Nervous ahead of court...any advice or words of wisdom?

[BubbaGumpShrimp]

I'm hiring a new lawyer tomorrow. My current lawyer couldn't be bothered to give me a five minute phone call today. Worthless. I'm just lucky that I didn't give her anymore money.

< edited > ever getting married again.... Not gonna do it.

Yup. I was guarded to begin with (I had no intention of ever doing joint accounts...I don't care who I was going to marry). With the direction this train wreck is headed, I'll be close to 40 before I recover (financially).

Excellent credit by 22, college degree at 27 (post military), house at 28, married at 29, divorced at 30 (working on it...at least). Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee (roller-coaster headed downhill).

[BubbaGumpShrimp]

My NJ may have "got hers" for the first 100+ days of the separation, but that's about to come to a head. I dumped my idiot lawyer and got a good lawyer/shark. I wasn't very optimistic for a while...but at this point...I won't be surprised if she winds up having to back-pay me for: 4 (months) x $1,000 (failing to pay for living expenses), $2,500+ (attorney fees for the sole purpose of taking her to court to get money out of her because she hasn't paid a cent in months), and her a55 booted out of the house within 30-90 days of the 8/9 court date (the most likely scenario). She has to show up for this court date.

The low end has me getting $4,000 out of her in short order...and possibly $6,500. Granted she doesn't have that kind of money, but that's exactly the point. The lawyer has very craftily written up the amended complaint (fixing lawyer #1's $h1t) to essentially say "You have two options: 1. Vacate the house now, agree to a six month separation, and we'll let the money issue go, or 2. Stay...and it's going to cost you."

[Rod27]

Did u receive invoices for billable hours? The only thing attorneys are afraid of is the state bar getting a complaint for billing fraud. It is a huge issue with them. And they can never bill you for discussing your bill. It is always free by law.

[BubbaGumpShrimp]

Did u receive invoices for billable hours? The only thing attorneys are afraid of is the state bar getting a complaint for billing fraud. It is a huge issue with them. And they can never bill you for discussing your bill. It is always free by law.

The last lawyer did give me an invoice with the billable hours. I flushed ~$800 down the toilet before I pulled the plug on her. Yeah...I did get off light in terms of her billing. However, her stalling/wasting my goddamn time cost me $4,000+ (paying for $h1t for NJ).

I haven't gotten to the EOM/billing cycle notice with the new lawyer though (just retained him this past Monday). No joke though...he's filed/gotten more done this week than my previous lawyer did in the past two months. He actually signs everything that goes out too...not the legal assistant (as with the previous lawyer).

I was doing good just to get the last lawyer to return a phone call...let alone accomplish anything.

[Rod27]

If she billed you for things, were those things done? If u want to be a jerk about it, you could go file a complaint, but may not be worth it for $800 if that's all it was.

[BubbaGumpShrimp]

If she billed you for things, were those things done? If u want to be a jerk about it, you could go file a complaint, but may not be worth it for $800 if that's all it was.

Yeah...that's just it. It's not really worth my time. What I may do (we'll see) is file a complaint with the VA state bar. If nothing else, that might warn others in my situation (I.e. people that are broke and just looking for ANY lawyer they can afford) to steer clear of her. I doubt that will really accomplish anything though.

At this point...I just want access to my house and this train wreck over with. When that happens, I'll probably be so happy that I won't give two $h1ts about messing with the old lawyer.