How did you all find an attorney?
We are going to hire an attorney when we file for a modification of our case. We have custody of my husband kids (DSD14 & DSS11) for the past 3 years. The BM hasn't sent for the kids at all and this year she did but didn't speak to my husband about his work schedule. He asked for her to push the date back to his off day and she said she couldn't and wouldn't. She has known about the dates they are out of school since Aug 08 and waited until June 10 to buy there tickets. She doesn't pay child support so she should have the money to buy the airline tickets.
How did you find your attorney? We don't know anyone that deals with custody stuff at all and our original case was done by me. I filed all the papers and had BM served in NJ. The court staff was very helpful with what to do and their website is helpful so you can fill the papers out with no help. The state of GA is very different so we are going to hire an attorney to do everything.
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
Kisha
Ask
I asked my friends for recommendations.
Make sure the attorney SPECIALIZES in family law and get one with experience. And don't get one that includes family law in a list of other "specials".
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There's an exception to everything I say.
We shopped around until we found someone who engaged with
with us from the perspective of focusing on what WE wanted to have happen. Until we found our current Attorney, the consistent input we got from our previous attorneys was "work it out with BioDad". That is a load of crap IMHO. If things could be worked out with BioDad my Wife would not be married to me. BioDad nor his Mother has ever been interested in anything but getting out of as much CS as possible, getting custody or getting beck-and-call unlimited visitation with my SS.
So, when we sat down for our initial consultation our current attorney he asked:
1. What do you want to get out of this action?
2. Are you doing this to protect the best interest of the kid or to screw BioDad? (Any potential client that answers this one wrong he declines to represent).
3. It could be expensive. Are you willing and able to stay the course with this action?
4. If I do not believe what you are looking for is reasonable, will you listen to and consider my recommendations for alternatives?
I pulled out my checkbook and put him on retainer on the spot.
We have been using him for more than 10yrs now and have never had to use him in court. When we have experienced problems with the SpermClan that required our Attorney's assistance, he has only had to write the occasional very pointed letter explaining to them the legal consequences of their non-compliance outlining what information would be presented to the court if they forced a court action. They have caved every time. He has guided us on the CS modification process and refused to represent us in a Modification hearing because "you two know how to handle this and you don't need to pay me to do it for you. Call me if you have any questions and I will give you guidance".
To accelerate the process you may want to look in to Father's rights organizations in your area and ask them for recommendations instead of doing random Attorney shopping like we did years ago.
Good luck and best regards,
Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications)