The end of the school year really kicks my butt apparently. I have been sleeping increasing late in the morning. My last few days have involved the riveting process of scanning anything pertaining to my divorce, child custody and settlement agreement so that I can send it electronically to my new fancy FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR AN HOUR attorney. I thought that since everyone and their brother in Colorado was a fucking attorney, the market forces would drop the cost a bit. Figures I would need to work with the one profession whose rates are not driven by market forces, except, probably when a newly minted attorney goes out looking for work. I hear that, given the way-to-many attorneys our there, attorney job market forces work with an efficency that would make libertarians proud.
This guy better kick my ex's ass.
So one of the lovely things I learned by pouring over court transcripts, returns and W-2s is that my ex dramatically under reported his salary before the court a few years back. I think I mentioned this in an early entry when I said "WHO DOES KNOW THEIR FUCKING SALARY?"
Of course the fall out of this meant that for 8 years my child support was set far lower than the court would have done if they had known his real salary. I remember that joyous day in court when he told the judge he was taking a "fellowship" (note that the quotes are to reflect my cynicism) and even though for the next 15 months his income would be $1,000 monthly, it was a great professional development opportunity which would lead to a much higher paying job (didn't happen). He only turned his pay check stub over to the court at the actual hearing. I looked at it and noticed the pay date range was EVERY TWO WEEKS. I alerted my counsel to this and it became quite clear that he was making $2000 monthly. Here is the new revelation: His W-2's from that job reveal that he didn't make 30K for the 15 month fellowship like he conceded, His W-2's show that he made $52,000. Normally, I would have caught this little tidbit, but my ex never provided tax returns for the past eight years until he was forced to as part of this most recent proceeding. There is probably nothing I can do about that now, except use it as ammunition to pressure the magistrate to give us more time for discovery since clearly we will have to carefully investigate my ex's income sources carefully. No easy task since he is working in the EU.
Well, back to scanning, then the gym.
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4 comments:
$400/hour? Average price in Palm Beach County FL is $250-300/hour for an experienced family law attorney or mediator. Family law cases are usually not that complicated. Does your issue warrant a top-gun?
He has some associates that work for less - $250 range - and I was going to use one. I spent 90 minutes on the phone with one before she even had a basic grasp of my situation. It didn't feel like money well spent. This guy got the gist of my case in about 20 minutes. In the end, even though there is not much money at stake, he seem to intuitively get the issues at stake and has an amazing ability to retain details. Furthermore, he was the mentor to my ex's attorney so he knows her well. He was deeply bothered that she did quoted appellate court decision in mediation in an effort to get me to back off a position when the appellate court decision was under appeal before the CO Supreme Ct., oral arguments had already occured and a decision was due any day... and I was pro se.
Your thought on the ethics?
Ethically as far as the bar would be concerned was probably within guidelines. As for her peers, well, they may questions her motivation and ethics.
I'm a firm believer in you get what you pay for. Attorney's go for $150 an hour here. But we're small town america.
I'd go with your gut instincts. They will serve you well.
I think she was stretching the ethics line, (but probably not strictly violating it)and wouldn't do it myself without noting the case was under appeal.
As long as you are comfortable with your attorney, that's most important.
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