Paralegal To LLP: Kris Freeman’s Guide To Thriving In Family Law

I remember a time when my attorney had a long consult with a potential client. It was after 5 and I was about to head out when the attorney came into my office and told me that the potential client wanted to retain. I printed out a fee agreement and went to the conference room to have the attorney review it with the client. He said, “This is my paralegal she will go through the contract and process your payment.” He stood up and went home. Mind you I had never read the fee agreement and I was about to go over the contract with the client. I went through each paragraph with the client and pretended like I knew that contract as if I had written it. I must’ve faked it well enough since he still signed and paid the retainer. After that experience, I learned the contract as if I wrote it and developed my own spiel.

New paralegals struggle with this. I am reminded of something one of my prior bosses told me “Would the client have to do this if he was Pro Se? If the answer is yes then you bill your time.”

This is something that you learn as you gain experience. If you don’t bill as you complete a task you will forget to add time you will forget how much time to attribute to a task and you’ll have to create your time entries before the end of the billing cycle. Capture your time and add as much detail to each time entry. Your attorney will review your time entries before the invoices are sent to the client so if they have questions they can address those with you beforehand. Failing to keep track of your time leads to disaster. Your billable time pays overhead and if you’re not keeping track then finances are in flux.

How much time should you bill? Were you on the phone with a client for three minutes? Seven minutes? Paralegals struggle with the “fairness” of time spent. If you bill in increments of .1 then a three-minute conversation is a .1 if you have a seven minute conversation that is a .2. You might be tempted to not record the time entry for a three-minute conversation but in doing that you’re giving your time away. If you did that 30 times a month that is significant revenue that the firm is losing and you’re short-changing yourself. Your time is valuable and you need to account for it. The same could be said for the seven-minute conversation. You might be tempted to charge a .1 instead of a .2. Again this is a loss of revenue and you are short-changing yourself. The only thing of value that a law firm has to offer a client is time and expertise. Time spent working on a case. Time spent on the phone. Time spent drafting a Motion. Time spent filing. They are paying you for your time and expertise. Bill for it.

Sometimes clients have questions about filing fees and administrative costs. Sometimes they see two entries for the same thing. Does your firm charge an administrative fee for opening the file? That will be in the fee agreement and should appear on the first invoice. When does the firm receive the invoice for filing fees? Are the fees for May on the June invoice? Do those May charges appear on the June billing statement? Are time entries for your drafting and the attorney billing to review and approve the draft? When you’re looking at an invoice those entries should be concise enough so that you can see the work in the file reflected on that invoice.

Organization is the key to streamlining your workflow. How do you know where to file stuff? Every firm has its way of organizing its files and its naming convention but in general, they are separated into the basics: Pleadings, Drafts, Correspondence, Financials, Trial Prep, and Attorney notes/research.

Every state is different and sometimes you can find what you are looking for online. For instance, New Mexico Arizona, and California have their register of actions online. Most jurisdictions have a fee and cost breakdown on their website for copies of certification exemplification and postage. This sounds terrible but never trust the client to provide you with those documents. It’s better to review the register of actions and make those record requests yourself. No one wants to register a foreign order only to find out it is the wrong order.

How to request DHS files. Have you ever had your attorney serve a subpoena duces tecum on DHS only have to have a Motion to Quash filed and then granted? Your client can obtain copies of their DHS file. Your client can authorize your office to request a copy on their behalf. The DHS website is user friendly and easy to navigate. I try and ask clients when they retain if they have had prior DHS investigations and if they have I have them fill out the release and authorization when they are signing the fee agreement or shortly after they have retained. You’ll need a copy of their driver’s license and wet signatures on everything. Once you submit the request processing takes up to sixty days. Be sure to docket a deadline to subpoena the records custodian or the DHS case worker if you need either of those folks to testify at hearing. The records custodian will contact you about authenticating the record in lieu of testimony.

I struggled with this for the longest time. Crippling writer’s block was a real thing until I took a CLE and the presenter whose name I can’t recall offered the following advice “Keep it simple stupid.” “Who are you what do you want why do you want it what statutory authority do you have and tell me why I should grant it.” “The proposed order should reflect why I’m granting your motion”. You could probably see the light bulb above my head turn on!

Relevant Statutes Rules of Civil Procedure Court Rules and Procedure Case law 16.2 deadlines. I read whatever statute book I could find lying around the office. These days you can find all of this online for free. Casetext is user friendly. Lexis is just as robust as Casetext but not as easy to navigate. Lexis has more annotations than Casetext but that’s probably because of how Casetext manages their free services vs. subscription service. Most of the jdf forms on the court website reference the statute that is applicable to that pleading. You can copy and paste that statute into your web browser and you should be able to find what you need. You will need the rules of civil procedure to reference for active case management. What are the rules for service of process? How long do you have to file a response? When is the deadline to submit financial disclosures? Court Rules? What the heck is 121? Statewide Practice standards! Bookmark all these webpages. You will reference them daily.

What to look for in client disclosures; First and foremost income. Look at paystubs and be sure to look at the rate of pay and frequency of pay. Review bank statements closely. You might see a transfer to an account that was previously disclosed or maybe a payment to a credit card that wasn’t disclosed. Review W-2’s. Is the client contributing to a retirement account or maybe a flexible spending account? Look at current and prior tax returns particularly tax form 1040 2a through 6a. You will see qualified dividends IRA and pensions there. Maybe the client didn’t disclose an early distribution? Maybe they have a Schedule C or a K-1 that reflects income that they didn’t include. Looking for those pitfalls might mean the difference between settlement and discovery.

When it comes to discovery review with a client you should go through the Interrogatories and Requests for Production with a fine-toothed comb. Clients tend to write N/A in their Interrogatories. Odds on bet are that they have a job they have a prior work history and if they have kids they need to focus on number thirteen. Make sure those answers are accurate and read like your attorney wouldn’t mind seeing them in an exhibit notebook. The same could be said for Requests for the production of documents. Your client probably has a checking and savings account. The client probably has credit card statements. Your client might have an IRA a 401 (k) or even a TSP. “Not applicable” is rarely the correct response. As a rule discovery responses are due 35 days after service so don’t wait until the 34th day to get those drafts and documents from the client. Check-in with the client every week for a status update. Do not let this fall off your radar. Ask the client to get you drafts and documents at least 5 days before the due date so you have time to review and revise. Nobody wants to defend a motion to compel.

Basics of child support. Oh boy. This is a big one. Support orders in a JV case or a DR case are based on relevant facts. For a JV case: The needs of the child; The standard of living and circumstances of the parents; The relative financial means of the parents; The earning ability of the parents; The need and capacity of the child for education including higher education; The age of the child; The financial resources and the earning ability of the child; The responsibility of the parents for the support of others; The value of services contributed by the parent with whom the child resides the majority of the time; The standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the parents been married; For DR cases: The financial resources of the child; The financial resources of the custodial parent; The standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved; The physical and emotional condition of the child and his or her educational needs; and the financial resources and needs of the noncustodial parent. They are essentially the same just different statutes.

The Family Support Registry (FSR) is a clearing house to make and receive child support payments. The obligor makes payments to the account and the FSR distributes payments to the obligee. This system is the authoritative source to track child support payments. That is all the FSR does. It’s utilized by the Court the Child Support Office and the preferred option for attorneys. There is an annual fee to use the FSR. I believe it’s $25 a year. Each case that is filed with the court is assigned a unique FSR number. That number is activated by judicial administration when processing support orders. Once that account is active the client can create an account and begin using the FSR.

DR and JV cases – what’s the difference? DR cases are filed under Title 14 (domestic relations) and JV cases are under Title 19 (children’s code). As you know DR’s are APR Dissolution Legal Separations and JV’s are Paternity Child Support and Dependency and Neglect. Paternity cases establish legal parentage the need to establish legal parentage is to establish child support. Any parent that applies for TANF or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families must disclose to the Department of Human Services who the other parent is so legal parentage may be established. Most times that is completed by genetic testing or by an admission of paternity. The difference between a non IV-D case and an IV-D case. The non IV-D cases are cases that do not involve the child support office but have FSR accounts. IV-D cases start with the child support enforcement unit and have FSR accounts.

This might not be a big deal depending on where you work and where your comfort level is with technology. If you are Windows based check for updates at the end of each month. Microsoft pushed Windows updates every second Tuesday of the month. If you wait until the end of the month you will sidestep those update bugs and hotfixes. Increase the amount of RAM that you have in your computer. I would say 8 GBS of RAM is ideal. There are several programs that we use in the legal profession that are RAM-hungry. Adobe is the biggest culprit. I had a computer that had 4 GBS of RAM and it was painfully slow when I used Adobe. I upgraded to 8 GB of RAM and Adobe was lightning-fast. For Macs close all apps (don’t just close the window two-finger presses on each app and select quit) and browsers at restart at least once a week. I close everything at the end of the day and shut down entirely.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Everyone makes them. It’s what you do with that mistake that makes the difference. Every success I had as a paralegal was built on a prior failure.