I try to tell people to get an attorney from day one but I can’t reach everyone.  My most recent example is one of my new clients.  He went to court without an attorney for emancipation and was first denied for lack of service even though he showed the court that the other side was indeed served!  He tried again and this time, he won.  Child emancipated.  Case over right?  Not quite.

The Probation Department, for whatever reason, didn’t care about the Court’s order and refused to adjust his child support.  Even worse, is that the child should have been emancipated back to a couple of months prior to the last order but the court made up an arbitrary date for emancipation.  He hired me and we are fixing the problem.  However, he may be stuck with the wrong emancipation date as he did not file a motion in time or an appeal.  Thus, he left thousands of dollars on the table.