#Hints jydge trial#

The parties’ attorneys will have filed a relatively short settlement conference memorandum, along with a chart showing proposed distribution of the property. Typically the judge will put the parties and their attorneys in two separate rooms. Instead, the judge, who will be in his or her office clothes, will meet the parties in their “chambers” (a fancy word for nice office suites). The attorneys don’t bark “Objection!” when they don’t like something someone is saying. There aren’t formal rules of evidence in effect. The settlement conference is not a formal court proceeding the judge isn’t sitting on a bench in a black robe there is no court reporter. The settlement conference is a relatively informal meeting in which a judge attempts to broker a deal between the parties to avoid a trial. In Kitsap County, one of the counties where I practice, the court rules actually require a settlement conference prior to a trial. The Family Law Court…Ī family law court commissioner (judge who exclusively handles family law matters) who was on the bench for twenty or more years once told me, “Do anything to avoid your client’s fates being determined by a person in a black robe.” He was referring to that dice roll. This is hideous for the children caught in the middle. And if the outcome is particularly bitter – say, with one parent getting almost no visitation – this ensures continued conflict afterwards. Trials turn up the heat in the conflict, and that in turn affects the children. Conflict between parents can destroy children. “Children want… and need… to love both of their parents.” A Mason County judge intoned this to me years ago, and it’s true. This is particularly dangerous if the divorcing couple has children.

Trials are rolls of the dice in which the litigants gamble everything, and one of them can end up with nothing, or next to nothing. Instead it would leave people’s lives in terrible limbo for years, their issues unresolved. Constitution, that litigants should get their matters resolved in a reasonable time. This would not comport with this nation’s social policy goal, dating back to the drafting of the U.S. If everyone went to trial, the court system would clog up and people would have trials scheduled five or ten years out. The reality of divorce trials and settlement….Īnd our legal system actually definitely doesn’t favor everyone going to trial. And the lawyers are almost never as good looking as Gregory Peck or Sandra Bullock. The courtroom are often empty and the ambient noise is deadening. The lawyers do not orate and intone they sometimes mumble and fumble through their papers.

There will be hours of testimony that can be dull.

#Hints jydge trial#

And for people who like to read, historic trials grip the imagination – the trial of Socrates, the Scopes “monkey trial” debating evolution in the 1920s, the trial of Joan of Arc (such as it was.) They’re exciting they’re showdowns about great issues.īut real trials are often quiet, plodding affairs. Gregory Peck looked great in To Kill a Mockingbird. These programs tend to frame trial lawyers as elegant, eloquent single combat warriors in smartly tailored suits. The notion of a trial likely has visceral appeal for people - at least initially - because they have been excited by movies and television shows that glamorize trials. It’s also less ruinous financially for people who would better spend the money for a trial on their children. But this is usually a bad idea, and it’s better to settle. Why Settlement is often a better option than trial in divorceĮarly in a divorce, people are often terribly angry and they think they want to go to trial.