Discovery: A tedious but important part of your Texas divorce

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Divorce Lawyer in Houston – When a new client with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan is discussing with me their case one subject that we will get into is what evidence does our client have to support any allegation that he or she is making against their spouse. Whether we are talking about infidelity, community income or any other subject associated with your divorce it is necessary for you to substantiate any claims or arguments you intend to make with evidence that is admissible into the record of your case.

Gaining access to this sort of evidence can prove difficult before your divorce has been filed. However, once your case has been filed and assigned to a court you and your attorney have the ability to request information and documentation through a process called Discovery. Today’s blog post will focus on this subject and discuss the important role it plays in divorce cases.

WHAT IS DISCOVERY AND WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE?

Divorce Lawyers Houston – You are entitled, as is your spouse, to have an understanding of the key points of information that your opposing party intends to rely upon if your case were to go to a trial. As such, it is very important that you be able to review and consider any evidence that your spouse intends to utilize in a trial.

Discovery operates as requests that you each can make of each other for information. It’s likely that your discovery requests must be made and received at least thirty days prior to the assigned trial date.

THE TYPES OF DISCOVERY REQUESTS AVAILABLE TO YOU IN A TEXAS DIVORCE?

Request for Production and Inspection- Documents can be requested in requests for production. For you the client it is also the most time consuming as your attorney will ask you to dig through whatever files you have for old tax returns, bank statements and credit card bills among other types of information. Attorneys use this information to determine the size of your community estate as well as to prepare arguments for trial and settlement proposals for mediation. When each side has access to the same information and documentation it is amazing how much more fruitful settlement discussions can become.

Interrogatories– Interrogatories are statements made under oath- meaning that once you respond to the interrogatories you will need to sign off on your responses in front of a notary. The questions asked are sort of “foundational” questions for the case in general.

Requests for Disclosure– These are more requests for basic information about your case- the names of each party, the names of any potential parties and the general legal theories that you are operating on when it comes to the divorce. The name and contact information for any potential witness that may be called during a hearing or trial are also fair to be asked for.

Request for Admissions– This type of discovery request asks the responding party to either Admit or Deny the truthfulness of a statement made in the document. Basically these requests will seek to weed out the parts of your case that are not in dispute so that your side and the opposing party are able to focus their attention on those issues that may actually be disputed in a trial.

GET TO WORK ON ANSWERING THESE REQUESTS IMMEDIATELY

You will become your attorney’s favorite client if you can begin to collect information and documents associated with your case before even hiring him or her. This is because the responses can take a long time to complete and organizing hundreds or even thousands of pages to submit to opposing counsel can be quite the onerous task for your attorney.

Divorce Attorney in Houston – Doing a lot of the leg work before the requests even arrive at your attorney’s doorstep and then scheduling a time to meet in person with your attorney or his or her paralegal is a solid recipe for turning in your responses on time and in a format that will not cause any objections to be offered by your spouse’s attorney … Continue Reading