Taking Responsibility And Following Your Lawyers Advise
Your lawyer gives you advise to protect you from your adversary and the Court. Sometimes, you need to be protected from yourself as well. But if you are paying your lawyer the big bucks, there is a reason for it. You should listen to what your lawyer tells you and follow the advise. If you are not sure if its correct, either tell your lawyer you do not want to bother him/her many times, could he/she please put it in writing to you to ensure you follow it correctly. Then you have proof that what you did was merely follow your lawyer’s advise. You can also seek a second and/or third opinion(s).
In potential domestic violence situations: When your lawyer tells you that if your spouse gets very loud, angry, in your face and starts making any type of physical contact with you, you are NOT to defend yourself but to retreat into the bathroom, lock the door and call the police, and have your spouse arrested and taken to criminal Court, you should only do this. If you decide to defend yourself and then find that you are being arrested or an order of protection is later served on you, you have no one to blame but yourself. Do NOT blame the system (even though the system stinks at getting to the truth and too often tolerates lies). Do NOT blame your spouse or your spouse’s lawyer. It is your fault alone for failing to follow advice. To claim you were being nice not wanting to get your spouse arrested is just a stupid excuse or a failure on your part to control yourself.
In this situation, you will also possibly be having supervised visitation, and many other problems in your case going forward costing you more money than it should have in legal fees had you just followed your lawyer’s advice.
If your lawyer tells you certain bills to keep paying and an amount of money to regularly pay to your spouse, you need to do so in a timely manner. Too many people (and even lawyers) say that if there is no order, pay nothing. But this only tells the Court you are as big a louse as your soon to be ex says you are. You want to ingratiate yourself to the Court, and show them that you take responsibility and do the right thing without a Court order.
You pay good money for the advice of your lawyer, you should follow it. If you think you know better, fire your lawyer and go pro se. You do not need to pay a lawyer good money just to lose because you think you know better. This does not mean not to question your lawyer, always ask to learn and understand. And remember, you can always get a second opinion. But if every lawyer you ask, gives the same answer, its time to stop pissing in the wind and follow the advice.