My Unintentional Degree in Law

March contains a court date, several visits to my lawyer’s office as well as a ton of paperwork so I'm surprised I had as many blog entries as I did. It began with the receipt of 2 documents; the first: Special Interrogatories and the second:  a Demand for Documents. Together they contain a total of over 75 multiple answer questions. Talk about feeling overwhelmed!  Note:  The title of this entry is courtesy of my dear brother who recently coined this phrase to describe my current life.

In the first year and a half of this entire experience, I found myself learning very quickly what all the abbreviations bantered about by the associates meant or referred to, just so I’d have some clue as to what was going on and what they were referring to. It was an attempt at trying to save money. The billing clock didn’t stop ticking while they explained terms to me!

Looking at it now, it’s a really weird place to be. You find that you now know so much more than you ever wanted to about “family” law that you often correct the people you’re paying to represent you! I actually thought of taking some paralegal courses about 2-3 years ago but thought to myself, this will be over soon and it’d be a waste of time. Well, as it turns out, it wasn’t over soon and I didn’t need to take any classes. A divorce that takes this length of time  means that I had unintentionally signed up for a paralegal education when the process began. Surprise, surprise!!

A settlement offer came in this month that was surprisingly reasonable and had potential. This of course necessitated a visit to my lawyer…more $$$. On the brighter side, the 75 multiple questions went on hold since a settlement is in progress. Thank goodness, because these questions and demands are so redundant of all the questions and demands I had to produce answers for about every two months over the last 3+ years! I’d say they border on ludicrous but I can’t because they are ludicrous! In fact, I met with the discovery associate in early March to go over each item and I don’t think either of us had ever rolled our eyes in disbelief so many times in one sitting. It had to be a record! The real and painful problem is that, each time I have to go through answering these things, it’s like reliving the last 3+ years over again and again.

Remember those punching bag balloons we used to get every now and then as kids? They were 4’ clowns that you blew up, knotted at the bottom and slid through a slit in a cardboard pair of clown shoes. You had your own clown punching bag. If you really wanted to wack them, you could stand on the little cardboard shoes and punch them out. They’d just bob down and up and down to the left or right and back up. They just stood there and took it. The next morning there lay a withered little remnant attached to cardboard feet. It’s a perfect image for what this month has felt like.