What You Don't Know in Divorce or Custody Case Can Hurt You

🧒 FREE Child’s Best Interest Checklist
👉custodyconfidence.com/checklist
In this video I share a personal experience about how NOT knowing the rules really hurt me & how it relates to your family law case.*
Please read the Disclaimer below:
*This video recording is for educational purposes only and should not be considered as the rendering of legal advice. The viewing of this recording does not create an attorney-client relationship. An attorney-client relationship is only formed when you have signed an engagement agreement. We cannot guarantee results. Past results do not guarantee future results. Consult with a licensed attorney for information regarding the specifics of your case.
What you DON'T know can have detrimental consequences that could affect the rest of your family's life. When you are in the midst of a custody battle or a divorce everything is on the line whether it be determining child custody, how much alimony or child support you will receive, parenting time and many other things in your family law case.
So, I will use an example in my own life where I didn’t make it my business to know the rules and I ended up in a very stressful ordeal and ended up having to hire an attorney myself. So in my private practice I had an employee who some might call a ‘trouble’ employee. One day she fell in the kitchen in an office that I share with a whole bunch of other lawyers and apparently hurt herself. At the same time the other attorneys in this office find out that this employee had been hacking into their computer system and wreaking havoc on the system. So they came to me and said that she was not allowed back into the office, even if she is your employee, do what you have to do, but she can’t come back to this office.
So essentially what that meant was if my employee could not come into the office then she could not work for me, which put me into a bind because I could not run my practice without an assistant so I had to let her go.
It turns out her injury from falling in the office kitchen got worse and her doctor told her to find out from me what was my workers’ compensation insurance was. Well I didn’t know that I was required to have workers’ compensation insurance. It never occurred to me.
She hired an attorney. What ended up happening is we settled out of court. It was around Christmas time and she needed the money, so I offered her money and she took it and the case was over.
But it did cause a lot of pain in my life, I lost sleep, I cried, I hated it. And the point is I didn’t know that I needed to have workers comp insurance. Again I had not gone to business school so I didn’t know anything about the RULES of owning your own business and what you had to have when you had employees.
The same thing applies to your family law case. You did not go to law school, so you are not going to know the rules in your divorce or custody case unless you make it your business to find out what the rules of the court are.
So to be prepared for your child custody or divorce hearing you can achieve this in one of two ways:
1. You can go out and hire a family law attorney because of course it is their business is to know the divorce rules rules in your state
2. If you can’t afford a lawyer, then you are going to have to represent yourself so you are going to have to go out and hit the books and prepare yourself for your family law or custody case and the rules in your jurisdiction
- Rules of procedure for your state
- What the judge will expect of you in court
-What questions the judge will ask you
Make it your business to know the rules because it can really affect the rest of yours and your family’s life. Don’t’ let what you don’t know get in the way of what’s fair and is the best interest of your children.
So to learn more about representing yourself in family law court visit www.commandthecourtroom.
If you are going through a custody battle, you can flat-out HAVE my "Child's Best Interest Checklist" to position yourself to get EXACTLY what you want (yes, equal rights are a realistic possibility).
Wendy R. Hernandez is a family law attorney in Phoenix, AZ. As a divorce and child custody attorney her life’s work is to help people struggling with divorce and child custody cases. In addition to representing her clients she also founded 'Command The Courtroom' as a resource for those who want to represent themselves in their family law case.
Wendy Hernandez is a family law attorney in Phoenix, AZ and founder of Command the Courtroom which teaches you how to handle yourself in court and achieve the best outcome when representing yourself in your divorce or child custody case.
Download my FREE ‘Child’s Best Interest Checklist’ at www.commandthecourtroom.com
Facebook: / commandthecourtroom
Web: www.commandthecourtroom.com
My Law Firm: www.hernandezfirm.com

[@jkemwoodson951]

Awesome more great information. I have started pro se for almost a year, and I am thankful for the perfect timing of Command the Courtroom. My community, my church, my friends, and myself are all at prayer for a positive outcome. I am confident and ready for my day in court for redress and relief.

[@annagarcia1527]

I stumbled across your channel by accident or by fate. I love your videos and am in a situation where the father of my 4 yr old daughter and I are co-parenting seperately and she will be starting school next year and we can not seem to agree, even a little, about where she will go to school. I am already dreading the future with possibly dealing with this in court. I am somewhat of a pushover when it comes to him trying to say his decisions "are the better ones" but on this issue I feel like I have no backbone. Thank you for providing imformation to better prepare myself not to be manipulated and to bee educated in the law.

[@jasperalcocer642]

That's why I'm doing research

[@jasperalcocer642]

Yes I wish the same....

[@soonerdunn]

I wish I could have you as an attorney!!!

[@Commandthecourtroom]

Thanks, +David Dunn! I'm glad you are finding the videos helpful. :)

[@akadork9432]

Command the Courtroom my husbands ex has accused him of abuse back in 07 w/no contact order , malheur county OR. he's never been arrested for anything , she on the other hand has been founded by cps many many times for child abuse neglect and deplorable conditions , he found out in 2013 when the state informed him. she doesn't have drug issues but is constantly alienating their son and tells him his father doesn't want to see him , he's 10 now. my question is how do you deal with a system that has allowed her to continue his behavior ? he is fighting for custody right now ,we have a lot of proof , however it's not just her he's fighting. cps has been dealing with them for years before he was even told anything was going on due to her lies. He had to get a statement from the courthouse stating it was open custody and as the father he had the rights to records .that may tell you something about how he's being treated by schools, cps, councilors & what not. any firm advice would be appreciated. www.gofundme.com/fathers-rights-to-child-protection

[@livingfree7153]

David Dunn : ME TOO!! Love her!!!

[@livingfree7153]

Thank you so much for taking your valuable Time to make these videos. They are so helpful. I have a question. I have a child custody case that has been ongoing since 2004. Our child is now 16 years of age. I was recently held in contempt and I did 89 days in jail and 612 months probation actually it’s supposed to be three years but I have early termination anyway my question is on July 20, 2017 We had a hearing regarding dad to relocate to another state And Mom is to have no contact.(I am Mom). There was a G. A. L. Who did not interview any of my friends or the school or his pediatrician or his anybody anybody on my side and she also lied and she also acted as his lawyer during the hearing. I was threatened during the hearing of going back to jail. A lot of illegal things went on during that hearing that was not documented and there were no witnesses. My question to you is that can I file a motion to vacate the order and state the laws that were broken as the cause and do I have six months to do that in the state of Florida? I have No lawyer in the past I have had 13 lawyers and I have spent well over $1 million on this case. This is our fifth custody evaluator I believe. We have been in court twice a month since 2004 and now it is 2018. I have had the child the majority of the his life.