Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

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Then don’t say anything at all! That’s the old adage at least. I wish I saw it followed more in the legal field.

I got to thinking about this recently when reviewing a letter/counter-offer written to me by an opposing attorney as part of negotiations in a dissolution of marriage (divorce) proceeding. Because in my example, the attorney (and ostensibly her client) were agreeing with us and on the substance doing exactly what we and they wanted. Simply, they were in agreement with me and my client about how to divide a marital asset. But, in the sentence before it’s stated that we agree to divide said asset in such-and-such way, the attorney states, “Client X has done nothing to contribute to the acquisition of assets in recent years.”

Now, I’m not naive here, there’s a place for criticism and threats as a negotiating tactic when you can back them up and when they serve a purpose. But, if you’re in agreement, what purpose does the “dig” serve? The purpose it often serves is to upset the recipient to an extent he/she may no longer be too thrilled about settling something that you just agreed to settle.

Now, why’d ya make that stupid comment again?

If a large percentage of your practice is prosecuting and defending various sorts of contempt of court matters as mine is, you may have heard of the former husband in a PA divorce case (who also happened to be an attorney) who was subject to the longest sentence in U.S. history stemming from a civil contempt finding. I know that at several of the trainings I’ve attended periodically he was brought up. The thumbnail is some $2.5 million in marital assets disappeared which according to him were lost in poorly performing investments and the former wife likely thinks that they’re still sitting around in some Swiss bank account. Well, since civil contempt is supposed to be coercive and not punishing, a PA judge said that jail has lost its coercive affect after 14 years. He’s out!

And while we’re talking contempt, can anyone help me with this riddle that I’ve struggled with all morning:

Court orders entered and party brings petition for indirect criminal contempt (aimed to punish for past acts). Later on, the orders that are the basis of the criminal contempt case get vacated/terminated, there has yet to be a hearing/trial on the criminal contempt case. Should the contempt case be dismissed or can it still be brought since the orders that were allegedly violated were enforceable at the time the case was brought??

Here’s the article about the review of census data.  So why only 4 parentage judges of 43 in Cook County domestic relations division?

I encountered the first instance in my entire career where a client would have been better off having filed a Counter Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, where his spouse initially filed for divorce. I used to think that the filing of Counter Petitions in the divorce setting was one of the bigger wastes of time going and just a bill padding technique used by certain firms. And oftentimes it is, but particularly in Cook County this can be a smart move.

Why?

Because a divorce case can be dismissed just like the $2,000 collection case and if you’ve gotten a lot of favorable rulings or if you have a judge who you think “likes” your case you probably don’t want to enable the other spouse to just dismiss the case and start-over in a different courthouse with a different judge who may NOT like your case quite as much. And this is pretty readily done in Cook County, you can file in one of the suburban courthouses and then dismiss and file at Daley. Or, you could likely dismiss your Daley case and re-file at Daley with little risk that you’d get stuck with the same judge. In less populated counties this likely isn’t as much of an issue because if you dismiss you’d probably be re-filing before the same judge regardless.

For example, I observed a situation (was involved in the case post-decree) where case is filed in suburban Cook and proceeds for some 6 months up to a pre-trial conference with judge who gives very favorable recommendation to W. But H was petitioner in case so he just dismisses the case and re-files a month later down at Daley. Well, the Daley case proceeds to trial and H gets a great result. Now W doesn’t feel too great…and this feeling could likely have been avoided if a Counter Petition had been filed.