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The beginning of a family law case takes courage. Building up the fortitude within your mind to take part in a family law case is a courageous act. This is true whether you have filed the family law case or are responding to one filed by another. The easy thing to do would be to ignore a difficult issue in your life. Going about your business and pretending something bad doesn’t exist is what people do every day. However, that’s not you. You’ve taken it upon yourself to do something about that negative issue.
By reading this blog post, the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan can presume that you are also interested in speaking to an attorney about your family law case. Child custody, divorce, enforcement, and modification cases are some of the most frequently filed in Texas. If you want to know more about the law, you have come to the right place. However, our attorneys are also skilled at being able to assist families just like yours being able to walk together through difficult times.
Our attorneys know how to educate our clients about the law. That way you can make good decisions for yourself and your family. In today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, we are going to provide you with an overview of what exactly you should talk to your attorney about. Again, simply making it to this point is a sign of your courage and fortitude. Now, you need to take the next step and figure out how to go about your business in a contested family law case. The Law Office of Bryan Fagan is here to help.
What to talk with an attorney about at a consultation
Let’s start from the beginning. Meeting with an attorney for the first time in a consultation means you have not yet established an attorney-client relationship with that person. Rather, you are trying to figure out whether you want to hire this person to represent you in a family law case. The questions you ask the attorney should be based as much on your desire to get to know him or her as it is on still issues. Finding an experienced family law attorney is important. However, feeling comfortable with that attorney representing you is also critical.
In short, you want to feel comfortable that the attorney who’s representing you has your back. This is not an optional criterion to judge an attorney by. Rather, you and your attorney must have a good working relationship. Look for social cues that you would look for in any other person. For instance, does the attorney make eye contact? Is the attorney giving you enough time to speak or does he talk the entire time? Judge the attorney like you would any other person.
On top of that, yes, you want the attorney to have experience in family law. On top of that, you should ask the attorney about their level of competency in your case. For instance, if you are interested in adopting a child with your husband then you should ask the attorney if he or she has ever assisted a client in your circumstances before. Then, listen to what the attorney has to say. Asking detailed questions in your first meeting will allow you to gain an understanding of that lawyer and develop a feel for his or her practice.
Talking to your attorney about fees and costs
One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when first addressing the issue of representation in a family law case is to not ask an attorney about how fees work. Each of us has a budget. Whether we keep a detailed household budget or not the fact remains that all of us have limitations to what we can spend. Hiring and attorney will cost you some money. You could look at this as a short-term investment into your long-term future. However, understanding how fees work will make the process of hiring an attorney that much easier.
Family law attorneys bill by the hour. This is different than how, for example, a personal injury attorney builds a client. Family law attorneys have an hourly rate in charge of clients for work performed on the case. You should ask the attorney what their hourly rate is. Additionally, office staff for the attorney will also bill you for services performed. That means that if a legal assistant or paralegal works in your case then you will be billed. A retainer, sort of a legal down payment, will be charged upfront to begin work on your case.
The Law Office of Bryan Fagan values transparency
The more you can familiarize yourself with how legal fees work in a family law case the more comfortable you will become. The attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan provide sample contracts to potential clients in our free-of-charge consultations. That way there can be no misunderstandings about fees when it comes to our office. We worked tirelessly to make sure that we are extremely transparent when it comes to discussing these issues with potential clients. The reason is that we want to hit the ground running immediately once you decide to work with our attorneys.
Having a “skeletons in the closet” conversation
Your initial meetings with your attorney may involve a significant amount of discussion about the faults of your opposing party. However, you also need to be aware that the attorney must understand any issues in your life that may become relevant in the family law case. The thing about family law cases is that your entire life becomes relevant. Things that you wish did not need to come out into the open almost certainly will.
With the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, this is known as a skeletons-in-the-closet conversation. Basically, we encourage our clients to share with us information that they may not be proud of. Anything that potentially has to do with your case should be made known to your attorney. Let the attorney determine whether it is relevant or not. This is not particularly pleasant to discuss but it is important, nonetheless.
Not having this discussion with your attorney can lead to bad results for you and your family. An attorney has no way of knowing this information other than if you tell it to him or her. Ripping the Band-Aid off and simply talking to your attorney about these unpleasant subjects can be done soon after hiring him or her. If you do not do this then the other option is to have the opposing party disclose it in a damaging way. Here is an example of how not discussing an important matter with your attorney can lead to potentially bad results.
How hiding negative information can harm your case
Consider the following situation which happened to a client of our office some years ago. In this child custody case our client, a father in his 20s, was facing a difficult situation. His child’s mother informed him that she was going to visit family in Georgia and wanted to take their son with her. Thinking nothing of it, our client agreed. Our client expected his son back in just a few days. He was communicating with his son regularly while he spent time with his mother out of state. Everything seemed to be completely normal.
However, on the day he expected his son to return his child’s mother sent him a text message saying that she would be keeping their son with her and Georgia for the foreseeable future. She intended to move to Georgia and to keep their son with her. This caught the attention of our client. Immediately, he phoned the child’s mother to speak to her about this decision. Once he spoke to her she was willing to meet him halfway in between Georgia and Texas to allow the sun to return home with our client.
Fortunately, she did arrive as scheduled, and our client and his son were reunited. Immediately upon returning to Texas, our client hired us to represent him in a child custody case. We filed the child custody case to establish orders that would prevent the mother from trying to take the child to Georgia in the future. Our office had the mother served with notice of the lawsuit in Georgia. We knew she was aware of the hearing date and had an opportunity to present herself that day.
Trouble in the courtroom when information is not shared with your attorney
On the morning of our client’s hearing, it was completely unknown whether his child’s mother would appear. Although the hearing was set with enough time for her to return to Texas from Georgia, we could not be sure that she was going to be able to attend. However, right before the hearing began the opposing party and an attorney showed up to court. Upon speaking with the attorney, he shared with us some troubling information provided to him by his client.
This information had to do with a relative of our client who had been living with him for the past several months. Our client had an uncle who was residing with him in his house. Ordinarily, there is nothing wrong with helping a relative who needs a place to stay. With that said, the circumstances of this case were troubling. The relative in question was a registered sex offender in Texas. He had been living with our client under the same roof as the children. This information was being shared with us immediately before a hearing to engage us in the negotiation process.
Of course, the attorney from our office spoke to our client about the situation. Embarrassed, our client confided that it was not something he liked to talk about. While this was completely understandable it could also have been something that’s severely damaged his case. Eventually, the parties were able to settle on court orders that were favorable to the children and both parents. A condition of the settlement agreement was that the uncle had to move out of the home.
What can we learn from the failure to discuss embarrassing or troubling issues with your attorney?
Certainly, there are several issues that we can discuss related to the story above. First, you always need to talk to your attorney about issues that are relevant in your life. Just because you think something is not relevant does not mean that it is irrelevant. Rather, you need to be able to help your attorney by sharing information that otherwise may be uncomfortable for you to discuss. If something is troubling you about the case or your circumstances, then talk to the attorney about those issues. Work out a strategy to combat them together.
In the above situation, the results could have been disastrous for our client. Learning about a problem on the day of the hearing Leaves you with no time to prepare. Instead, it is important to provide your attorney with sufficient time to develop a game plan with you geared towards minimizing the potential issues associated with the bad circumstance. In a family law case, topics like this are important. As a result, expect that your opposing party will become aware of something even if you believe it to be private.
When it comes to sharing information and talking to your attorney this is a practical lesson to learn. How you talk to your attorney will determine in large part your success in a case. From there, you need to have a solid game plan that addresses the issue and does not attempt to sidestep any responsibility on your part. That can look different for you based on the exact circumstances of your case. However, facing the issue with your attorney is exactly why you need to be comfortable speaking to your lawyer about anything that may arise.
Sharing your goals in the case with your attorney
Having goals is a tremendous advantage in your family law case. So many people in a family law setting simply drift through a case aimlessly. These folks are content to go through the motions of a case without actually committing any serious to what they would like to accomplish. As we are fond of telling our clients, it is possible to wander into a family law case. However, it is difficult to wander out of a family law case with any type of goals having been accomplished. Trying to approach a family law case without any goals would be a tremendous mistake. Fortunately, this is not a circumstance that you have to contend with.
You should speak to your attorney early in the case about the goals you have for yourself and your family. Your attorney can share their perspective on your goals. In some situations, the goals you have are not practical. For instance, if you have been a parent who has never cared for your child on a primary basis then trying to become the primary conservator of your young daughter likely is not possible. With that said, your attorney can provide you with information about your circumstances so that you better understand how they relate to your legal environment.
Having goals also forces you to develop a strategy attuned to achieving those goals. The more well-defined your goals are the more fine-tuned your strategies will be to accomplish those goals. This may seem obvious, but it is sometimes difficult to put that knowledge into practice for a person whose attention is being diverted in multiple directions. The better focused you are on the various elements of your case the greater the likelihood that that focus turns into tangible results for your family.
Final thoughts on talking to your attorney in a family law case
The attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan understand that you likely have a range of concerns regarding your case. With so much at stake, it is challenging to know where to begin when it comes to your attorney-client relationship. On the one hand, you want to share as much as you can with the attorney. However, you may also have concerns with identifying what is appropriate to share and what is superfluous.
Overall, families like yours require personalized service and attention and stressful and anxious family law environments. The attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan want to make ourselves as available as possible to our clients. We trust that if you choose to hire our office to represent you in a family law case the service you receive is of the best quality in Texas.
Questions about the material contained in today’s blog post? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan
The attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan offer free of charge consultations six days a week in person, over the phone, and via video. These consultations are a great way for you to learn more about the world of Texas family law. Before signing a document or negotiating on a subject you do not know well, contact our office. We look forward to the opportunity of serving you during an important part of your life. The Law Office of Bryan Fagan is on your side.
