Hiring A Family Law Attorney and The Art of War 2

Finishing what I started yesterday with Hiring A Family Law Attorney and The Art of War 1.

I want to point out what others have written quite well about on this subject. New Jersey Divorce & Family Law's In Family Law Representation, You Get What You Pay For… lead me to family law - family attorneys from LawyersandSettlements.com:

The bottom line is the fairness that so often escapes a family law case that is mishandled, at least by one of the sides, due to a lack of proper representation. Of course you want to be fair, and you like to think that the fairness factor will guide the process. But that is not always the case, especially when there is anger involved.

Experts suggest that if your relationship looks as though it is coming apart and you're considering divorce, the best couple of hundred bucks you'll ever spend is by sitting down with a reputable family law firm for a consultation. In an hour, their family attorneys can give you a pretty good idea of what you might be in for, what the dynamic, the payout and the cost, the likely custody arrangement, and in a nutshell what kind of life you're going to have at the end of it all. It may not be pretty, and after hearing the hard facts you might think twice about dissolving your relationship, and try to patch it up instead.

However if you feel you have to proceed, or you have an inkling that your spouse is—and it isn't possible to work it out amicably, then for heaven's sake get yourself a lawyer, and get a good one.

California Divorce and Family Law's has Picking the right divorce lawyer can help make the split less painful ten items to look for in a divorce lawyer, and what I would call an overarching theme:

Having the right attorney can alleviate some of the emotional sting and reduce some of the stress which are integral parts of the divorce process. Conversely, having the wrong kind of legal representation, can make an already painful experience significantly worse for you and for your loved ones.

Mississippi Family Law Mediation and Counseling Blog's Before you hire an attorney --- What you need to know has a similar list. About getting the most out of your lawyer, give my Following up on How to Hire the Right Divorce Attorney a read.

It is my goal that I handle every case in as professional manner as possible. I think that means counseling and fighting are not mutually incompatible in representing my client's best interests. I think Family Lawyer – Choosing a Competent Family Lawyer! from Northeastern Law expands on this point very well:

Since cases of child custody are very sensitive, you must be vigilant to choose an experienced and competent child custody lawyer. A good lawyer who can handle the issue carefully and also be able to negotiate skillfully should be your priority. If your case is straight, you can get look for a family lawyer who would charge a low fee but if your case is complicated and requires intricate planning and strong presentation make sure you choose a well-known and experienced lawyer

Know your goals, communicate those goals to your lawyer, and understand why not all goals are achievable. (Getting the other side's head on a pike may be a goal but not an achievable one.) Then decide if there is a good fit between you and the lawyer's strategy.

Hiring A Family Law Attorney and The Art of War 1

DIVORCE LAW INDIANA published a post, Hiring a divorce lawyer: Rambo v. Mother Theresa,that I generally agree with but also with which I have some serious quibbles about. In particular, I have a problem with this paragraph and particularly one word in this paragraph:

In a study of attorneys, social psychologist Kennth Kressel found that divorce attorneys seem to fall primarily within two broad groups. He labled them the "advocates" and the "counselors". Some call these two approaches as the "Rambo" and the "Mother Theresa" approaches to divorce law.

The word troubling me is "primarily". My contracts professor had a category for these sort of words: weasel words. Since most of the original article depends on this dichotomy between litigator and counselor, I think this needs discussing as if "primarily" were not in that paragraph.

I think the lawyer must be adaptable to the type of case and client they have in front of them. In some cases litigating willy-nilly makes mountains out of molehills. I think everyone will agree that is wasteful. If you think you are better served by such a lawyer, then ask how this benefits you because there will be times (many times) during the course of a contested case that you will also need a counselor.

I think my New Albany colleagues recognize this point also:

Your personality and your situation will dicate the type of divorce attorney you feel comfortable hiring. Remember that about 50 percent in a recent study were unhappy with their attorneys. Basically the best divorce attorney is one who has a good deal of experience in contested divorces and who has knowledge of the court rules. You should avoid an attorney who never goes to court or one who wants to litigate everything without encouraging good-faith negotiations.

I came to the viewpoint I have from reading Sun Tzu's Art of War. I have written along these lines before with Divorce, Strategy and Sun Tzu. I also wrote on this in Thoughts on Strategy, Preventive Law, Rambo Lawyers and Sun Tzu that can be found on my Indiana Civl & Business Law Blog.

Others invoked The Art of War when discussing litigation. Deception and Settlement: The Application of Sun Tzu's Ancient Strategies of War to the Law which makes this point:

Sun Tzu advises against this purposeless destruction. Each of the steps taken in a lawsuit should have a goal of encouraging settlement, albeit on your terms. This goal should be at the forefront whenever discovery is taken, motions are filed, and meetings with the opposition are held. This may not assure that fees and costs will be limited. Rather, it means that when money must be spent, it should be to encourage resolution of the matter. If it does not, then one should consider choosing a more effective course.

Although not written from the standpoint of a family law case, I think the principles are easily transferred from a lawsuit to a family law case. With the point being that strategy needs to meet the needs of the case and of the client for a successful case. I read The importance of an attorney in child custody litigation from Divorce Indiana Bog and Maryland Divorce Legal Crier's Every Dog that Barks as implying this same point.

Family law does not lend itself well to total war. Sun Tzu did not favor total war - it ruined both sides of the conflict. I wonder if most people when thinking of litigation as war do not think of the conflict as total war. If so, I suggest following the link to total war and then look at your bank account and then consider what life will be like after the case is over. Here is an image to think of when thinking about total war. In cases with children, the effects of a total war stragety will go on for a very, very long time.

There needs a time for counseling and a time for fighting. I think counsel needs the capacity to do both.

I will finish this topic off tomorrow. Please come back for the finish.

Parenting Time: Idea on Scheduling Times for Visitation

Brian Galbraith of Ontario Family Law Blog has an idea that I have never seen before and I like the more I think about it.  The usual suggestion is for parents to get a calendar to keep track of problems about visitation.  Mr. Galbraith puts forth something more positive in his Scheduling Events When Divorced .  I see this as a very good means for parents to comply with Section I. E. of the Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines on exchanging information.  (You may also want to go back and read my Parenting Time - An Online Help For Parents).

For many years, I have encouraged clients whose separation is fresh and raw to use a communication book. One of the parents purchases a blank book which is used to discuss any proposed changes to the access schedule, illnesses of the children, milestones, accomplishments, discipline problems and upcoming events in the children's lives. I encourage the parents to decorate the book with photos of the children on the outside of the book (to remind the parents to stay focused on their children's best interests) and to plan on giving the book to their children when they are adults (to encourage the parents to treat each other respectfully and politely in the book since their children will read it one day).

Yes, it still can be used for litigation purposes but my understanding is that it is not its chief purpose.  I see this being used to inform the other parent of all events the child is involved in - think Little League as well as Christmas concerts.

Whether you use the old fashioned communication book, Our Family Wizard, Google Calendar, emails, meetings or phone calls, find a way to communicate respectfully and in a timely manner. If you don't make an effort, your children will suffer. Your children deserve parents who will put aside their own personal feelings toward each other and find a way to communicate with each other, for the children's sake... and you don't want to miss another Christmas concert!

He also provides two online solutions with Google Calendar being the second option.

A free option is Google Calendar. It does not have all the bells and whistles of "Our Family Wizard" because it isn't designed for separated families, but it is free. A calendar is set up over the Internet with access restricted to you and your spouse or third parties agreeable to the parents. It's private and available wherever you can access the Internet. You can post upcoming events on the calendar such as the next hockey tournament or dance recital so everyone knows about it in advance.

Online services do provide the means to communicate in ASAP mode. I think Zoho has some services that might also apply.  Other online services might be found by using Google. 

The thing is to get started.

So a new idea for my practice and one that others should - I think - take very seriously.

Surprising News (Not) About Recession and Divorce Rates

We have heard this enough already but reportonbusiness.com published No job? Less money? Divorce is off the budget

In total, 57 per cent of the attorneys noted fewer divorce filings since the last quarter of 2008. Only 14 per cent noted an increase in filings during these difficult times.

“The current economic climate is proving to be far more unforgiving than estranged couples seeking a divorce,” said Gary Nickelson, president of the AAML, in a statement.

“Forced to weigh damaged marriages against tight budgets and uncertain financial outlooks, many spouses seem more willing to try and wait out the recessionary storm.”

Family Law Prof has Delaying Divorce During Recession which is along the same lines.

The recession has had its effects on how others are providing their legal services (see my posts here and here).  Which makes me wonder if Indiana lawyers have not had their own recession for the past two decades.

The recession has me considering alternatives to divorce such as legal separation.  What does not make sense from a legal perspective makes sense from a financial standpoint.

Why I do not always bill on an hourly basis

The Client Revolution asked What if the Apple Store billed by the hour?

But in reality, law-firm clients resist double (or triple) billing by multiple lawyers. So firms often have to write down the time of other lawyers. In this scenario, two of the Apple team members would have had their time cut. Since only Angelina actually generated revenue (by swiping my credit card), Anil and Pam’s time would have been cut. This is ironic, since Anil (by helping me get the right protector) and Pam (by affixing it) gave me the most value.

Of course, law firms want their associates to bill as much time as possible, and they discourage nonbillable time. So if the Apple Store were run like a law firm, Anil and Pam would have been discouraged from such “nonbillable” work as helping me choose or affix an inexpensive screen protector, in favor of “billable” work like selling a new Mac Pro. If the Apple Store employees focused on selling billable hours, they wouldn’t be wasting time helping customers with little things like this.

 ***

In law firms where lawyers are measured by the hours they bill, they are effectively punished for nonbillable time spent helping clients. Which is why people love going to the Apple Store, and hate dealing with lawyers.

I notice it has been a year since I wrote about my flat fee policy (see here and here and here).  Outside of custody cases, I have a strictly flat fee rule.  I charge an hourly rate for trial work in custody cases with everything else being a flat fee.  Even now the perpetual question is what is your hourly rate?  This misses the true cost of a case which can only be understood in terms of the whole project.

I am still not so sure that will make people love dealing with lawyers but it should help them understand what they are getting for their money.

Follow up on If You Could Change the Delivery of Legal Services

Cheryl LeValley commented on If You Could Change the Delivery of Legal Services over on Facebook:

"Read the article on your blog and must say that those are great questions. I think doing business as suggested for future regarding technology in this field will be a boost to a trust factor between client and lawyer. I think some clients feel a sense of being at lawyers mercy for moving forward in their life. It has been my experience as a client that I want to do the right thing but lawyers are not willing or it is beyond their scope of services (traditionally) to provide the answers to what seems to be simple questions centered on emotinal issues perhaps. While I understand that is not potentially a lawyers job clients see the need to have these questions answered because they do not want to make the same mistake or make things worse. So, providing additional information in some way is beneficial in building long term relationships and having those clients make referrals. People also like to convenience and yet whiloe additional information is being presented I am not certain they would be willing to pay extra for it not in our economy now or in the future. things are changing. A challenge perhaps would be to provide out lines or suggestions of common things that clients seem to experience and provide an outline of action for clients to take... Thus providing accountability and responsibility and creating community between the two parties. Just thoughts."

Ms LeValley made me think that it might be of some use if we could connect clients with those who have the ability to provide the emotional answers she mentions above. I do not think those are quite what Professor Susskind wrote about, but I doubt he had family law as his primary focus. One thing I did not anticipate when I started this blog was it use as a preventive law tool.

I agree that information cannot be sold. See my comment to If You Could Change the Delivery of Legal Services where I make some blunt statements on the difference between raw information and its uses.

I am chewing on the outline idea. Anyone wanting to chime in here would be welcome.

Taking credit cards, payments is news?

Struggling South Florida Divorce Lawyers Offer Discounts, Accept Credit Cards came to me earlier this week from The ABA Journal. I cannot remember when I did not take payments - or of any lawyers in my area who did not do likewise.  I have been taking credit/debit cards since last year.  (Yes, there are some who will not or do not take credit cards but I put that down to the cost to the lawyer of providing this service). 

Life differs greatly between south Florida and central Indiana:

The story says lawyers are trying to lure clients with these options:

• Pacheco Perez Ortiz in Miami charges sliding-scale fees, and offers a payment plan: pay half now, and pay half later.

• Aventura attorney Charlotte Karlan offers 20 percent discounts for the military, and case-by-case discounts for others. “This is the worst I've ever seen business,'' she says. She has practiced for 25 years.

I am considering changing my published fees to make my positions on divorce and child support/visitation fees.  Especially since I have begun to offer unbundled fees.

Indiana Discovery Forms

I have begun adding discovery forms to my JD Supra profile. You can access them here. I use these forms in HotDocs and they do show the variables that need to be changed from county-to-county and case-to-case.

As an aside to any lawyers reading this, I have never understood why Lexis has not incorporated HotDocs into its forms libraries. Bundling the software with a CD of forms seems to me to make both a lot more valuable.

Indiana Forms on JD Supra

I have begun uploading my family law forms onto the JD Supra site. These are the same forms I use in HotDocs. You can go here to see them.

Talking About Wiki's

With apologies to Eric Burdon, I talked about wiki's before here and here. I have been trying to work on one for a non-family law area of my practice and I got to say it is a lot of work. Hopefully, I will have something I can show publicly by the end of the month. Still think an Indiana family law wiki remains a good idea even though no one has approached me about starting one. I am learning that that this blog is better for dealing with current events than laying out a framework of Indiana family law.

Meanwhile, here comes a developing wiki from England.

Online Resources: Articles and The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers keeps up a portal page for articles written by its members. As with the other online resources I am writing about this month, the articles here may not apply to Indiana at all and many do not apply to specific issues as much as policy issues. Some good resources here for lawyers, though.

Flat Fee Billing Again

The Oklahoma Family Law Blog mentioned Scott Turow's ABA Journal article, The Billable Hour Must Die. Indiana Family Law Blog picked the thread up from Oklahoma Family Law Blog.

Both makes points I made in earlier posts (here, here and here), but the past four months and reading Mr. Wilson's post crystallized this point for me: the lawyers will be happy to get rid of the billable hour when certain conditions can be met but the greatest obstacle to flat fees comes from the clients.

Let me explain that a bit more. Lawyers in my area have used flat fees for many types of cases for years - criminal, bankruptcy, some family law, Wills. I think the conditions holding up lawyers are the fear of being overwhelmed by client demands and losing any profit, or of having opposing counsel pile on the work because they know you are on a flat fee basis. Both fears can be dealt with via a good fee agreement with the client.

Now why do I say clients are an obstacle? Potential clients do not ask me how I bill. They ask what is my hourly rate. When I explain I generally bill on a flat fee basis, I can hear the confusion in the tone of their voice. The confusion comes from the completely alien phrase "flat fee" - they do not hear this on television or the movies or read about in the print media. Flat fees compound the confusion for those shopping for counsel on a price basis.

My understanding of the current flat fee movement is that it came from the corporate world. Those pushing for flat fee and other alternative fee arrangements were more sophisticated than the vast majority of family law clients. Which is why the push for alternate fees did not from the consumer side of the law practice.

Ordinary citizens hear a big hourly rate and assume that the attorney is as impressive as the hourly rate. Here ignorance is not bliss and causes my own particular gripe. These people get the bill and see every document prepared at an hourly rate. We have computers that should be able to spit out paper in a fraction of the time quoted on fee bills.

I have a point of these fulminations: only when lawyers publicize the difference between billing methods will clients accept alternate billing arrangements and until clients do so there will be attorneys clinging to the hourly rate. I would call this a Catch-22.

Things may be getting, though. Consider this survey from the Madison County (Indiana) Bar Association sent me last month:

MADISON COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION
2008 ATTORNEY FEE SURVEY


Please submit a separate form for each attorney in your firm, and only answer those
questions that apply to your own practice areas.

What is your hourly rate: $________________
(If your hourly rate varies, provide your average or most commonly charged rate.)

2. What is your opinion as to a presumptively reasonable fee award in:

Divorce - provisional hearing: $____________________

Divorce - Contested final hearing,
no custody or complex property issues: $___________________

Divorce - Contested final hearing, with
either contested custody or
complex property issues: $____________________

Divorce - Contested final hearing, with
both contested custody and
complex property issues: $___________________

Post-judgment enforcement of support
or visitation order. $____________________


3. How do you bill in probate matters (estate administration)?
(Please check one)

_____ By the hour, for actual time expended.

_____ A percentage of the estate assets: %

_____ Flat fee, depending on estimated work involved.
For supervised estate administration, my typical flat fee range would be
from$__________ to __________

Other:

Following Up on My Flat Fees Post

If you have not read Flat Fees, please do so. That post gets mentioned in Time Again for More Criticism of the Billable Hour.

While the Greatest American Lawyer does not practice family law the concerns written about in Clients Who Don’t Understand Value are also my concerns. I have seen problems when the client asks for a lawyer to withdraw and there was a flat fee. I still have a post in the works explaining where and why I am going with flat fees and I will explain there how I will deal with this problem.

Flat fees

Are clients ready for flat fees?

For a long time lawyers debated about the merits between flat fee and hourly billing. My practice has been a mixed structure of hourly, flat, and contingency fees. Then Scott Turow published The Billable Hour Must Die in the American Bar Association Magazine. Things blew up. Here are two examples:

The Billable Hour "Cockroach" is Being Exterminated....One Law Firm At a Time
....And as more and more law firms, big and small, say 'adios,' eventually the tide will shift, the consumer will become more educated as to the benefits of not paying a lawyer by the hour and client/attorney relationships will improve, lawyer career satisfaction will improve and maybe, just maybe, the image of the profession will improve in a noticeable way.

Legal Ease Blog:

"Among those talking about the article and the Shepherd Law Group are: Ron Baker of VeraSage Institute and Andrew Perlman of Legal Ethics Forum (whose post contains some interesting observations about some hourly billing practices). Carolyn Elefant posts her insights on Law.com's Legal Blog Watch and continues the conversation by asking why lawyers and not clients, are (and some argue that they must) be the ones leading the charge away from the billable hour. And my friend Susan Cartier Liebel of Build a Solo Practice, LLC is also writing about it. She says, '[the billable hour is] a profession-created cockroach and as such it can be exterminated, one lawyer, one law firm, one educated client at a time.'"

Other than custody cases, divorce cases involving custody and contested guardianship cases, my family law practice has been on a flat fee basis. I started reconsidering shifting solely to a flat fee basis since the Turow article.

Many of my fellow family law bloggers either billed on a flat fee basis before Turow's article or switched after: No More Hourly Billing For Me; Clients Benefit From Fixed Fees in Family Law Cases; and Clients Benefit From Fixed Fees in Family Law Cases.

The South Carolina Family Law Blog carried on the longest discussion ( More Discussion of Fixed Fees in Family Law Cases, Attorneys Also Benefit From Handling Family Law Cases on a Fixed Fee Basis, and Clients Benefit From Fixed Fees in Family Law Cases) on the topic as it concerns family law. Which is probably a good thing. I suggest Clients Benefit From Fixed Fees in Family Law Cases especially for laypersons. In other areas of law, the flat fee concept seems more warmly received (such as business cases; see Firms Learn to Cope With Alternative Billing Plans).

Not that all writers favor flat fees or find them without their own faults. f/f/a... published finally: NLJ on the realities of alternative billing and yourself, your clients and your ethics. New York Divorce Report notes some problems with flat fees in Attorneys' Fees-Flat Fees or the Billable Hour- Which is Better?.

If the reactions I have gotten lately are any indication, clients need educating about the different fees. I have a very long post written about changing to an almost flat fee structure for my family law cases but this article shows the context from which I came to my decision.

1/26/08 Update: I sketch how I want to apply this to my practice in Where I Want to go with Flat Fees.

A reminder about this blog - no advice given!

This blog exists for many reasons but it does not exist for giving of advice about particular cases. Those leaving requests for such advice as a comment to a post will find those comments rejected. I am sorry J. Schilling, but that is how it is. I did remove the "About this Blog" section last night and did not provide a replacement for its disclaimer, but I have corrected that problem today.

practice managment- notes on automating documents

I began using HotDocs in 2000 when I left my practice to work for a firm in Indianapolis. I mentioned in a post on my Indiana Civil and Business Law Blog that I used Symantec's Q & A for many years before that. So I converted many of my Q & A forms to use with HotDocs. In fact, I got a copy of HotDocs after I left the Indianapolis firm. Q & A had faded away by that time and I became rather attached to HotDocs.

With HotDocs you take the variables in the documents and replace them with fields. When you go to assemble the document, a window pops up and asks questions which go to fill in the fields. When finished with assembling the document, HotDocs asks whether you want to save the answers. You do want to save the answers. You will want to use these answers later. The best way I can describe how HotDocs handles answers is analogizing to sweeping a floor with a broom. By the end you should have a lot of answers that can be used in a wide-ranging set of documents.

Now all that leads to an important point when constructing forms - one must recycle the same questions in exactly the same form. "Opposing party's name" in one form does not give an answer to "Respondent's name" in another form. Fortunately, HotDocs provides the means of copying the same questions from one from to another. You just need to make sure that you add them to actual form.

By the Spring of 2003, I accumulated a rather large collection of forms under HotDocs. Then I had a major crash and no back up. (Note: back up often and make sure that you can restore what you back up!). So I went back to recreating the forms, but I got delayed in finishing that job when I became in-house counsel for one of my business clients. After I left that position to return full time to my private practice, I found a backup disk with most of the pre-2003 forms. Yippee! Then I found a small problem with these old forms.

When I started to recreate the old forms and create new ones, I changed some of the terms and also some of the programming in the forms. In other words, I changed some of the questions from the older forms. So a bit more work.

Why go through all this effort?

1. Quality control - I can be sure that the documents have fewer errors with consistent look. I can say that not all errors have been eliminated but I have far fewer than when I use cut and paste (or search and replace). I still had a very embarrassing error when the programming in an Appearance was for a different Appearance form.
   
2. Improve production. I have not had a secretary for years now. I grew severely disgruntled with what I had had for secretaries in the past and I used them very little for document production when I had them. HotDocs allows me to produce document after document without a secretary just as quickly (or more quickly) and accurately (or more so) as with a secretary. Automating the documents allows me to spend less time preparing standard documents and more time with the clients and dealing with the substance of a case.
3. Knowledge management.
   

Knowledge management? Better people than myself have defined knowledge management better than what I will. For me, it is collecting the forms and case law and memos and statutes for a particular area of law or type of case where I can recycle them. As I age so does my memory so why put any more stress on my gray cells when I can use a computer to do this? Besides, I think the clients expect us to have all the information possible (wish that we could do that!) at our fingertips. I have quite a bit on tap but still not where I was before the crash.

One thing I started several years ago is using the comments function in my HotDocs templates. If I am basing a form on a statute, I insert into the comment a copy of the statute. I also created hypertext collections of case law. I add a hypertext link to the page with the case law. To get access to the law supporting the form, I only need to open the comment.

Want to know what lawyers do?

What does this post on knowledge management and contracts have to do with family law? Everything, if you really want to know what lawyers do.

Ed Poll's comment contains the real point to my posting this link:

We still remain, however, with the mentality that it’s too easy to use an exemplar without “thinking” whether this applies “on all fours” to our current matter. Isn’t that why we went to law school: To learn how to think? It’s just too easy for the laziest amongst us to say that because it’s in print, it must be right for this matter as well.

It is not enough to just grab a form but know to what do with the form. If this is true for lawyers, think what it means if you want to do your own case.

Lawyers use their training and experience to enhance what is found in the forms. Anyone can copy a pleading and file it, but to file the correct one at the correct time for the correct purpose as part of an overall strategy is something different. Lawyers do that something different.

I have written on my Civil and Business Law Blog about how I have been working on returning my office to a more automated basis. That work also applies to the family law area. I will be writing more specifically on this and how it will be changing my fee structure.

For Attorneys: Online Date Calculator

The Marion County Courts has an online date calculator. One can Calculate difference between 2 dates and/or Calculate date by adding a time interval to a given date.

Online resources - Indiana courts

I am not sure how many lawyers are aware that information on Indiana's trial courts is available at this link. So I decided to trumpet its existence. The information varies from county but all have contact information for the county clerk and the courts in that particular county. Local rules and web pages are also available for those counties with local rules and web pages.

What Lawyers Cannot Do and about Communications

Several different persons called with inquiries that were actually complaints about their attorney inspired this post. If there were real problems with the attorney, they were not what the people were complaining about. The real problem came down to communication. The attorney did not explain the process properly or did not communicate fully about the progress of the case or did not communicate promptly.

I think all of us - certainly myself - are guilty of poor communications at some time or the other. I have calls here that I am behind on. All I can plead is some sort of clod/allergy that has knocked me for a loop this week but more importantly I just do not want to be sneezing and coughing on the telephone. Not really a good reason for not making calls.

What I find harder and harder to deal with as I get older is making sense of what is going on for the clients. I think I put matters into plain English but I still find times when what I say makes no sense or does not explain the client's question. In some ways, this blog is an attempt to work out this problem.

To get back to the main topic here - what lawyers cannot do:

1. Lawyers do not have control of the court's calendar. Most of our divorce courts also have a criminal jurisdiction and criminal cases take precedence over family law cases. Judges get sick. Opposing attorneys have other cases and if they are criminal cases then they have to attend to the criminal case first.
2. Lawyers cannot make a judge do just anything. Our job is to persuade but judges have the final say in everything. If they are wrong, then all we can do is appeal to the Indiana Court of Appeals and get those judges to say that our judge was wrong.
3. Lawyers do not order anything. That is a judge's job. About the judge's power is #2.
4. Lawyers cannot stop the other side from being stupid. The law really can do very little to prevent things. What law does is punish for things done.
   
5. Lawyers cannot change the facts. The facts determine the outcome. We can argue how the law applies to a set of facts, we emphasize one perspective on the facts, but we cannot wave our hands and make all the facts favor us. We must deal with the facts that disfavor us as much as those that favor us. Do not be surprised if a lawyer turns down a case because the facts stink.
6. Lawyers are not the place to file things. Just because you went to a lawyer does not mean that something is filed. Papers are filed with the court. Lawyers prepare documents for filing with a court.
7. Lawyers cannot guarantee anything. Not only is this unethical but the lawyer who does it is stupid. Betting on racehorses has fewer variables than any litigation.