The Law Office of James L. Leather, PLLC

Filing a Response

James L. Leather, PLLC — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:22:11 +0000

If you have already been served with a petition for divorce, petition to establish paternity, child custody, parenting time, child support, or petition for modification of child custody, parenting time, and/or support, you will need to file a response. Depending on where you were served you have a specific amount of time to file a response. If you were within the State of Arizona you have 20 days from date of service, outside of the State of Arizona you have 30 days. You should meet with an attorney for a consultation to review the documents you have been served with and discuss your options.

A response is how you tell the court whether or not you agree with what the other party is asking for in their pleading. It is also your time to explain how you believe the issues brought by the other party should be handled. In some cases a response may also contain any additional requests you may have regarding the matter brought before the Court. Depending on what you were served with there may also be other documents you will need to file with the court.

Whatever documents you have been served with, it is always in your best interest that you do not ignore them. Just because you do not respond does not mean the matter will go away. In fact, if you do not file a response within the proper amount of time the other party may file for a default and then ten days later request a default hearing or have your matter concluded without a hearing. Either way, you run the risk of decisions being made and orders being filed without any input from you. You may end up being ordered to pay support in an amount more than you would have had you participated in the proceeding.

If you have been served with any form of family court pleadings, it is highly recommended that you, at the very least, find an attorney to speak with to discuss your options. If you would like to be contacted by my office, and be scheduled for a free consultation, please fill in your information where indicated on the right side of this page or call my office at 602-404-9733.

Getting Started

James L. Leather, PLLC — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:22:50 +0000

Now that you have had your consultation with me, and/or with another attorney, and you have decided to hire my office to represent you in your matter, the next step is to call my office and scheduling a one (1) hour “initial meeting”. During this appointment, we will review and you will sign the retainer/fee agreement and pay your initial retainer amount. (This amount will be discussed with your during the consultation.) Once that is completed, we will proceed by discussing your matter at great length and start preparation of your initial pleadings, whether that be the pleadings to start your case or responses to pleadings already served on you. Depending on the documents that will need to be prepared, you may be asked to wait or come back. Once the necessary documents are ready, you will be required to review all the information and statements made within them, ask any questions you may have regarding the documents, make any necessary corrections or changes, and, upon your approval of the pleadings, you will be asked to sign a verification page which indicates that the information and statements made within the pleading is, to the best of your knowledge, true and accurate.

Once you have approved and signed the initial documents, my staff will process the documents for filing with the Court and filing fees will be obtained from my bookkeeping department. Most initial documents filed with the court will need a check for filing fees. The amount of the fee depends on the type of document filed and whether it is regarding a divorce, custody and parenting time, support, paternity, or other family issue. The amount of the fee will be deducted from your paid retainer, so, you do not need to worry about this charge.

Once your documents have been filed with the Court, my office will provide you with a conformed (court stamped) copy of the documents, and will either mail a copy or have a copy served upon the other party. Again, this depends on the type of document filed.

The time between your initial meeting and the filing of your initial documents normally takes between 24 and 48 hours to complete, depending on the matter. If your matter is of an urgent nature, this first step, from meeting to filing, can be completed within the same business day if necessary.

With this completed, your matter is now officially on its way.

THE CONSULTATION

James L. Leather, PLLC — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:42:54 +0000

Your first initial visit to the office would be for a consultation. If you live out of state, live a significant distance from our office, or, if physical limitations prevent you from coming to our office we can do a telephonic initial interview. We initially start with a short questionnaire for you to answer. If your consultation is telephonic, this document would be emailed to you for completion with a request to complete and return prior to your consultation. You and I would then sit down together and we would go over the law as it applies to your case. This would include, but not be limited to, divorce, child custody, visitation, child support, grandparent’s rights, paternity, etc.. We would then review in detail your issues and what you might expect as a reasonable resolution of those issues. We would also discuss the court process with regard to the filing of any pleadings, the court appearances that are necessary, the roles of professionals in reviewing issues, and the final trial process.

My goal is that, at the end of the initial consultation, you will have all of the information you will hopefully need to think about and be able to make decisions as to how you wish to proceed with your matter.

As with any important decisions to be made, I do recommend that you may want to interview more than one attorney for your case to compare the explanation and evaluation of your matter, before hiring counsel on your behalf.

Hopefully this was helpful in your understanding of what happens during an initial consultation with an attorney. If you have any additional questions regarding our initial consultation, or, if you would like to schedule a free thirty (30) minute in office consultation, please do not hesitate to fill out the information requested on the right side of this page , or, call my office at 602-404-9733.

WELCOME

James L. Leather, PLLC — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:00:52 +0000

Initially, I want to welcome all to my blog. This is the first blog of this office. In the future, we hope to bring to you discussions on some of the more frequently asked questions and areas presented by our client. Also, we hope to bring to you some of the more interesting developments in family law in Arizona. As many of you may know, our practice almost exclusively handles divorce, paternity, custody and relocation issues, child support, spousal maintenance, parent issues, pre nuptial and post nuptial and cohabitation issues, and orders of protection. We also handle wills, and provide you with, if you desire, medical powers of attorney and living wills.

I have been in practice over thirty-five (35) years and was a specialist in family law for ten (10) of those years. My staff has been with me for over the past six years. Dhawn is my paralegal. Dhawn received her AA in Legal Studies, graduating with honors in 2005. She initially came to our office to complete her internship and has been with my firm ever since. Marisela is our Administrative Assistant and joined our team after several years of working in customer service with a local banking firm and telephone company. She is bilingual, speaking fluent Spanish. My staff also includes our bookkeeper, Carolyn, who has been with the firm for many years.

Thank you for visiting my website/page and taking the time to read our posts. I hope you are a frequent visitor to our website and this blog. If you have any legal matter you would like to discuss with me, please contact my office and schedule a consultation. We offer a free thirty (30) minute in office consultation.

Welcome to Our New Website!

ftadmin — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:24:36 +0000

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