How Do I Efficiently Use My Attorney’s Time?

When you meet with an attorney, you are paying for his or her services and expertise by the hour. It’s important to use your time wisely and prepare for each meeting; otherwise your legal case can get very expensive.

There are plenty of helpful articles that offer advice on how to prepare for your first meeting with a lawyer. When you meet with me, here are some things to keep in mind:

How should you prepare for our meeting? If this is our first meeting, I will give you a list of all of the documents I need, which will depend on the nature of your case. If your case has already started, please bring all pleadings with you. During our meeting, I’ll copy what I need.

Start thinking about answers to the following questions. This will give me more background on your specific case:

• Do you have real estate, retirement accounts, financial institution accounts, significant personal property, or any other types of property?
• What debts do you have?
• If you have children, who will they live with?
• Any issues with domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, other problems affecting parenting?
• What does each person earn, to determine child support? Daycare, educational, or other special expenses?

Also, start thinking about questions that you’d like to ask me such as, “What will this cost?” and “What is the process for moving my case forward?”

Please make childcare arrangements because it is not appropriate for them to be at our meeting.

What happens during our meeting? The goal for every meeting is to find out what you want and explain how (or if) you can have it. If this is our first meeting, I will ask you a series of questions to gain an understanding of your case. Questions like:

• How you respond to stress?
• Do you have family or friends to help you through the process?
• What is your financial situation—what you have and what you owe?
• What you would like to do about your kids?

Starting out, everything that you share is relevant to your case because personal stories and background information help me understand your thought process and larger desires. Once I have that information, however, I don’t need to hear it again. It is only necessary to update me if something changes. Subsequent meetings generally focus on a specific issue at hand at that time. Retelling information only wastes time.

What happens after our meeting? It’s a good idea to take notes about what we discuss during our meetings. You can do this as the meeting happens or afterwards at home.

At the end of each meeting, I will outline what the next steps are. This will help move your case forward and give you action items to prepare for our next meeting. Being ill prepared by not bringing documents or finding out information I asked for in advance wastes time and costs you money.

It’s not uncommon to have questions after we meet. If it’s a single issue, sending me an email works the best. However, if it’s a complex question and if there will be a lot of going back and forth between us, scheduling a subsequent phone or in-person meeting is a good idea. Keep in mind that I do charge for these post-meeting contacts.

This should give you an idea of how to prepare for and what to expect during our meetings. I look forward to working with you.

How does the changing role of men and women lead to divorce?

The recession is affecting the job market in America and also changing the role of men and women at home and in the workplace. In a recent story on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, The Atlantic’s Hanna Rosin and author Guy Garcia sat down to explore “The End of the Macho Man.” You can listen to the full story here. 

They started off the conversation with some interesting statistics:

• For the first time ever, the number of women workers outnumbers the men.
• Women are working at better and better jobs these days.
• Women under 30 are - in 147 out of 150 cities - making more money than men under 30.

While women still earn “77 cents on the dollar” to men in salary, their changing roles in the workplace impact their relationships at home. With change comes a lot of uncertainty. One caller, Patrick, shared his own experience:

PATRICK (Caller): Hi. I have two degrees. My wife has three degrees. She's always made more than I. And after being laid off in 2007, I went into my own business and have not made nearly the same kind of wages, and I think now I'm faced with divorce because she can't see that I'm carrying my weight, or she feels as though she's carrying the load of the entire family on her wages and that I don't measure up to her model of male in the relationship, as did her father.

Patrick’s story is very familiar to us – men and women enter into marriages with expectations of what their roles should be.  When life changes that plan, they’re left wondering what to do next.  And when divorce is the next step, there are an infinite number of decisions to make and ways to get there.

Our philosophy is to help you navigate through your family law issues by offering  support when you need it. We offer a variety of services and workshops to help you get control of your case so that you can move forward with your life. Everyone needs help and guidance.  Let us be there for you.

Free Attorney Support at Pro Se University

Seattle Family Law Attorney and CEO of Pro Se University, Marie White, is offering FREE Attorney Support on Tuesdays, February 16 and March 2, 2010, to help you with any family law issue. Sign up for a free thirty minute appointment now.  There a limited number of these free appointments available.

Marie has been a solo-practicing lawyer for the past 18 years, focusing almost exclusively on family law.

Marie White, Family Law Attorney