Considering an Uncontested Divorce or Custody Case?
Are you in a case where you think that you might have an uncontested divorce or custody case? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m an attorney with Wirth Law Office. I’ve been doing this family law for about seven years, and I want to help you make law easy by describing to you kind of what it looks like to do an uncontested divorce or custody case. I just had this come up this week. My client came to the office and got all of his information. We’re ready to file the paperwork and get the case going.
And two days later, he calls and says that he’s reached an agreement with the other side, which is fantastic. He says that they sat down, they hashed it all out, they wrote it all out. He wants to bring her with him to the office next week so that way we can go over the paperwork. Everything was great up until that point. I love it when my clients reach an agreement.
Confidentiality in Legal Matters
I tell every one of my clients, that you should enter an order that you’ve negotiated and agreed to yourself where you had one hand on the steering wheel instead of having to be stuck with an order that a judge just shoved down their throat regardless of what your preference was. I’m all for negotiating an agreed settlement. That’s beautiful. But I’m also for protecting my clients, and so I had to tell my client, listen, you can’t bring the other side with you.
Why? Here’s why. Because this thing is called attorney-client confidentiality, it only works if it’s just the attorney and the client. Sometimes in my meeting, I’ll have my paralegal or someone in staffing with me taking notes. But confidentiality covers me and everyone in the office. It doesn’t cover anyone that you bring in. It doesn’t cover if you bring in the other party. It doesn’t cover if you bring in your mama, your best friend, or your preacher.
Protecting Your Legal Interests
That kills confidentiality. More importantly, though, in this particular instance, if you’re going to bring the other party in here, let’s say the three of us sit down. It’s me, you, the opposing party. We start going over the terms of the agreement. I start answering questions. The other side starts having questions. I answer them. Inadvertently, I’m going to end up giving legal advice to the other side. It’s a huge risk.
Even if I don’t actually overtly give legal advice, even if I’m giving something that I’m just telling my client, but the other party hears it and relies upon that advice that they’ve heard from me, that creates an attorney-client relationship between me and someone that I never should have or wanted to have an attorney-client relationship with. Now, what’s the problem with that? The problem is that as much as I love an agreed resolution, I love it when parties are getting along, I cannot just assume that you’re always going to be getting along forever.
Low-Cost Initial Strategy Session
If you have any other questions or you think that you might have an uncontested divorce or custody case that you want to chat about, please feel free to give us a call at 918-879-1681. My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m with the Wirth Law Office. Thank you.
