Most people instantly think they would call law enforcement and they would assist them to regain custody. That may happen if there is already a court order establishing custody, but in my experience, law enforcement doesn’t always do that. I’m not accusing law enforcement of being indifferent; most of them don’t want to have to “interpret” a court order, especially if it’s trying to figure out who’s weekend it is with the child.

While calling law enforcement should probably be your first step, what if that’s not successful? Whether or not you have a court order regarding custody, you can file for a writ of habeas corpus. This is a court order directing the sheriff to bring the child and whoever has the child to court for the judge to determine custody.

Has this situation happened to you? What did you do to resolve it?

Related posts:

1. Is Speaking English in the Best Interest of the Child That is the question facing a mother in south Mississippi....
2. If You’re Affected by the BP Oil Spill, Modify Your Child Support Now! What does the BP oil spill have to do with...
3. The Tax Consequences of a Divorce: Child Support & Child-Related Payments Overall, the code sections regarding child support are much more...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

WLBT, a Jackson television station, is reporting that Young Williams Child Support Services supposedly falsified their records concerning serving subpoenas and summonses to people who were to appear in court for child support cases. This has resulted in hundreds of child support cases being under review to see if they were affected.

Related posts:

1. If You’re Affected by the BP Oil Spill, Modify Your Child Support Now! What does the BP oil spill have to do with...
2. The Tax Consequences of a Divorce: Child Support & Child-Related Payments Overall, the code sections regarding child support are much more...
3. How Much of My Pay Can Go to a Support Garnishment? I frequently receive telephone calls from people with questions about...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If the divorce was an irreconcilable differences (ID) divorce, the safest course of action is to file a written notice of revocation of your consent. By law, there is a 60-day waiting period after filing for an ID divorce. It’s purpose was for exactly this function, to allow the spouses time to think about the divorce and if they want to go through with it. In Mississippi, both spouses must agree to an ID divorce, so if one spouse revokes their consent, the divorce is off. Some problems may come up, however, if you have already signed a property settlement agreement and you are not reconciling with your spouse. That’s going on now in a case, but that’s the subject for another post.

Additionally, if one spouse in an ID divorce revokes their consent, the other spouse can re-file for divorce on the basis of fault, if any exists.

If the divorce was filed on the basis of fault, and you’re the plaintiff, you can always dismiss your complaint.

If your spouse, though, has filed a counter-complaint for divorce (in other words, you’re both claiming fault-based grounds against each other), the fact you’re dismissing your complaint does not dismiss the counter-complaint. So, the divorce case can continue in that situation.

Just how rare is changing your mind after filing for divorce? I’d say I’ve seen it happen in fewer than 5% of the cases I’ve handled. It usually happens in ID divorces when one spouse thinks they’re not getting a good deal from the property separation agreement. You can look for more on how changing your mind affects that agreement soon.

Related posts:

1. From Contested to Non-Contested   I was looking back over some of my old...
2. The Tax Consequences of a Divorce: Property Transfers A divorce usually involves some transfer of property, whether it...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

—-

The most frequent complaint about lawyers is they won’t take or return phone calls.  Articles on this subject usually sugarcoat the issue, give some blah blah blah about professional responsibility, or try to it wrap up in a touchy-feely feel-good win-win conclusion.  No one really wants to tell you what is going on.  You want the truth about why your lawyer doesn’t want to talk to you?  Here are the top ten reasons your attorney won’t return your calls.

10. Your lawyer is busy on something more important. While you may think and act like you are your lawyer’s only client, the reality is that a lot of other people hired the same attorney as you.  Your business alone will not pay your lawyer’s bills.  Lawyers have to meet crucial deadlines. They spend hours standing around in courtrooms, and more hours researching and preparing to stand around in courtrooms.  They are in meetings with clients, interviewing witnesses, taking depositions, and a million other important things.  Your whiney question about a case that won’t be going to trial for two or three years is not as pressing as the case set for trial tomorrow.

9.  There is nothing new to tell you. Many people believe that there are always new developments in their case, or that there should be.  In reality, most cases involve many periods of intense activity but also include many times of little or no activity.  For example, if you send interrogatories to the opposing party, there is probably nothing going on until they submit their answers a month from now.  If all discovery has been done and you are just waiting for trial, you could experience months of inactivity in a case just waiting to get in front of a judge.  If there is nothing to tell you, your call inquiring about the status of the case may not get returned until there is absolutely nothing else of any importance that the lawyer needs to do.

8.  You talk too much. Some people act like a lawyer has all the time in the world, and want to chat endlessly about trivial matters that just aren’t relevant.  Lawyers quickly learn which clients can be efficient and which ones are time hogs.  If you know how to get to the point, get your answer, and move on, your lawyer is much more likely to return your calls than if he or she knows that your call will go on forever.  Lawyers are busy, they only have a limited number of hours in a day, and they can’t spend all day listening to you blab on and on.  It’s nothing personal, you are just a waste of time.  If the lawyer starts the conversation with, “I’ve only got 5 minutes before I have to do X,” that may be a warning sign that you are a time waster.  Make your calls short and to the point, and you’ll hear from your lawyer sooner and more often.

7.  Your lawyer has issues. Surprisingly few people do much research before hiring a lawyer.  This lack of diligence works out well for lawyers with substance abuse problems, mental illnesses, or a poor work ethic.  What do you really know about this person who has been entrusted with the most important matters in your life?  Statistics indicate that lawyers suffer from alcoholism and depression at rates significantly higher than the general population.    In fact, lawyers have the most alcoholics of any profession.  You may have hired a fantastic attorney who is swamped with work, or you may have hired an alcoholic lawyer who is too drunk to talk to you right now.

6.  Your lawyer screwed up. While still fairly rare, this does happen more often than people realize.  Your lawyer could be avoiding telling you the unpleasant truth that your case has already been lost.  How can this happen?  The most common way is that the lawyer missed a filing deadline.  If there was a statute of limitations on when your case had to be filed with the court and the lawyer missed that deadline, then you are screwed. Your lawyer doesn’t want to tell you because he or she doesn’t want to have to admit to committing malpractice.  So he stalls, delays, and avoids you until he can figure out a way out of this mess.

5.  Your lawyer is an ass. Most lawyers are not as bad as the reputation of the profession would lead one to believe.  In fact, most are ordinary people who just happen to be in a job that turns them into bitter, cynical asses who hate what they do every day.  Most started out with high aspirations for all the good they could do in the world as a lawyer, only to discover so much of the job is just doing the bidding of some of the sorriest SOBs on the planet (such as you).  This is very hard on one’s soul, and over time it can turn lawyers into rather unpleasant people.  Note: It could also be that he was already an ass before becoming a lawyer, in which case joining the legal profession is like living a dream for him.

4. You are not the client. It is absolutely amazing how many people think they have a right to know what is going on in other people’s cases.  Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, ex-wives, employers – the number of people who call lawyers wanting to know “what is going on” would surprise most people.  If you are leaving messages about someone else’s case and aren’t getting a return call, consider that the lawyer has no obligation to call you.  The lawyer doesn’t represent you, can’t tell you anything, and really doesn’t have time to argue with you about why he can’t tell you anything.  It doesn’t matter if you are the client’s momma, if you have written authorization, if you have a power of attorney for the client, or even if you are paying the bill.  If you aren’t the client, mind your own business.

3.  You are an idiot. This one is pretty self-explanatory.  You are a dumbass who doesn’t understand anything you are told, or who disregards it to do whatever you want to do anyway.  You are going to be getting into trouble for the rest of your life because you are just so dumb.  Seen those “stupid criminal” videos?  That’s you.  Your lawyer is tired of telling you what to do, only to watch you disregard it to indulge your impulses or because you think you are smarter than everyone else.  You aren’t.  No one likes to waste time talking to a moron.

2.  You won’t listen. This one often overlaps with “you are an idiot.”  No matter how many times something is explained to you, you ask the same questions over and over because you don’t like the answers you received.  You think that if you ask the same question over and over, at some point the answer will change into something you want to hear.  This isn’t your mommy saying you can’t have a cookie and finally giving in because you asked for it 100 times.  If you’ve been told the same answer a dozen times already, maybe it is because that really is the answer.  Since the lawyer doesn’t want to tell you again, he just won’t bother talking to you.

1.  You are an ass. The biggest reason that your lawyer doesn’t want to talk to you is that you are an ass.  You are rude, demanding, pushy, arrogant, whiney, and annoying.  You think that you can catch more flies with a flamethrower than with honey.  Your lawyer is the only person who is trying to help you, and yet you want to treat him like this?  Hating you is not a good motivator for trying to help win your case.  The squeaky wheel may get the grease, but it doesn’t get a returned phone call.  Try being polite and pleasant, and you’ll have much better communications with your lawyer.

Related posts:

1. My Lawyer’s Cheating on Me! I’ve received several calls lately with people concerned that their...
2. Do You Really Want a Mean Lawyer? Today, Dick Price, a lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas who...
3. Do I need a Lawyer? I get that question fairly often. The most recent was...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I recently ran across a post from the blog “Politics of the Cross Resurrected” which discussed a resolution the Southern Baptists passed at their convention dealing with divorce.

That resolution believes that Southern Baptists should:

1. Realize “how damaging Southern Baptist accommodation to the divorce culture is to our global witness for Christ.”

2. Confront “the spiritual wreckage left in our Southern Baptist churches by our own divorce rates and our silence about the same.”

3. Acknowledge that “areas where Southern Baptist churches predominate in number often have higher divorce rates than areas we would define as ‘unchurched’ and in need of evangelical witness.” (This is correct. Mississippi’s divorce rate is 82 percent (13,000 divorces vs. only 15,900 marriages). Arkansas’ rate is 63 percent; Kentucky, 59 percent.) [Emphasis added.]

4. Confess that “Even the most expansive view of the biblical exceptions allowing for divorce and remarriage would rule out many, if not most, of the divorces in our churches.”

5. Admit that “The acceleration in rates of divorce in Southern Baptist churches has not come through a shift in theological conviction about Scriptural teaching on divorce but rather through cultural accommodation.”

As both a Southern Baptist and a divorcee (but happily married now, right dear?), I commend the convention for passing this resolution. I am concerned, however, that, as with many things in life, there will be some people who take it too far. I am especially concerned about the first provision, that “accommodation to the divorce culture” has damaged Souther Baptist’s witness. I hope that some churches will not take that as license to exclude divorced persons from their congregations.

I have been a member of a church before that prohibited divorced persons from serving in any positions of church leadership. I understand that there is biblical support for this, but I can also tell you from first hand experience that it makes divorced persons feel like second-class members of the church. I am worried that this resolution may allow some churches to feel that they can even exclude divorced persons from joining or excommunicate existing members.

I personally feel that my law practice is a ministry, especially in the areas of divorce and family law. While God may hate divorce, God is, above all else, a God of love and of second chances. I try to help people going through a divorce remember that.

At my own church, we have a saying, “No perfect people allowed.” As long as churches remember that they are full of sinners, this resolution should be interpreted in the proper light.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any positive or negative experiences with divorce and the church?

Related posts:

1. Don’t Divorce Your Children from the Church One of the questions people face when going through a...
2. Divorce in the Armed Forces The Associated Press reports today that the divorce rate has...
3. Is It Too Easy to Get a Divorce? Many people think it is too easy to get a...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.