Inaccuracies in Family Law

I came across this article today and it struck something in me. I know that people sometimes feel as though they were not treated fairly in court or they did not get the result they felt they deserved, but this article took it further. This article implied that attorneys and judges are in cahoots together or that attorneys do not truly have their client’s best interests at heart or worse that the orders they have from the court are pointless. I wanted to take this time to step up and speak out against this article.

In the first “unwritten rule” this person talks about lawyers and judges covering for each other. She uses one specific example of one case to show that lawyers do not stand up to judges. First of all I know several attorneys that will stand up to Judges. They do not care if they will be in front of that Judge again because they care about their client’s interests. That is their job. The person in this article further states that there are “several legal avenues open to her attorney but he refuses to take any of them”. This person fails to state what any of these legal avenues are. Being that I do not know what state this story is about I cannot comment on the procedures that could be taken, but what I can say is that until an Order is signed there is not much that can be done here to get the Judge to actually sign the order. It is not that the attorney does not want the Order signed, or that the attorney is lazy, but rather than the attorney’s hands are tied until it is signed. There was on Judge here that refused to sign Orders for months at a time and at some point started dismissing cases because the case wasn’t finalized even though it was waiting on the Judge’s signature and had actually been finalized.

In the second “unwritten rule” she states that “forced divorce settlements are the norm”. Yes, it is true that last-minute settlements often happen. There are MANY reasons that settlements happen. Perhaps one side really does not want to go to trial so they make one last offer. Perhaps your attorney thinks you will gain more by settling than going to trial. Perhaps it is the Judge that tells the parties to try to work it out. One of the reason I became an attorney is to be in a courtroom, but the other part of being an attorney is to recognize that the is courtroom is not always in my client’s best interest. Any good attorney also recognizes this distinction and if it is in their client’s best interest to settle the attorney is under an obligation to attempt settlement. Further, if the other side brings an offer the attorney is REQUIRED to give that offer to his/her client.

The last “unwritten rule” is “Judges don’t enforce court orders” is just outright wrong. Judges do not like to see people not following the order. They take their orders very seriously and having a party not follow the order does not sit well with the Judges. Well at least not where I practice. Having said this, in Texas, in order to enforce an Order you must be very specific and prove EVERY element in order to succeed in an enforcement action. If it is not done perfectly, the Judge has NO CHOICE but to deny the relief requested. I have seen several men and women put in jail for failing to follow the court order so the fact that this person feels that the Order is just a “promise on a piece of paper” is crazy to me.