Plaintiff is related to the word “complaint”, it is their complaint that is coming before the Court.The Defendant obviously is the person who sets out to defend himself or herself from the complaint.It is important to understand 1) what the Court will expect to see; 2) what you must show or prove; 3) what you can do to help your case and 4) what you should avoid.
Let’s begin.
Dealing With the Clerk’s Office to Get Documents for Your Attorney
How to get a copy of a Prior Court Order
Look up the Clerk of Superior Court in the phone book for the county the Order came from.Call and ask for the Civil-division.If you have your case number, read it to the clerk on the phone and ask for the filing/entry date of your Order by its name.If you do not have the case number, give the full name/s used on the Order and make a note of the case number when they give it to you.If you don’t know the exact name of your Order, describe the document you are trying to find.If your Order is more than 7 years old, your file may be in storage, on microfiche and otherwise not readily accessible.You may have to wait to get a copy.
The clerks will not give out legal advice (or rather are not supposed to, be very wary of anyone who will!).Nor will they fax or mail you a document from a phone request usually.If you can go to the Clerk’s office, do so and request a copy of the Order in person.You will have to pay for photocopying.If your Order is old, check to see if you will have to request a copy of it prior to coming to the Clerk’s office and ask when it will arrive so you don’t waste your trip.The Order does not need to be certified (a special stamping process, usually with a raised seal to confirm authenticity, most commonly done on Final Decrees of Divorce used mostly for name changes).It should however, have a file stamp date, be signed by a Judge and name of the Court on it.
If you cannot go the Clerk’s office, it may be possible for you to request the copy by mail.Call the clerk as above and confirm your case number and Order entry date.Ask the clerk if you sent them a “Letter Requesting a Copy of Prior Order” and enclosed payment for the photocopying and a stamped return envelope to yourself (SASE), would they send your Order?Be sure to get a clerk’s name to send it to, if possible, and confirm the payment amount, possibly by estimating pages to be copied.This may be the only resort for parties that are far away from the Clerk’s office that holds their records or can’t get off from work.
Court Date Scheduling
A note here on Court date scheduling:Court dates are usually set by a person called the Calendar Coordinator or Courtroom Clerk.Do NOT harass this person!Your court date is mostly not within your attorney’s control.Also, you are not an attorney so you basically do not have anything going on in your life that requires your Court date to be any day other than the Court wants it to be.Noteworthy exceptions are surgeries, funerals, out of town/state business meetings, graduations and vacations that were set well in advance.If you know of any of these serious conflicts within two months of the day you are filing, you should mention them to your attorney. Understand that if an emergency arises (colds don’t count, for any illness you’d better have a Doctor’s or hospital letter) just before or on the day of your Court Date you must have us ask the Court’s permission to continue the hearing by resetting it as not showing up will get your case thrown out.If you do not show up on a case you filed and the Court has not excused you, they will most likely dismiss your case, and even worse the Offender’s attorney can ask for money for your failure to show up!
YOU CANNOT BE LATE TO COURT. YOU CAN NOT BE LATE TO A COURT DATE.
Always plan to arrive at your court date no less than 30 minutes before the time on the paper.YOU MUST DO THIS.If you run late, you will get a flat, get stuck behind a car accident or not be able to find parking.Do not tempt fate.Also, by getting there early you can take your time and meet the attorney so we can over questions and likely scenarios.We like to do our prep work right before trial so you won’t forget and don’t have to take off an extra day of work.
REMEMBER - DO NOT START OFF WITH AN AGGRAVATED JUDGE BECAUSE YOU RAN LATE OR THE KIDS WERE UP SICK.
CLOTHING!
You should wear clothing appropriate to a funeral, dark, conservative and professional. For men this means a collared shirt, tie and jacket.Money is no excuse, as we send our clients to Goodwill, where they can usually find a white collared shirt for $3, a tie for $2 and a jacket for $10.Women can find a plain black skirt for $5 and simple blouse for $3.You should be wearing job interview clothing.What you must not wear:
Jeans of any kind, denim pants/jackets/shirts, t-shirts, logo wear, fashion jackets, puffy jackets, short shirts (more than 4 fingers above the knee), tight ANYTHING, sexy high heels, sandals, athletic shoes, sweat clothes, super baggy clothing, hats of any kind, excessive jewelry (men and women), giant earrings, anything that draws attention to your body, any shirt that exposes cleavage, any shirt that permits tattoos to be visible, in rural areas women should avoid pants.
What you must not bring:
Babies/children, cell phones that are ON (no vibrate, turn them OFF), bunches of friends and family, messy piles of unsorted, crumpled papers, attitude.
The Judge will not rule in your favor because you are dressed respectfully, however if your clothing looks disrespectful they may think less of you and may not believe you on things that you don’t have good proof for, especially if the Offender looks nicer than you.
Babies and children are not usually allowed in Court Rooms, especially where the dispute is between their parents.Either do not bring them or bring someone who can sit in the hall with them the entire time.YOU cannot watch them and pay attention to the Court.
There are counties which will fine you between $50-100 for a cell phone ringing and/or will put you in jail (Henry County).Always double check that your phone is off, as we do not recommend vibrate.
Do not bring your entire support group.No one should be brought who cannot control themselves NO MATTER WHAT.Court TV is a TV show.Judges HATE snickering, laughter, glaring, chatting, gum popping, outrage, head rolling, eye rolling, noises, threats and interruptions from spectators.They may take it out on you and your case.Do not give the Offender this edge.
Organization of your documents is a key to hearings going smoothly.If it is important enough to bring, then it should be organized.More on this in WHAT YOU SHOULD BRING TO COURT.
WHAT YOU SHOULD BRING TO COURT:
Any prior Order/s, especially that they are not following;
Your evidence that you have given to attorney and any new items- often proof that they are not doing what they should be;
A calculator, pen and notepad for you to take notes;
Your discovery, nicely updated to the day you go to Court (Discovery: Doing it Right);
A list of issues your are concerned about.
Numbers 1 and 3 speak for themselves.
Number 2: If they wrote you a check and it bounced bring the copy of the bounced check, or the bank statement showing it was returned for example.If they were supposed to sign and car title and haven’t, bring the unsigned title if you can.If your child support goes through an agency, get their records on your account showing the arrearage and non-payment and bring those.If they were supposed to make mortgage payments and h |