What To Bring To Your First Appointment

What should you bring to your first appointment to visit with a lawyer? Some of this can be sent for review in advance.

1. Court Documents: If there has been a court filing, the client must bring previously filed documents. The last order entered by a court is an absolute must if the client is seeking post divorce advice. Certainly, if a client has recently been sued, the client must bring the suit and the summons served upon them and be prepared to say exactly when the papers were handed to them.
2. Financial documents:
   (Note: the idea is to provide a basic understanding of the finances. Detail will be developed later)
• Financial statements given by either party to lenders if you have them
• basic financial statements prepared by either party
• the latest pay stub for both parties if you have them
• the latest statements for savings, stock and pension accounts if you have them (Note: the attorney will be interested in a basic idea of what was acquired during the marriage versus what was acquired before the marriage and what was received by gift during the marriage.)
• Tax returns for the last three years if you have them
• a social security earnings history if you have one
3. Basic Timeline of Events: (Too much detail would not be useful in an initial appointment)
4. Proof of Fault: such as telephone records, copies from Facebook, letters, recordings, pictures, cards, etc, pictures of bruises, doctor bills from abuse, etc.
5. Payment: Oftentimes it is important to protect against the other party knowing about the appointment, so make arrangements to pay by a method the other spouse will not be able to detect, such as cash or cashiers check or checking account to which the other spouse does not have access.

Cooperative Versus Collaborative Divorce

The worst type of divorce for everyone is a contested divorce. That is one where the decisions are left to a judge after the parties "fight it out" in court. This type of case exacts a great cost financially and emotionally.

A recent trend in the law has been to have the parties handle their divorces through the collaborative process. In this process, the parties and the professionals (who are trained to handle cases collaboratively) sign an Agreement which provides that all discussions will be held in the open and that there will be full disclosure. If there is not a successful resolution of the issues, the parties must hire different attorneys to take the matter to court. The collaborative meetings are held with the "team members" present. The parties will each have a divorce coach who is a mental health professional. If there are children, there may be a child specialist. There also may be a financial specialist to deal with the money and property issues. While the meetings can involve a significant expense, they still resolve cases with less expense than a contested case.

In a cooperative divorce, there is no requirement that all meetings be held as a group nor is there a requirement that new counsel be obtained if an agreement is not reached. The parties may be referred out to other experts on an as needed basis. These differences keep the cost down significantlt while achieving many of the same goals of collaborative divorce.



Mary G. Commander is a trained Collaborative Divorce Practitioner and Mediator in Norfolk, VA.