How to Be a Bad Divorce Attorney
By this point, I think that everyone who knows Nathan or myself, or knows of us, is aware of the fact that we are getting a divorce. Nathan moved out about a month before Ian was born and the divorce SHOULD be final by now. I am still a “Mrs.”, though, and the fault for this delay lies at the well-dressed feet of my attorney. If you live in the middle Tennessee area and you find yourself in need of a divorce attorney, I recommend that you DO NOT call Pam Spicer.
I will thank Mrs. Spicer for one thing–she educated me on what constitutes a bad divorce lawyer. Now, I would like to share with you some of the tips she provided through her actions (and inactions):
1. If your very pregnant client (as she had a baby five days later) comes in to file for divorce on July 20 and, throughout the conversation, breaks into tears, make sure that you wait eleven days to file the paperwork with the courts so that said client has to wait even longer for a painful process to reach a conclusion.
2. After the specifics are hammered out and your client requests a copy of the paperwork to make sure all of the details are correct, make sure you take five days to email that paperwork to her.
3. Hire a secretary who, before sending the paperwork to the correct email address of your client, emails the documents to the wrong email address. This has the two-part benefit of delaying your client’s opportunity to review the paperwork and exposing her divorce details to a complete stranger who happens to have a similar email address.
4. When your client finally receives all of the paperwork to review, see if she finds it amusing that half of the required information is left blank and, apparently, you decided that she is moving with the kids to Vermont! I’ll bet that while she is exhausted and lonely with a newborn and preschooler at home, your little prank will bring a much-needed smile to her face.
5. As the 90-day waiting period comes to an end on October 31, make sure that you are completely inaccessible to your client. Don’t give her a chance to sign the paperwork until November 6. Don’t worry — she just loves waiting!
6. Once your client signs the final paperwork on the morning of November 6, tell her that you will submit all of the documents to the court that very afternoon. But, here’s the important part, so make sure you are paying attention. Don’t really file them! Instead, for no apparent reason, wait until Monday, November 23 and file them. This way, the judge will likely be gone for the Thanksgiving week and your client will have to wait even longer to put this mess behind her. Oh, won’t she want to give thanks for you around the holiday table this year??!!
7. Finally, once your client discovers through independent inquiries to the court that the final papers were indeed filed seventeen days later than they were supposed to be, don’t return her repeated emails and phone calls in which she insists on knowing why you took so long.
Follow these steps and you can be a bad divorce attorney, too!
This is horrifying. I had no idea it was this bad. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know all of these details. Inexcusable.
Sending your info to the WRONG email? That’s probably the thing that pissed me off the most here. I think you’re entitled to a return of some of her fee for compromising your confidentiality.
Didn’t she come recommended???
Just speaking as a law student, screw-ups and communication failures like this may not just be the result of a bad attorney, but may also constitute ethics violations under the Tennessee Bar. You might want to look into filing a complaint with the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee:
http://www.tbpr.org/Consumers/
apparently, you decided that she is moving with the kids to Vermont!
Was she recycling the Brileys’ divorce papers? Strange.
I’m sorry all this is happening to you Sarah. I think the law student entry above is something you should/could look into. And what about what Catherine asks above? How did you find the current attorney?
But having said that, I would have been very surprised if your divorce would have been final by now as you suggested on Facebook. Mine was completed by mediation and not through lawyers, yet it still took nearly a year to finalize.
Find another lawyer, hang in there, get what you deserve, and soon you’ll be truly single again.
Good luck, Sarah.
Hope its advice I never have to use, but will take it under advisement nonetheless. I hope everything works out for the best for you and the kids in the end.
1. Eleven days to file the divorce paperwork with the courts is extremely reasonable given the average lawyer’s caseload. Did you pay her more to be her only client?
2. 5 days to get documentation emailed is probably a little excessive but see above.
3. If it is a similar email address, it is likely your handwriting was illegible. Also, court documents are open to the public so any breach of confidentiality is unlikely considering I assume you filed the docs with the court.
4. Sounds to me like you received a draft of the documents. Were these filed with the courts with blanks and errors?
5. The 90-day waiting period is the earliest you can get a divorce in Tennessee with kids. Did the lawyer guaranty that she would get you divorced in 90 days?
6. Just because the docs have a date stamped on them doesn’t mean that is the date the lawyer sent them in. The court doesn’t always stamp the documents right when they come in. Sometimes months pass.
7. See above. Also, since you mentioned she switched firms, I would imagine that some of your communication issues are related to that.
Jason,
Thank you for taking the time to go though each of my points. My problem was not with the time that it took to do anything, but the fact that I was told one thing and another thing happened … time and again. It was a communication problem.
1. No, I didn’t pay her extra. When I signed the paperwork to file, she said, “We will get these to the court later tomorrow.”
3. It wasn’t my handwriting … she had my email address on an email. She forgot to add the “75″ to the end of the address. And, I think sending my social security number is a problem.
4. Half of the document had my correct information, half contained the information from a previous client. I was told to review the document for accuracy. Luckily, the document was not filed with the court like this.
5. I am familiar with the waiting period. I don’t care if it would have taken three years.
6. That was the date they arrived in court. My ex-husband is an attorney and he checked with the office that receives the documents.
7. Yes, I’m sure switching offices has something to do with it. But, that does not make it acceptable to provide erroneous information, or no communication at all.