Start out by explaining the issue involved and then give a short synopsis with the most important facts. The last thing the client should do is tell the entire story.
Child Custody attorneys are trying to analyze the relevant facts while the story is being told. The lawyer is attempting to apply RI Family Law to the fact pattern. The Rhode Island divorce attorney is trying to understand your life experience and apply it to his Family Court experience and understanding of the law.
We need to understand THE ISSUES before we are told the entire narrative!
Knowing the pertinent and important issues, will help the attorney sort out the important facts of the story and disregard irrelevant information. The Providence child custody lawyer needs to focus on the relevant facts that relate to the issues at hand. A lot of clients forget that ‘they live this life‘ and the lawyer did not.
Some family court clients bombard their RI divorce lawyer with massive amounts of information, all at once. That is the reason the information should be presented clearly, efficiently and effectively. Often a long, rambling, chronological story can cause your attorney to become confused. The lawyer could become unaware of what facts are important to the story.
The textbook way for a client to address a Family court attorney in a client Consultation:
Below you will find effective examples explaining how clients should address RI divorce lawyers effectively:
- Step 1- The issue stated succinctly!
Did I break the law by cashing out $10,000 from my 401k prior to my husband filing for divorce to pay my potential legal fees as well as my car payment and our joint heating bill?
- Step 2: short factual synopsis:
I was desperate for money. I am a homemaker with no income and my husband earns 80 thousand dollars a year and cleared out his 401k retirement account. I needed the money to support myself and fund the divorce.
- Step 3: LONG STORY HERE:
Something like …My husband is an alcoholic who has been emotionally abusive to me for years. We have two children 5, 7 who love him, but he is not safe around them and last week he left them alone near the pool without proper supervision. I had to get a restraining order against him 10 years ago, but I dropped it after he promised to change. He has always earned $ 80,000 a year and I stayed home to be a homemaker. After he informed me that he filed for the divorce I was desperate for money and….
Can you see how it is a bad idea to start with the long story?
Citation
“Although child custody evaluations can lead to unsafe outcomes in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV), little is known about factors associated with evaluators’ recommendations. In this study of 465 child custody evaluators, we investigated the association between evaluators’ beliefs, background, and knowledge and their custody and visitation recommendations in cases involving IPV. We hypothesized that evaluators’ belief in false allegations by the mother and their recommendations that perpetrators have custody or unsupervised visits would be positively associated with (a) being a male evaluator, (b) patriarchal norms, (c) not knowing a survivor of IPV, and (d) less knowledge of IPV. In addition, we hypothesized that evaluators’ belief in false allegations by mothers would be related to their recommendation that perpetrators have custody or unsupervised visits. Results supported most of the hypothesized relationships. Multivariate analysis revealed that belief variables explained more of the variance in custody-visitation outcomes than demographic and knowledge variables. Implications of the findings for IPV training, evaluator selection, and evaluation guidelines are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)”
Factors associated with child custody evaluators’ recommendations in cases of intimate partner violence. Saunders, Daniel G.; Tolman, Richard M.; Faller, Kathleen C. Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 27(3), Jun 2013, 473-483.
RI divorce attorney David Slepkow offers free initial consultations and has over 20 years’ experience in Providence Family Court as well as Washington, Kent and Newport County Rhode Island Family Court.