The 13 April 2011 issue of the Indiana Court Times has an article titled Best Practices: What to do with the Unprepared Attorney written by the Honorable Marianne Vorhees.
A quick side note: I do not use the term Honorable as of course but do reserve it for those jurists who I believe bring honour to the judiciary. Marianne Vorhees is one of those who is deliberate in her thinking and application of the law. She views child custody proceedings as an examination of people and facts as unique as a set of fingerprints while giving due diligence to consideration for the ultimate recipient of her decision; the child.
I have built a practice of assisting attorneys and litigants with child custody proceedings. So when I saw the title of this article and certainly upon reading it I felt a sense of vindication. It is a matter of routine that I tell people that if they can afford to have an attorney then they can't afford to not have me working with them.
Near the end of the article Vorhees states, "As judge, you probably cannot do anything to protect the party represented by the unprepared attorney. The person who selected the attorney will have to suffer the consequences of choosing counsel unwisely."
That last sentence is profound but misses its greatest significance in what it doesn't say by what it does. Let me first back up to what the essence of the article was about; trial preparation.
When discussing relevant knowledge Vorhees wrote, " For example, if an attorney asks for hearing on behalf of a custodial parent seeking to relocate with a child, the court could hold a very productive pre-trial conference. There have been recent statutory changes that may be unknown to parents and even to some attorneys, especially those who don’t practice family law on a regular basis."
Although such information is not widely disseminated to the public it is well known among those practicing that there are attorneys who are profoundly ignorant of child custody matters who take these cases. It is not a subject that you will hear raised often but few attorneys fall into the category of child custody experts.
So when Vorhees says, "The person who selected the attorney will have to suffer the consequences of choosing counsel unwisely" she is correct. But what may not be readily discernible to the casual reader is the implicit message; that a child may ultimately suffer the consequences of a parent having an unprepared attorney.
I have all too often, after the damage has been done, seen a good parent, with a good case, with a child who needs his or her frequent and meaningful involvement not get that opportunity because of the short-comings of an attorney.
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