There Are a Plethora of Things to Expect
Video Transcribed: Hello, my name is Jason Lile, and I am a Tulsa Dads Lawyer. I wanted to talk to you today about something that might be of concern to you if you are involved or about to get involved in a family law case as a father or as a man.
If you have never been through a custody hearing or a hearing in court before, it can be very intimidating. It can be nerve-wracking before the hearing. And one of the things that you want to consider when you hire a lawyer is you need somebody who’s experienced with actual hearings because actual hearings are different, really, than anything else that we do as lawyers, and especially different for the clients.
So what can you expect when you go into a hearing? You can expect to go into the courtroom. There will be other people there. They don’t clear the courtroom out for your privacy unless you request it for a specific reason. They will call your case. The two lawyers, if there are two lawyers, will announce that they are ready to have the hearing.
You will sit at a table with your lawyer, and the opposing party will sit at a table with her lawyer. And at that point, whoever is the petitioner in the case typically goes first. If that’s you, then your lawyer gets to call witnesses.
Typically, it will be you and the opposing party and whoever else you brought as witnesses, so that should be something that you’ve prepared for in advance, that a good lawyer will take the time to prepare those witnesses with you in advance or prepare you for that.
And then you can expect your lawyer to ask you questions. Now, it’s not like getting asked questions at a party. You get asked a question by the lawyer, and sometimes the opposing party might say, “Objection, Your Honor,” in which case you need to stop and wait for the judge to make a decision about whether or not you can answer that question, and then go on and answer the question.
Another difference about that in just normal everyday life in hearings is that you need to be very careful about taking turns, meaning let the lawyer speak and then you speak because there’s a court reporter in the court taking down everything that we say that will help preserve the record for your case in the future.
And the last thing is, that a good lawyer should prepare his client for this, to relax as much as possible. Listen very carefully to the questions being answered, and just answer the question being asked. Many times people want to explain, want to ramble on, and that’s never good for your case.
Your attorney will have an opportunity, if you get asked a question by the opposing lawyer that you didn’t like to answer or you didn’t like your answer, a good lawyer will get back up and be able to do what we call rehabilitate you, meaning giving you an opportunity to explain yours.
So it does require some self-discipline to just answer the question that was asked. And if you don’t, the other lawyer can object to the fact that you weren’t responding to the question. So for help with this or if you have any other questions about what it’s like to be in a custody case, please feel free to contact the Oklahoma father’s rights attorney or the Tulsa Child Custody Attorney for Men at Dads.Law.
