Are court appointed attorneys good for family law?
I have a court appointed lawyer, he has showed me that he talks alot in the hearing we have had. He helping me to get my younger children back from CPS. He found evidence against my teen that she is lying in a couple of things. So, are court appointed good or should I get a private? Or can I use 2 lawyers?
5 Responses
r m
24 Feb 2010
sir_jell_o
24 Feb 2010
Some court-appointed attorneys are good, others aren’t. Most of them are over-worked, so they don’t spend enough time on it.
However, if you pay for a lawyer out of your own pocket, you can probably say goodbye to your court-appointed lawyer. Courts only appoint lawyers for people who can’t afford to pay for one.
Patti_Ja
24 Feb 2010
you can use two but the court appointed lawyer is probably as good as any
katie
24 Feb 2010
Depends on who you get-every attorney is different sounds like this one is doing his job if he was able to find "proof" your teen was lying-if you hire your own attorney the court appointed one will be taken away from you
Jack p
19 Apr 2010
I learned a lot of information from this piece and will definitely keep it in my RSS. Thanks for the effort you took to expand upon this topic so thoroughly. I look forward to future posts.
You’re lucky to have a court appointed lawyer. Most civil parties (such as yourself in your family law case) are not afforded the opportunity to have court appointed attorneys. They are different than criminal public defenders. Normally, court appointed attorneys in civil cases are private attorneys they are just serving you pro bono (free). So they have a decent level of experience.
Choosing an attorney is an important decision. If you are satisfied with the direction your case is going you should keep him.
Generally, if you hire a private attorney the court appointed one will withdraw. Usually, the reason you are given a court appointed attorney is because you cannot afford a private one. So it’s not likely that you can have them both if you decide to hire one. If you hire a private attorney your current attorney will give him all the information he has.
If you do hire a private attorney you should do so prior to trial. Judges don’t like it when a party switches attorneys right before trial. In fact, some judges won’t let you.
Good Luck