99 Things To Know About A Divorce Lawyer Near Me

In our daily work as Family Law Attorneys we see and hear a lot of things from clients, other divorce lawyers, and even in the grocery store check out line. Here we are going to collect the tidbits and provide them to you starting with a list of 9. Expect updates as we collect and put onto paper the tidbits and experiences!

1. Co-Parenting is hard. Especially when the other parent is lazy or difficult or just plain substandard. While it would be great if our legal system would teach parents how to be cooperative and better if the system offered a legal remedy. What do you need to know if you have a poor co-parent in your child custody situation? If you do not yet have a Final Judgement – make sure you obtain a strong, tight Parenting Plan that covers all the unique details of your family’s needs. Detailed instructions about communications between the parents, between the parents and child(ren), about medical appointments and costs (with timeframes for reimbursements), and even about your child’s dance classes or martial arts activities. If you do have a Final Judgment already, see #2.
2. If your divorce or paternity action is already resolved and the court has issued a Final Judgment and/or a Final Parenting Plan – there are still things you can do to help yourself and perhaps your lawyer if you choose to pursue a judicial intervention. a) Very important – Keep A Log book of some sort. Make it a daily habit – notate good interactions or behaviors of the co-parent, the child, and even yourself. Use the date and time, Notes about what happened, and on the far right make note of what items you have to support your entry (such as a text, an email, a receipt or invoice, your phone bill *see #3, photos, or reports from the school or medical provider. b) Read your Parenting Plan. Know it. Understand and apply the terms of the document and be ready to reference it, politely, in communications with the other parent.
3. Download your phone bill every month or set a reminder and do it for a divorce lawyer near me on a quarterly basis. Why? Because if you are trying to reach your child and the other parent is not permitting contact – you’ll have documentation. Because if the other parent accuses you of avoiding his/her attempts to contact you or the children – you’ll have the proof of exactly what numbers called or texted. A note about Hearsay – while your phone bill alone cannot be presented to the court directly there are ways to get certified copies or to create a summary for use in court or even to show opposing counsel that his/her client is not accurate.
4. Use a Co-Parenting App. Click the link to see a partial list of applications that can be used on a smart phone, a computer, or both. The best co-parenting tools allow for email, text, calendaring, and exchange of reimbursements directly in the program. Many of these applications also allow the judge or the divorce lawyer to view the messages and information directly – nothing can be altered.
5. Use e-mail, not texting, to communicate with the other parent. Courts don’t like texts and often texts cannot be used because the information required to authenticate a “screen shot” (which is really a photograph of your screen) is not known and does not appear on the face of the photo. Another issue is that the court wants the entire conversation on a particular topic. Screen shots must be overlapped, other topics are between the messages, there are several days of messages – all of this makes screen shots of text messages a poor choice.
6. If you must text – use a phone, app or system that allows you to upload the entire content of the history between your number and the co-parent’s number. Which one? There are text upload programs for almost every type of phone. Some computers allow you to connect the phone and it has messages in both places (such as an iPhone to a Mac using iMessages and the iCloud). Also, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I have all the texts and he said XYZ…” then when it is time to gather evidence the phone is different, messages lost, phone in the drink, etc. If you are logging as suggested in #2 – you can refer to the notes and testify from your personal knowledge about what you and the co-parent talked about on text.
7. Calendar the dates associated with your custody order or Parenting Plan every year – the major holidays, school days and breaks, any known medical or dental appointments, the other parent’s birthday and even his/her main family member birthdays if known. Why should you bother? Why should you care? Even if he/she does not reciprocate you will know that you are focused on doing what is best for your child(ren). Wouldn’t the kids like to visit grandma on her birthday even if it is during your timesharing? Probably so.
8. Do not use tracking devices of any type to keep track of your co-parent. No airtags, no tracker device, no Life 360, no find my apps, don’t do it. If these things exist – be the bigger person and cancel the follow, remove the device, or tell the other parent so he/she can disable. We’ve seen too many parents end up in Injunction Court for “stalking” and end up screwing up the paternity action or divorce case. If you want to put a tracker on your child and the child will be visiting the other parent – tell the other parent what it is, where it is, and give him/her access to the tracker. (If you are tracking for safety of the child – both parents have the right to that information.).
9. If you move out of your marital home you are NOT waiving any interest in the house, you are not releasing ownership, you are not giving up the equity that accumulated during the marriage. This is a very common question we get and while there may be a few small exceptions, moving out does not adjust ownership or interest. Do not sign any papers without have a lawyer review them first.
10. Coming soon! More tips and examples from your local family law attorney, paternity lawyer, divorce lawyer.

Rhoden Law Group practices primarily in areas associated with family law matters from adoption, paternity, divorce, child custody, child support, modification of custody, alimony, timeshare, wills/trusts, and probate. If it has to do with family dynamics we likely handle it. Call or text the office 321 549 3162 or use the Contact form here on our website.