In the law, there is a term of art and it’s called ‘having unclean hands’.  What this means is when you're involved in court litigation and you have unclean hands you've either done something to violate a law, violate an agreement or a rule.  Oftentimes when somebody who has unclean hands or dirty hands is asking for a certain type of relief from the court and the court sees that that person has unclean hands the court may not be inclined to grant the relief because they say that person has unclean hands.

Often times when somebody who has unclean hands or dirty hands is asking for a certain type of relief from the court if the court sees that that person has unclean hands the court may not be inclined to grant the relief because they say that person has unclean hands.

 The reason I'm bringing this up now is that I'm involved in a highly contested child custody proceeding.  It’s a hotly contested proceeding and there's a lot of...

This is something that you do not want to do if you want to be prepared for your custody trial.   A couple of weeks ago a potential client came in to see me because she was getting ready for a divorce trial and was representing herself.   She wanted me to coach her a little bit and she was a really a kind person but during the whole consultation I was cringing because she had no clue what the court had ordered in terms of getting ready for trial.

When you're getting ready for your trials you cannot ignore the court orders.  You have to read all of the minutes in your case especially the minutes where the judge set your trial.  Chances are in those minutes the judge is going to give you very important information about what the judge wants to see happen prior to trial.   For example in Arizona when the judge sets trial the judge will give us deadlines in the minutes about filing pretrial statements.

The order will state when they're due and...

If you have a family law attorney or have consulted with a family law attorney, it’s probably a good idea to listen to your attorney about the rules and laws of your state, about your judge or the other side’s strategy.

The trap I see a lot of people falling into when they are going through a custody case is they start listening to their cousin or their best friend, maybe a co-worker or their new significant other. This causes a lot of confusion in the mind of the client and especially so when the client has hired an attorney to represent them in their case.

I bring this up because I have a client who I love and care about and have been working with her on her case for about a year.  In the course of the case my client met somebody.  He was someone who had gone through his own divorce and custody battle and has his own opinions about how things should be handled.

 And those opinions are not necessarily in line with my opinions.  And while I have...