HOW TO COMPLETE YOUR DISCOVERY
In Family Law cases information is critical and worth its weight in gold (or alimony!). The Civil Practice Act requires parties in the legal system to comply with valid requests for information under some very specific rules. Generally, from the time a party or their attorney receives a written request for documents (Notice to Produce or Request for Production of Documents) and/or to answer questions (Interrogatories- from the latin “to interrogate”) we have thirty (30) days to respond. If you are late, you can be fined, sanctioned, have your pleadings stricken and other bad things.
The two kinds of requests are called “Discovery.” No one likes it, but our firm is zealous in its fervor to never have bad or late discovery so we can JUMP DOWN THEIR THROATS when they do! Note we cannot do this if YOU are screwing up also!
Your cooperation in the provision of the discovery will help control costs in your case. If you are late or incomplete with your responses, it will cost more, and may do damage to your litigation. You must gather ALL documents you can obtain without undue expense, and make TWO copies (one for our office and one for opposing counsel’s office), front and back, of everything. Also, from this day forward, you must retain ALL financial documents you receive, as they, too, are subject to discovery. By undue expense we mean, more than $100. It’ll cost you more than that at the attorney’s hourly rate to argue about what you don’t have. If you KNOW they are fighting about the credit card debt, get the statements!
For the Interrogatories, please number your response the same way it is in the Interrogatories, and provide DETAILED answers to the questions. Answer all of the questions even if they do not apply. For example, if question five is asking for safety deposit box information, and you do not have a safety deposit box, your response would be “Interrogatory No. 5 – I do not own any safety deposit boxes”. You should type the answers on MSWord and email them, or if you’d prefer mail the documents. However, it saves money if we can simply open and edit your already typed file.
Your deadline to get your discovery responses to us is usually 21 days after they are due. This will give the firm sufficient time to put the information together with all legal responses, and have the discovery back to opposing counsel in time. Discovery received after the internal office due date date will be charged a rush discovery fee of $250.00. We really don’t care what your excuse is, these deadlines do not move for sick children, jobs, or vacations.
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