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715 - Why Is It Taking So Long?If your divorce is taking more than two or three months, I assume that means either that you're in an adversarial divorce or that you're patiently waiting for your spouse to sign papers. If this is not the case, something has gone wrong, and you deserve an explanation from your attorney about what has happened. If you're in adversarial divorce, there are just so many ways your divorce can get slowed down. The first is from the sheer workload of the judge. In the Birmingham division of Jefferson County, for example, three judges handled more than four thousand divorce cases between them last year. Think about it; that's an average of more than five cases that each judge has to get resolved every working day. Judges are busy guys, and it's not surprising that it takes a while to get their attention. Another reason adversarial divorce takes so long is the need for so many parties to participate. In order for anything to happen, you have to be present and ready, your lawyer has to be present and ready, your spouse has to be present and ready, your spouse's lawyer has to be present and ready, and the judge has to be present and ready. If any one of these parties is not both present and ready, your case is probably going to get continued. That means you go back home and wait another couple of months for the next setting on the court's docket. Another reason adversarial divorce takes so long is just the way lawyers think. If your lawyer spends most of his or her time in court, they tend to think first about the cases that are about to come up in court. That means if your case doesn't have a court date coming up soon, it's hard to get your lawyer's attention to do anything with it. The number one complaint about lawyers nationwide is that they don't return phone calls promptly. The next most frequent complaint is they don't pay enough attention to the case. So what can you do to get your case moving? There really are several things you can do ‑ all variations on the theme of taking control of your divorce. The first thing you can do is to keep the lines of communication open with your spouse. If you're dependent on your lawyers to do all the communicating, that's okay ... just know that the communication will be on your lawyers' issues, at your lawyers' pace, and at your lawyers' hourly rate. The second thing you can do is to make sure you get information to your lawyer promptly when he or she requests it, then follow up in a few days with a phone call to make sure they got it. That lets your lawyer know you're waiting for the next step, and it's a signal to your lawyer to let you know if there's still something missing. Alabama Family Law Center serves clients who need to get through divorce and who are able to be reasonably cooperative. The goal is for both spouses to survive divorce and move on with their lives with some money in their pockets and their dignity intact. No representation is made that the quality of the legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers. If you'd like to make an appointment with me, call 205-979-6960. Or you can click here to return to the Divorce Line. |
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