Justice?

Okay. . . I have some venting to do! A brief history first. . . When I was getting divorced things had gotten pretty bad at home with the way my former spouse was behaving. I needed to get myself and my kids out as soon as I could. My former spouse told me that he wouldn't help pay for the divorce and had taken over the finances (a job I'd done for 14 years) so I didn't have the means to pay for an attorney. I went to a legal document preparation place and the woman there drew up the papers for me. I didn't know what kind of numbers or anything else to put in the papers so I did something really foolish. ..  I asked my former spouse what to put on the divorce papers. I stupidly figured that he would be as fair to me as I would be to anyone else and I let the document lady know what to put in the papers. She looked at me funny but she could not, by law, give me any legal advice. I had my documents prepared and within a week, my kids and I moved. 

Well, shortly after moving I started to realize that it didn't matter how fair or how cooperative I was with my former spouse. . . He was NOT going to be that way with me. . . NOT AT ALL. He was very late with child support. . . every month, if he even paid anything at all. . . We were nearly evicted from our apartment a few times because I couldn't pay our rent (I was working but didn't make enough even for our $600 a month rent) and there were several times that my kids would be crying as they heard me talk to our apartment managers on the phone. .The kids would be crying about being kicked out and not having a home. I let their dad know about how distraught the kids were each month because we weren't getting child support on time. I let him know how the kids needed shoes or socks or underwear or coats and how I needed the child support for those things and yet nothing changed on his part. He would repeatedly change his plans for visitation. . . either being extremely late or changing the day last minute or just not showing up at all. 

I eventually reached my limit and knew that something needed to be done to fix this situation. Try as I might to figure out some of this legal stuff on my own. ..  I just didn't have the time or the quiet time necessary (I have 5 kids remember) to figure it all out. So I decided to seek for help. Eventually my plea on Facebook for help in understanding legal things was heard by my wonderful Aunt and Uncle. They told me that they had a wonderful law firm that owed them some money for services which my uncle had provided to them. So, I all the sudden had an attorney. MY PROBLEMS WERE FINALLY GOING TO BE SOLVED! . . . . .Or so I thought. Well, the first step was going to be to get a Change of Venue. Seems pretty simple to move my divorce from one state to another. Well, a month after I first talked to the attorney on the phone, still nothing had been done. I had tried to contact my former spouse to get some information from him but as always, he didn't respond. Within a week of having mentioned in a text to my former spouse about me having an attorney and needing some info from him to Change Venue I received some Change of Venue papers from HIM in the mail. I was very irritated about it considering that I had been trying to get my attorney to do it for a month and my former spouse found someone who got the paperwork off within a week. 

Before I go on and on about more stuff. . . I'll cut right to the chase. My uncle received a statement from the law firm for the amount of "work" the attorney had done so far and the bill was for $4300! It also said that there would be $2000-$3000 more in work. . .unless it goes to trial and then it would $20,000+!!!!!!!!!! My Uncle's $ in trade work had been used up. . .and for what?! What had they done? What had they accomplished?! A BIG FAT NOTHING! 

I had never understood all those lawyer jokes or snide comments UNTIL NOW! Now I am at a loss to know what to do to help myself and my kids through these legal issues. . . I am so disappointed with the attorney profession. I wish that I could be an attorney. . . so that I could not only help myself in this situation, but also so that I could help other people. . .so that I could REALLY help other people with their situation. .. not help them to clean out their bank accounts and their families bank accounts. 

When voicing my irritation about my attorney not accomplishing much, a friend told me something. . . "Lawyers will do anything they can to make the most amount of money by doing the least amount of work"

A truer statement was never spoken!

Now, the optimist in me believes that there must be at least ONE attorney, but hopefully more, that really works hard for their client and is fair with fees and such. 

I am one who wants so much to believe that people, in general, are good and honest and fair to their fellowmen. So, I have this plea. . . if anyone who actually makes it through reading this very long venting session knows of an experience in which an attorney was a real hero and not a real shark. .. I want to know about it. Leave me a comment to help restore my faith in attorneys. :)