I have head an attorney since Nov of 2012. He is lazy, disorganized, and spineless. A very nice guy whom I would love to have as a friend, but, it is precisely how very nice he is that makes him a bad litigator. I am already doing most of the drafting, because he not only is not aggressive, but also not even minimally assertive. He would send me a draft where he talks about miscommunications - in reality there were intentional misrepresentations; his language is weak and diluted and overly gentle. I make edits, he then agrees, and promises to send a letter to the opposing counsel, but I have to call him every day to remind, email him, and, email his assistant with "Please remind Robert to send...".

In other words, just on the minimum amount of work that he absolutely HAS to do, I remind him in three different ways EVERY freaking day. With respect to the children's issue, the psychologist who is writing a report to the court needed to see the children, who are teens, one last time. Nobody scheduled the appointments. I emailed Robert every freaking day for 2 weeks asking to make the opposing counsel accountable. He finally called her and in one day she managed to get one of two appointments scheduled.

She cited a confusion - she though that ex would schedule appointments but he thought that she, his new attorney, would. So she claimed that the delay was unintentional.

My attorney would have let it slide.

I had to tell him - it was unintentional on her end, but intentional on his, because if ex expected her to schedule the appointments, then the fact that after 2 weeks he had not received appointments times from her effectively put him on notice - had he not been in his usual "delay delay delay" mode (this is an excellent strategy for him because the children are teens already), he would have tried to resolve the confusion, but he did not do anything. So I drafted a letter thanking her (the new opposing counsel) for making things happen and acknowledging that the delay was not unintentional on her part, but was on ex' part because silence effectively put him on notice.

All of that reasoning is completely obvious, but my attorney did not come up with it.

he sometimes has good ideas, to his credit, and sometimes gets the job done, but he needs to be micromanaged, and had one of my girlfriends not suggested to me that I start pushing his assistant to get him get his act together, we would have made no progress at all. By calling the assistant, I have her nag him in person which usually is more fruitful because emails he probably disregards, but when she knocks on his door, he sometimes does the work. Another thing that works is my coming to his office, drafting together with him, and sitting in a chair opposite him waiting for him to press the SEND button. That works. If he says: "I need to leave for the court and will send the email after the court tonight", I then have to remind him and his assistant for at least a week asking him to actually press that SEND button. This is exhausting and I plan to schedule appointments with him on Saturdays because on Saturdays court is closed.

A smart, charming, but toothless guy. But, he charges relatively low rates being young, and I owe him over $8000 and he never asked for repayment because he understands that I have no money now. If I were to get a new attorney, how would I pay a retainer? Plus, the case is complex and my current attorney knows the details. To pay somebody else just to get familiar with the case would come at an exorbitant cost.

So it is either Legal Aid (for which I would qualify right now, but not next year since next year I will have a job), or, myself finding out, drafting, and just getting his help in filing. There are already many things on which he has dropped the ball, but, mad as I am, I realize that I am a non-paying client, so I do not have unrealistic expectations. I have decided that the most important thing now is to finally receive the report from the court-appointed psychologist before it will have been 2 (!!!) years since we agreed that such report following an assessment would be filed, and I do not burden the attorney with anything that is not directly related to that report.

***

While I was writing the above, I sent my today's reminder to his secretary.

This is what she wrote back to me:

"Robert is currently on vacation. He left me a draft of the letter in my email so I can send it out for him. "

He did not tell me of this vacation plans.

And the assistant is not really, how would I say, "driven" - if he left the letter in her email, why has not she sent it out yet? So I asked her to send it out and cc me.

And every little thing takes that much effort. It is exhausting and aggravating.

Bill, that was a very long-winded answer to your simple question.

***

PS I called the Legal Aid. They only take cases where physical violence takes place and took place. And that is understandable - they are underfunded so they limit their involvement to the most egregious and dangerous situations.

So I need to research it on my own - the lawyer is on vacation and the legal aid would not take me.