As a law firm, our job is to fight to get our clients the best deals and ensure they understand (and are happy with) the deals they receive. However, in areas such as family law, it’s not uncommon for clients to feel like their case will drag on forever and ultimately lead to an unfavorable outcome. Family Law is a practice area where clients bring a great deal of emotion into cases, whether it be from fighting for their child, establishing timesharing, or going through a contested divorce! How our clients feel walking away from any case is of the utmost importance to us. Today we want to share a case featuring a Dissolution of Marriage with children that we handled here at the firm. Dissolution of Marriage with children just means that the case was a divorce with children involved. Like many family law cases, the case started out as challenging, but this case became more difficult as it progressed...
Our client in this case was the husband, who was divorcing his wife over her infidelity. The wife was represented by a family member, who was constantly throwing fuel on the fire. As you can imagine, the case was contentious from the start. To complicate matters, both parties were part of strong religious communities where a lawsuit like this was frowned upon and put both clients under unwanted scrutiny.
In an unethical effort to protect the wife’s reputation, opposing counsel began taking legal actions out-of-spite. The wife’s counsel filed a temporary injunction against our client. There was a list of allegations against him in attempts to justify the injunction, but the most outlandish was an alleged rape that occurred several years before the divorce proceedings were underway.
In a decision likely made because of the animosity in the case, the judge surprisingly granted the injunction. As you can imagine, the wife wielded the injunction as a tool to keep the husband away from his child, even though he had been involved in the child’s life 100%. At this point, the court appointed a Guardian Ad-Litem to look out for the child’s best interests, but when the Guardian made a recommendation that the wife didn’t agree with, the wife looked to remove the Guardian (unbelievably, even the Guardian was forced to retain an attorney for the matter).
In most Family Law cases, emotions run high at the beginning, but with the guidance of an experienced Family Law attorney, both parties eventually come to see things more rationally and come to a resolution that works for everyone. This didn’t seem like the case for these two. Our client just wanted equal time-sharing and the wife fought tooth-and-nail to deny him his request. The wife’s legal strategy eventually shifted when she realized her family member had never actually practiced in Family Law Court. Yes, he was not a family law attorney. Realizing her family member didn’t know what he was doing and was only going to make things worse, they hired co-counsel, an actual Family Law attorney.
Fortunately, this family law attorney was able to work with us and both parties were finally able to get the case moving toward a resolution. This case stands out to us because of all the high emotions involved and the fact that, for much of the proceedings, the wife was being advised by her family members who held strong opinions about the parties involved. This case is a classic example of why you should retain legal counsel for divorce proceedings, especially with children involved. As you can see, there is no guarantee that both parties will act rationally throughout the duration of the case. We understand that getting a divorce is a deeply personal event, but it's important to remember to always go to your attorney with an open mindset, listen to your counsel, and try to understand the options that the law provides you. Keeping a cool head, acting rationally, and listening to your attorney (like our client did) will ultimately give you the best shot at a favorable outcome. Thanks to our determined and dedicated legal team, we got our client equal time sharing, which is exactly what he wanted, but it was truly a contentious case with many obstacles to overcome!
