Some Thoughts on Legal Services, Visitation and a Problem of Blogging

I had the following comment to my post, Asking for Help From My Readers:

I enjoy your blog. Although I do have an attorney, I would like to understand more about the "Notice of Special Availability" when distance is a factor. (4 hours) Does the non-custodial parent have the right to every day off the children are not in school, when this mother would like to enjoy her children's free time as well. In this case, the father gets them every year at spring break, and our children have two weeks spring break. I gave the father 12 days of our childrens winter break, and he does get them 7 weeks in the summer. When he asked for three days off our children have coming up....I gave him two, and he still wants the third day.

As the disclaimer to my blog says, this blog is not about giving advice on specific issues. I am not going to accidentally create an attorney-client

relationship where I have no access to the complete facts of a case. That is neither fare to the person sending this comment or myself.

I do see the traffic coming here and most appear to be looking for specific answers to specific problems. I strongly suspect that they are missing information that could help them because they are looking for a quick answer. They actually misuse their sources by acting this way.

The writer above gives me two problems. First, having an attorney but not asking her question of her lawyer. Why does the lawyer not provide this information? Why does the client feel they cannot ask the attorney?

I have been surprised for years by people who patronize lawyers who keep them poorly informed of their cases, do not explain the applicable law to their clients, but who those same clients will refer others to them. Is it that people have such low expectations of the service they should get from their lawyers or that they have no idea of the service they should get? Or is it that lawyers frighten their clients?

I do not ask these questions rhetorically but seriously and wanting serious answers. I think the questions are even more serious for the clients.

Another problem raised by the comment above is and blogging is that hat I have no idea about what they wrote concerning a "Notice of Special Availability". That phrase appears nowhere in Indiana's Parenting Time Guidelines. I guess they think all the states have the same rule and law about family law. For me, a lawyer licensed only in Indiana, I would face the chance of a criminal charge of practicing law without a license if I were to answer this question.

Once more I go into the breach: the same principles may stay the same but there are fifty different variations on family law - one for each state.

I do wish that people would leave comments and questions about the law instead of merely seeking a quick, free for their specific question.