What Are Some Pitfalls of Representing Yourself in a Divorce?

We sit down with Founding Attorney, Lewis Landerholm, to discuss common pitfalls to be mindful of if you're considering representing yourself in a dissolution matter.

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Common pitfalls of representing oneself in a divorce case.

• Pitfalls of representing oneself in a divorce include lack of legal knowledge and court experience.
• The importance of hiring an attorney for divorce proceedings.
• Lewis Landerholm highlights the importance of understanding legal nuances and fact-checking in divorce cases.
• Landerholm and Altishin discuss the complexity of navigating the judicial system without legal experience.
• Steve Altishin and Lewis Landerholm discuss the importance of understanding court procedures and evidence in family law cases.
• Landerholm highlights the potential consequences of not following proper procedures, including losing the opportunity to modify decisions later on.

The challenges of representing oneself in a divorce.

• Lewis Landerholm and Steve Altishin discuss the challenges of representing oneself in court.
• They emphasize the importance of understanding the legal system and the limitations of self-representation.
• Steve Altishin and Lewis Landerholm discuss the pitfalls of representing oneself in a divorce.
• Landerholm highlights the importance of understanding evidentiary rules in family law cases.

Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you. Covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters, with expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.

Steve Altishin  0:28  
I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships at Pacific Cascade Legal. And I'm here with our Founding Attorney, Lewis Landerholm, to talk about some pitfalls of representing yourself in a divorce. So Lewis, how you doing today?

Lewis Landerholm  0:46  
I'm doing great. How are you, Steve?

Steve Altishin  0:48  
I'm doing well. This is a really interesting one. Because I mean, we both know people who have decided to represent themselves. And we've seen the outcomes of their cases by not being advised on what to do, and all the decisions they have to go through. So I thought we talked today about some pitfalls that you see, with a person representing themselves in a divorce, custody support case. And the issues that kind of arise, it seems to me there's three kinds of things. There's the legal going, knowing the legal, there's the dealing with another attorney, and then there's the dealing with the court. So let's kind of start with knowing the legal I mean, what are the issues that people run into just by not necessarily knowing the law?

Lewis Landerholm  1:38  
Well, the I mean, obviously, this isn't what people who are representing themselves do every day. And so what I always tell people is our job as attorneys, one of our main jobs is that we know what happens in different courtrooms in front of different judges with different fact patterns, because we represent hundreds and 1000s of clients. And so what we do is we take bits and pieces from all of those cases, those experiences, those fact patterns, how judges applied the law to those fact patterns, so that we can apply them to an individual clients case. That's the biggest part of the legal knowledge and the experience that comes into play versus somebody who doesn't do this, and are handled in as handling their own case, the problem that you have is, you go and you try to go to the internet, you talk to your friend or your couple of friends who they went, and they've been through a divorce go and you try to read as much as you can. The the issue with that is you're getting 234 different experiences and trying to apply that to your own case. Well, every case is so different. And so the law, there are intricacies, there are nuances, there are things that apply in one place that don't apply somewhere else. And, and when you're trying to do that on your own, you just have limited information. And you don't really understand how the game is played. And you don't understand how it applies to your individual fact pattern. And so you're either going to leave money on the table, or you're going to be bringing things up in a case that a judge just doesn't frankly care about or, you know, opening yourself up to other issues that you didn't want to open yourself up to. So there's as much as just understanding the way the law is going to apply to your facts, and being able to then get that information out when you're in court.

Steve Altishin  3:40  
And imagine that kind of flows through to you're going up generally against someone who does have an attorney. And that attorney may take advantage of the fact that you don't know as much about the law and kind of get you into a position that you don't want to be in I mean, because not everybody works with attorneys every day.

Lewis Landerholm  4:08  
Oh, 100%. Yeah. Happens all the time. Whether it's a taking advantage of or, frankly, just not knowing enough, you don't know what you don't know. So you don't have the ability to fact check. You don't have the ability to say is that right? Or is that wrong? Is there a different way of doing this? You know, it may not be that there's somebody's getting taken advantage of it may be just the mere fact that you don't know there's another way to do it. So you don't even know to to counter it with something or that it could be tweaked or it can be done better or differently. And so there's just an information and a knowledge gap when you're trying to handle a case on your own versus an attorney for sure or when you go to court. 

Steve Altishin  4:53  
Yeah. And the legal process itself can be difficult just working with you know, the The courts, because there's timelines, there are things that are required, you can get tripped up in a million ways, just getting through the system even before you would get to a trial.

Lewis Landerholm  5:12  
Yes, all the time. I mean, they're just, yeah, I mean, this stuff is complicated. And there's only certain things you can do. And it has to be done a certain way. And there's different timelines that have to be done and what you can use what you can't use, and there's just no, there's no substitute for time and experience. And there's no substitute for the knowledge. And so every county is a little bit different. You know, they've got local rules that you have to figure out, you've got, you know, state rules, you've got some federal laws that come into play. And so just trying to figure all of that out is extremely complex and complicated. And then trying to navigate the judicial system, by itself is just even just trying to how do I bump out my trial date? My trial date isn't convenient. What do I do? What's the timeline? How many days? How do I these things, they're not exactly the most easiest to figure out on your own. And so when you're trying, when somebody's trying to do that, by themselves, there's a million things that could trip him up that that cause, you know, cause the case to go sideways. 

Steve Altishin  6:21  
Yep, yep. And kind of they've worked together, you know, what's your what's your actually, let's say, you're in the courtroom, or you're in front of a judge, that's a harrowing experience to say the least people aren't used to that. And you can not ask for something you can do the wrong thing. And I add leads to that kind of other thing, which is, there are real consequences of getting it wrong. This isn't a case where you just get to go, oops, can I do it again, in a lot of cases is there?

Lewis Landerholm  6:54  
No, especially in, for example, in Oregon, we can't modify property distribution. So if you go and you have your day in court, and you go and you have your trial, and say you didn't know how to get a piece of evidence and or you you didn't then get to get a half of whatever account or half of what the true account value is, you lose your opportunity to go back and say, can I get that money that I left off the table. So that's just an example of something that you can't redo these things. There are certain things that can be modified later. But the importance of what those findings were from the judge, what the judge said in that first trial is going to impact your case for especially like in custody cases, for the remainder of your case, the custody is a good example, in Oregon, the judge can only order sole custody, if the parties don't agree well, as a litigant. If you don't give the judge the right information, and the judge rules for custody on the other side, it's extremely difficult to then modify custody later, because there's a barrier to being able to talk about what's best for the kids. You know, Washington handles it a little bit differently, you know, it's more of a default on the on the joint custody side. But still, there are times when custody is on the table. And if you don't handle that properly, then you lose your opportunity to bring up those facts, because then in a future modification, all of that information that occurred prior to that ruling, is basically a it's not relevant anymore, because it was it should have been brought up at the time. And so trying to trying to know all of that, and making sure that you get the right evidence that you could have the best evidence in the world, but it may not be admissible, because you don't know the rules. And so trying to figure all that out, just it doesn't happen. It's not something that you can learn in a two month or a month period of time.

Steve Altishin  8:53  
Yep. And so someone comes in, and they, they want to represent themselves or something, or you talk to someone who wants to present themselves. But they don't. I mean, they just don't have enough money maybe to fully hire a lawyer. There are some things we can help with that. But it still isn't a full representation. But there are push comes to shove, some ways that we can help people who are in that kind of situation trying to represent themselves?

Lewis Landerholm  9:22  
We can help to a limited extent, what I always hesitate to do or help people understand is we can't give a legal education in, in a few sessions. Like it just doesn't work that way, outside of, you know, our attorneys going to law school or doing all of that it's more of the years of practicing and the years of representing people the years of being in front of judges. And so we can't give all of that knowledge in a short period of time. There's just too much. And so, yes, we can help with minor things like how to get exhibits put together so that they're admissible, but there's exceptions. to every rule, and so there are things that may come up in a specific case and a judge rules in a way that nobody could foresee. And that's just part of the deal. And if you don't know how to then how to bring up the exception to get a piece of evidence, and then you're stuck, and it's not coming in, so it's the actual representation in court is almost impossible to replicate. It's just a matter of trying to help people understand and be prepared. The biggest thing that we can help with are like in parenting plans or in, you know, an asset division, just being able to present a, like a proposal, so that you're speaking the same language as the judge. That's where we can be the most helpful as somebody who is help representing, especially if there isn't another attorney on the side, being able to walk in and say, Judge, this is what I want and why so that the judge understands what you're asking for. And I find that to be way more helpful than actually trying to teach somebody to represent themselves. 

Steve Altishin  11:05  
Yeah. It's about time to go, we're running out of time. But I wanted to ask one more question about kind of the idea of how it, it is so easy to just do one wrong thing. And part of that is that, you know, you may think you really know, the law. But this is a divorce. And it's a very important thing, emotionally, financially, and a lot of reasons. It's just not the time to try to save money. 

Lewis Landerholm  11:37  
Yeah, I mean, there's, you only get one shot, in most instances, and especially when kids are on the line and custody or parenting schedule, making sure that you understand what's important, how to then pay if there's a substance abuse issue, or whatever it may be, how to get that information to the court appropriately. So that court can actually use the information just because this is the part that frustrates a lot of people with the legal system is just because you have evidence, does it mean that the judge gets to see it. And so, you know, there's, there's all these evidentiary rules, they're very complex, they're really intricate, they've been, you know, made over, you know, hundreds of years, essentially, on how to get a piece of evidence. And, and there are certain things that will just be barred from being able to be used by the court, which is extremely frustrating, but at the same time, there's reasons for it. And there's reasons historical reasons why. And that's why we have to know the rules so that we can get our evidence and so the judge can actually use it to determine the case. And so, you know, there's, you know, I tell people all the time, it may cost, you know, a few $1,000 upfront, to get the information to do it, right, it's going to cost you 20 to 3040 50,000, to go fix it later, if something was messed up, because unraveling and trying to redo things is very expensive, and causes a lot of problems for a lot of people.

Steve Altishin  13:08  
Well, that was really, really interesting. Thank you, Lewis, for sitting down to talk with us about real pitfalls of representing yourself in a divorce. Thanks for being here today. And I think it's really informative for people. 

Lewis Landerholm  13:22  
Yeah, you're welcome. 

Steve Altishin  13:24  
And thank you, everyone for joining us today. If anyone has any further questions, please feel free to contact our firm we can get you connected with an attorney who can help you. So stay safe, stay happy and be well.

Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Pacific Cascade Legal, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at pacificcascadelegal.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.