I am in receipt of your emails from last week and your telephone messages from this week. I apologize for just now responding. I have been in and out of court all week as well as various meetings. I have done a few things in your case to make sure we can still proceed with your divorce even if S's attorney is no longer on the case or even if S never cooperates with us. I went ahead and filed the July 25, 2011 Settlement Agreement That agreement was signed by everyone, but S's attorney never sent it to the Court for filing. I have attached a copy of the file-stamped Settlement Agreement for your personal file.
We can still move forward with your case. I can do so even though S's attorney is still on the case. And if S's attorney withdraws from the case, that is okay because it doesn't change anything that I have to do to get you the divorce. We previously agreed that S's attorney will do all of the paperwork for to sign agreeing to terminate his rights to your son and do a research paper for the Judge answering the Judge's question on whether or not the Judge can terminate S's parental rights in the divorce case at the same time. All that I was supposed to do was to draft the divorce decree and then take you to Court with me to get it signed. Now, I have to do everything and that will cost you more attorney's fees to complete the case since S's attorney is no longer cooperating.
As such, I need you to deposit with us $3,500 before I can continue. You currently have a balance of $170.50 from the January 2012 billing statement. You will need to pay that amount too.
Let me know if we need to talk about this email and we can set up a telephone conference to do so next week.
The third document is not required by state law, but instead it is requested by the Judge. Because it is not normal that a couple would get a divorced and then have one of the parents terminate his/her parental rights at the same time that the Judge wants the attorneys to provide legal research to him making sure he can do what we are asking him to do on the date of your divorce. Other Judges have terminated a parent's parental rights during a divorce before. However, the Judge that is assigned to your case has not done it before, so that's why he's asking for more information to make sure he doesn't do anything wrong. This research was supposed to come from S's attorney, but now I have to do it because S's attorney is not responding to me and you want to proceed with the case. Basically, you cannot get a divorce unless we have a divorce decree. And if you still want S to terminate his parental rights, then we need the voluntary relinquishment document too.
In response to your question number 2, I cannot guarantee you a certain amount of how long or how much it'll be to finalize your case. All I can do is give you a rough estimate, which is why we are asking for a retainer deposit. If we are able to finish everything for under $3,500, then that money comes back to you. If not, then I will let you know how much more money you need to put on deposit with us. My estimation of the time and cost to finish your case at this point (assuming we do not have any more interaction from S and his attorney) is as follows:
1. draft a motion to enter - 1 hour;
2. draft an order granting motion to enter - 1 hour;
3. draft a divorce decree - 6 to 8 hours;
4. draft a voluntary relinquishment of parental rights - 2 to 3 hours;
5. draft research paper for the Judge on the issue of parental termination including the research time - 2 to 3 hours;
6. prepare for the hearing to do a motion to enter to get the Judge to sign the decree - 1 hour; and
7. attend the hearing - 2-3 hours.
Again, the above stated list does not include tasks that we have to do like communicate with S's attorney, provide notice to the other party about the hearing, the completion of various documents required under the law when someone gets a divorce, etc. Those are administrative tasks, so they should really be no more than a few hours. Please be reminded that I typically charge $210 per hour on all of my cases. To help you out, we are only charging you $100 per hour.
In response to your question number 3, I cannot guarantee you 100% that what I intend to do as the next steps in your case to get you a divorce and termination of S's parental rights will work because you just never know what the Judge will do. However, I am confident that it will accomplish the goal because the Judge is very reasonable as long as I give good explanations for why we are taking certain steps. This Judge knows your case and he knows how much problem we have had already, so I wouldn't be surprised if what I suggest to do will work. Everything I have suggested so far to the Judge in your case has worked because the Judge understands what is going on and you do have a unique situation.
I hope this explanation helps. Let me know if we need to talk by telephone.
