more biased than he is. So you could end up exchanging one bad judge for an even worse judge.  Related to that concern is simply that even if the judge doesn't set you up by choosing a successor who is no good, the fact is the next judge on the list could be equally bad.  So, in some ways, leaving things as they are and doing the best you can with what you have is the best approach. 

However, the problem is that if you don't make a Motion to Recuse on the trial court level, you can't make up for the omission later on and claim it.  Such was the finding of the Court in Bieluch v. Bieluch 199 Conn 550, 552-553, A.2d 8 (1986) where it stated "The defendant's claim of judicial bias must fail if he did not file a motion to disqualify in trial court.  We have repeatedly refused to consider claims of trial court bias in the absence of such a motion." 

So you are kind of damned in you do and damned if you don't! 

On the other hand, if you have everyone mad at you in court, you probably have a big enough reputation in the whole courthouse to just throw up your hands, and say "What the heck, I might as well go for it."  The decision is up to you. 

What is the threshold for determining whether a judge's conduct has gotten to the point where he should recuse himself?  According to McKenna v. Delente 123 Conn App 137, 143 1 A.3d 260 (2010) "In applying the standard, we ask whether an objective observer reasonably would doubt the judge's impartiality given the circumstances."  

Officially, a Motion to Recuse is rarely granted by the Court, but I'd bet it happens a lot more than you might imagine.  For those of you who are speaking truth to power, it's a pretty powerful way to speak that truth and I'd definitely go for it if the time is right.  

FILING AN APPEARANCE

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

2011 PRACTICE BOOK: PART III, SEC. 25-32 DISCOVERY ISSUES

I have reviewed information regarding discovery in prior blogs, so bear with me if I repeat myself, as I do believe I will be adding some additional valuable detail in this blog.  

When you are called to a deposition, as I have said in prior blogs, attached to the subpoena summoning you to the deposition is an attached Schedule A listing all the documents you are required to bring with you and turn over to the opposing party. 

These documents are listed in Sec. 25-32 of the 2011 Practice Book and pretty much cover every document necessary to establish a clear picture of your ex's financial situation. 

Another way that a party can obtain these documents, as I have stated before, is to file a Motion For Mandatory Disclosure and Production.  Once these documents are requested, each party has the obligation to provide these documents on an ongoing basis.  That obligation is known as the "continuing duty to disclose." 

For an overview of the documents involved, take a look at the list in Sec. 25-32 of the 2011 Practice Book which I have posted below: 

Sec. 25-32. Mandatory Disclosure and Production

(a) Unless otherwise ordered by the judicial

authority for good cause shown, upon request by

a party involved in an action for dissolution of

marriage or civil union, legal separation, annulment

or support, or a postjudgment motion for

modification of alimony or support, opposing parties

shall exchange the following documents

within thirty days of such request:

(1) all federal and state income tax returns filed

within the last three years, including personal

returns and returns filed on behalf of any partnership

or closely-held corporation of which a party

is a partner or shareholder;

(2) IRS forms W-2, 1099 and K-1 within the last

three years including those for the past year if the

income tax returns for that year have not been

prepared;

(3) copies of all pay stubs or other evidence of

income for the current year and the last pay stub

from the past year;

(4) statements for all accounts maintained with

any financial institution, including banks, brokers

and financial managers, for the past 24 months;

(5) the most recent statement showing any

interest in any Keogh, IRA, profit sharing plan,

deferred compensation plan, pension plan, or

retirement account;

(6) the most recent statement regarding any

insurance on the life of any party;

(7) a summary furnished by the employer of the

party’s medical insurance policy, coverage, cost

of coverage, spousal benefits, and COBRA costs

following dissolution;

(8) any written appraisal concerning any asset

owned by either party.

(b) Such duty to disclose shall continue during

the pendency of the action should a party appear.

PACING YOURSELF: THE EMOTIONAL COST OF HIGH CONFLICT DIVORCE

Last week I had a friend who called me saying emergency, emergency and talked in detail about an upcoming court date.  The court date happened and then there was silence.  I didn't hear from her for several weeks until the next court date.  

This is often how a high conflict divorce unfolds--there are weeks and weeks of monotony, interspersed by sudden bursts of confrontation that are intensely emotional and exhausting.  If the confrontation ended well, then you feel really happy and high, but if the confrontation didn't end well, then you feel as though you want to die.  

Everything that happens in this kind of lawsuit is couched around the concept of winning and losing, nothing is about compromising or coming up with win-win solutions.  Often, it feels as if you have manic-depression because you either have really high highs or really low lows.  With me, where I was losing most of the time, there were lots of low, lows and I had to learn how to withstand that.  

Most high conflict divorces take up to two years or more, and sometimes go up to a decade, before they are resolved with costs of up to $300,000 or even more.  What is interesting about these cases is that no one seems to count the cost--you might as the mother--but it seems that everyone else, the attorneys, the judges, your ex ignores the fact that by spending so much money they are mortgaging their childrens' futures, and the futures of the litigants.  It is terribly tragic.  When I brought the issue up in Court, the judge immediately shushed me up.  It is like the dirty little secret everyone knows about, but no one is allowed to actually speak of it.  

During the lulls in the litigation, between court appearances, which can last anywhere from a few weeks to months, there are usually motions hanging over your head which, if the other party wins them, could result in absolute disaster for you or for your children.  This means that during those times, you have days during which time you can phantasize about all the terrible consequences that could occur should the opposing party win their motions.  That kind of thinking can spread throughout your mind, grip onto your heart, eat away at your soul and turn your interior life into a pool of corrosive battery fluid. 

The end result of that is by the time you get to court you start agreeing to anything just because you want some relief and then after you have done so, you end up being plagued with regret and self hatred for being so dumb.  

A high conflict divorce is an emotional marathon and the person who will achieve the best results is the one who can hang on the longest.  You can do this by centering yourself spiritually and pacing yourself better.  Here are some ideas on how to do that:  

1.  Whenever you find yourself becoming upset, exhausted, or losing control, it is necessary to stop and recenter yourself back on your higher power.  This means a morning, afternoon, and evening time of talking to your higher power, telling him or her what you are dealing with, asking for his or her guidance and support, asking to be filled with healing and strength.  I always make sure to do this before any hearing, court appearance, or meeting; 

2.  Remember to place your own personal experience within the context of everyone who is also going through the very same experience.  You are not being picked on solely; others are going through the same thing.  Also, keep in mind, that with every action you take to fight back, you are striking a blow for others as well.  If the work you do defending yourself changes the mind of a judge and makes him or her think in a more enlightened manner, then you have struck a blow for freedom.  If a judge rules against you, but respects you in the end, you have still won;  

3.  Also, remember that the way things appear is not always the truth.  You can never tell what the outcome of a particular circumstance will be in the long run.  In the legal system, if plan A doesn't work, there is always plan B, C, and D.  Always take action with your eyes on the final prize, and don't get too concerned about the variations along the way;

4.  Remember that slow and steady wins the race.  Every day do something for your case so that when the time for the court hearing finally arrives you don't drown in a flurry of preparatory work, and become so emotionally distraught you are not able to think straight.    

Finally, in terms of everything you say and do, think further down the line.  What will your children think of what you have done and said ten or twenty years from now?  Will they respect your character and your actions?  If there is the slightest question that they won't, don't do it or say it.  As the children's mother, you will always be their only mother, no matter what, and you want to present them with a person who maintains ethical standards that you would wish them to aspire to.  This will keep their souls alive and give them hope in what is often a very dark, conflicted world.  And, of course, that is your ultimate goal anyway.   

THE KEY TO DISCOVERY

Previously, I discussed "Chapter 13:  Discovery" from the 2011 CT Practice Book.  At this point, I want to dig down deeper to the nuts and bolts of the process of obtaining evidence from your ex husband, or the opposing party in your case, however you want to say it. 

The key to getting this process right has to do with being a damn good secretary.  And let me stop here. 

Remember in the good old days of feminism, friends of mine used to say, "I won't learn to type, because then employers will just make me the secretary!" and there was this negative attitude about being a secretary.  Let me tell you how baloney all that talk is.  There are some very high powered basically secretaries called executive assistants who make substantial sums of money and they all know how to type and, what is more important, keep track of things.  You want to be as good as they are!

Maintaining an excellent filing system, keeping track of things, knowing where things are, this is the very core of a lawyer's practice.  If you can't be good secretary, then you can't be a good lawyer, and you sure as heck can't be a good self represented party. 

Begin now to develop these abilities, abilities which outstanding secretaries have known how to exercise for years. 

This is how secretarial skills apply to the practice of discovery.  When you begin discovery, you start out by submitting to the Court a "Motion For Disclosure and Production" in which you request certain documents (or whatever) from your ex husband and you give him 30 days within which to respond.  That's where the keeping track comes up. 

Once that Motion has been sent to the Court, you have to keep track of when the 30 days are up so if it goes to day 31 and you haven't received the documents you requested, you are right on time in going back to court to force your ex husband to reply with your reqest with a Motion to Compel.  In order to delay the process and make your life difficult, but sometimes truly for legitimate reasons, your ex may submit to the Court a "Request For An Extension of Time" asking for up to 30 to 60 days within which to respond to your request for disclosure and production, or else you may have a quick phone call with the lawyer from the other side and come up with an agreement for when the material will be produced, an agreement which you will imediately confirm in writing. 

Ordinarily, these requests for extension of time are automatically granted. Again, under these circumstances, you have to keep track of the time so that if your ex misses the next deadline, you are on track with an immediate Motion to Compel.  Sometimes, you may have more than one Motion for Production and Disclosure out there requesting different material, so you will have to keep track of the progress each one of them is making. 

Sooner or later, your ex will start complying with your requests and start sending in documents.  If he is a jerk, as so many are, these documents will arrive in dribs and drabs over a period of time.  This is done with the intention of annoying you intensely and messing up your efforts to obtain documents necessary to pursue your case, and getting you so mixed up you can't keep track of what you do and do not have.  So don't get too angry when it happens.  It is par for the course. 

Again, this is where your secretarial skills will come in handy.  It is so easy when you are getting documents in by dribs and drabs to lose track of what you have received.  Then when it comes to a really vital document in your case, you could have the opposing attorney say something to you like, "I already sent it to you." and you would have no way of knowing if you didn't make a careful note of everything that comes in from the opposing attorney in response to your Motion.  And if they say they have given it to you, and you have no evidence to the contrary, it can be harder than you think it is to get them to send you another copy.

One valuable bit of support you will have to assist you in keeping track is that when the opposing attorney provides you with the materials you have requested, he or she is required to submit to the Court, copy to you, a document entitled "Plaintiff or Defendant's (depending!) Compliance with Plaintiff or Defendant's (depending!) Motion For Disclosure and Production.  On this Motion your ex is required to list item by item exactly what he has given to you along with the document.  Again, you need to look at the documents that you have been given and check to see that the opposing attorney has truly given you the documents he or she has said were given to you. 

If the opposing side lies and says in the Compliance statement they submitted to the Court that your ex gave you documents you did not receive, you need to respond immediately with a Motion to Sanction the other attorney for the lies he told, and you need to file a Motion to Compel to insist that your ex provide you with the missing documents immediately. 

As you can imagine, with different motions for disclosure and production out there on your behalf, all with varying deadlines and extensions on deadlines, and various compliance statements that have to be verified meticulously, you end up with a lot of detailed work keeping track of what you have received and what you still have to receive. 

If you have a lawyer, this job can cost thousands and thousands of dollars, but if you do it yourself, it is just like preparing your taxes.  Annoying, but necessary, and rewarding when it is done. 

Where you can run into problems with discovery is when you allow the opposing side to pass documents to you informally in Court, or by dumping them on your desk without telling you, or sending it in the mail without a statement of compliance.  If they start to do that kind of thing, then there is ample opportunity later on for saying things like "I gave her the document, but she just doesn't remember." implying you are a nut case. 

Always provide some kind of receipt for anything you receive, copy for you and copy for the other party.  If you are facing opposition from the opposing side and they drag their feet on discovery, you can also send letters as well as Motions to Compel.  Then when the time comes for a Status Conference, you can trot out your Motions to Compel, as well as your letters, indicating you have made reasonable efforts to obtain compliance with your discovery requests, and this will give the judge a good impression. 

Remember, for any attorney, obstructing the process of discovery is a violation of professional ethics, so if you can track that obstruction well and present evidence of it effectively to the Court, you are one step ahead of the game. 

Also, keep in mind that delays in discovery can't be used as the justification for a request for a continuance of the date of trial.  So if you have arrived at the day of trial and the opposing side hasn't given you a vital document, but you have no clear track record of seeking to possess that document, the Court will just laugh at you when you complain.

Make sure no one has a reason to laugh when you enter a courtroom.  Make them afraid, not with swords or guns or a loud bullying voice, but simply with a neatly written list of when and what you received and did not receive and a list of motions and letters you sent in order to correct the problem.  In the Court system, secretaries rule the world.

THE 2011 CONNECTICUT PRACTICE BOOK: PART II: CHAPTER 13

I am not kidding, it is Chapter 13 of the Connecticut Practice Book 2011. Yes, the infamous Chapter 13, your ex husband's unlucky number. Chapter 13 is all about discovery and depositions, the big guns of the divorce process.  

If you were like me and had practically no idea of what was going on financially in your marriage over a period of years, Chapter 13 is the key to everything. In my miserable case, my attorney acted as though he had never heard of discovery and I was too stupid to know better. But don't you be stupid.  

The word "Discovery" relates to getting all the evidence you need in order to pursue your case. The most relevant section here is Section 13-9 "Requests for Production, Inspection and Examination" This section dictates how you can obtain evidence such as documents, tape recordings, reports, photographs, etc. from your ex husband in order to pursue your case. Without these items, you can't prove a darned thing and you have no foot to stand on. 

There is also Section 13-4 which dictates how you can obtain and use any expert witnesses you want to bring into the case such as a psychiatrist or a forensic accountant. The most important piece of information you need to note here is that if you are going to present an expert witness in your case, you need to notify the other party at least 30 days in advance that you intend to bring in that witness. Otherwise, you will not be able to use the expert witness at trial.  None of the financial or psychiatric evidence you present will be considered seriously by the court unless you have an expert to back it up. That is how important an expert witness is.

Then there are Sections 13-6 explaining interrogatories and Section 13-22 explaining Requests for Admission. Both interrogatories and requests for admission are incredibly fun and helpful because they ask your ex husband to answer questions under oath on paper. So with these documents you get to ask questions such as, "Isn't it true that you stole $100,000 from your joint bank account with your wife?" and your ex has to answer truthfully. If he does, and he did steal the money, then you have your admission and you don't have to do any more work. If he lies, then you have him for perjury. It is great--no opportunities for wiggling and waffling and kicking up dirt to obscure the landscape which happens on the stand or at deposition.  

And check out Sec. 13-25 "Expenses on Failure to Admit. "If a party fails to admit...the truth of any matter as requested...the Court may order that party pay to the offended party "the reasonable expenses incurred" in proving it. I just love The Practice Book. It is so full of sensible procedures like that! 

Then you have Sections 13:27-30 which covers depositions. Depositions, which are also conducted under oath, are the most useful approaches to discovering information and putting it on the record for trial later on. In essence, they are the same thing as interrogatories and requests for admission, but they are done verbally with a stenographer taking down the testimony rather than being done on paper. The advantage of this is that the testimony is done extemporaneously and within this context people often acknowledge very personally damaging information or they drop hints about what their defense will be or where other important information can be found.  

A deposition is also the best way to get the essential documents that you need for trial. In a divorce, depositions require that each party bring to the deposition all items listed in an attached document entitled Schedule A which is included in the subpoena summoning your ex to the deposition. These items include pay stubs, bank account statements, investment account statements, retirement account statements, credit card statements--everything included in a person's financial picture. Often a single deposition can do the trick in terms of getting everything you need, but if your ex refuses to bring any of the listed documents, you have it on record that he defied a subpoena, plus you get all his miserable, lying excuses for doing so right on the record. Nothing is better than that. 

Finally, there are three very important pieces of information that may affect you seriously related to the issue of discovery:  

1) If you are faced with a situation where your ex husband is asking you for documents that would seriously embarrass you were it brought before the court, you have a remedy, Section 13-5 Protective Order. It may not work, but you can try. And don't let an attorney tell you not to try. It is always worth trying to protect yourself from harm and embarrassment; 

2) According to Section 13-15, each party has a continuing duty to disclose. So, your ex cannot go to court and say he discovered some vital document after the deposition and figured he didn't have to hand it in. At any time during the pretrial period that the other party finds a requested document, he or she is required to produce it voluntarily; 

3. If your ex refuses to comply with discovery and provide the information you have requested, you must submit a Motion to Compel the other party to give you what you need. See Section 13-14. In a divorce action, if you have requested documents and the other party ignores the request and you do nothing about it, then you will have NO recourse. You are assumed to be going along with the refusal and agreeing to it. So do not get yourself in that position.  

There are many other delightful tidbits of information in Chapter 13, so make sure you read the chapter word by word. It will probably be the most valuable thing you do. Remember, knowledge is power, and documents are power and confessions are power.

You may ask me, why am I telling you all this? I'll tell you why. Because your own lawyer won't tell you about it. Most likely, he or she won't even follow through properly on the procedures. This leaves you to tell your attorney what to do. So make sure you've read the chapter so you can provide the proper guidance.