What to expect when you go to Court for your divorce, custody or support matter.

If you have accessed my free course, you already know that you may have to go to the Probate and Family Court more than once as part of your Massachusetts divorce, custody or support matter.

Your first trip to Probate and Family Court may be the first time you have ever been inside of a courthouse, in which case your expectations about what will happen may be based (incorrectly, most likely) on things you have seen on television or on something you heard about a friend’s or family member’s divorce.

At the risk of sounding like a wise-guy, please forget what you heard about your friend’s divorce or what you saw on the season finale of The Good Wife, because your experience inside the Probate and Family Court will look nothing like that.  Here is what you should actually expect to happen.

On the date scheduled for your hearing, you and your attorney — as well as the other party and his/her attorney — will meet at the courthouse.  You will then review and sign your Financial Statement, which is likely the most important document in your case.

Once you sign your Financial Statement, be prepared to hurry up and wait.  In just about every Probate And Family Court that I have been in, every single hearing is scheduled for 9:00 a.m.  This does not mean — by a long shot — that the Judge is going to call your case at 9:00 a.m.  In fact, you could still be standing in the line waiting to pass through security at the courthouse entrance at 9:00 a.m.  This is because every single person with business at the courthouse that day is told to show up at 9:00 a.m.

So, after you arrive at the courthouse and meet up with your attorney, be prepared for intermittent pockets of time during which you are waiting — waiting for your attorney to locate your file, waiting for your attorney to negotiate with your spouse’s attorney, waiting to check in to the Probation Department (more on that below) or just waiting for your case to get called in the courtroom.  You will do a lot of waiting.

Plan to be there for most of the day.  You may not be there all day, but you are better off planning for that — as opposed to assuming you will be done by noon, and then panicking because you have not made arrangements for someone else to get your kids off of the bus.  (Okay, maybe I’m the only one that’s done that — they were fine, by the way.)  Also, bring yourself some water, maybe a snack, and perhaps something to read or something else to do to occupy yourself while you wait.

You will probably meet with a mediator before you appear in front of a Judge.  There is a Probation Department within every Probate and Family Court in Massachusetts.  This is not the same type of “probation” that you hear about in connection with a criminal case. Among other things, the Probate and Family Court Probation Department provides mediation services to parties when they come to Court.

Before your case will move to the courtroom, you — along with your spouse and his/her attorney — will meet with a mediator from the Probation Department.  The purpose of this meeting is to see if you can reach agreement on some or all of the issues that are to be addressed that day.

If a Restraining Order is in effect between you and your spouse, then you will bypass mediation and go straight to the courtroom.

You may not need to appear in front of a Judge at all; and, in fact, you may be better off if you don’t.  Sometimes, once the parties and their attorneys appear in Court, the parties can reach agreement.  This may happen when you meet with one of the mediators in the Probation Department, or it may happen at some other point while you are waiting to appear before the Judge.  If you are in Court for “Temporary Orders,” this agreement is usually called a “Stipulation.”  If you are in Court for a Pretrial Conference or a Trial, you may sign what is called an Agreement for Judgment.

If you reach agreement, then the Court will approve that agreement and the document that you signed will become your Temporary Orders or your Judgment (depending on where you are in your case.)  This will happen without you having to appear in front of the Judge.

It may seem counter-intuitive that you would go to Court and then end up agreeing (why did we have to come all the way to the courthouse if we were going to agree?).  For one reason or another, however, this happens frequently.  There is some momentum about being in the courthouse, and having both parties and their attorneys physically in the same location, that results in agreement.

You should take advantage of this momentum when you can.  You and your spouse may disagree on a lot of things, but you know your lives and your children much better than the Judge inside of the courtroom, who is a stranger to your family.  In some circumstances, compromising with your spouse is a much better option than rolling the dice and letting the Judge decide important issues in your life, such as where your kids live and when.

On the other hand, you always have the right to appear in front of a Judge if you cannot agree with your spouse.  As I mentioned above, you may be required to meet with a mediator.  Also, it is a good idea to explore the possibility of reaching agreement with your spouse.

You should know, however, that no one — not the mediator or any other person at the courthouse — can force you to agree with your spouse.  You always have the right to present your case to the Judge if you so choose.  If that happens, then the Judge will hear your case in the courtroom and, based on what is presented to the Judge, will decide the disputed issues.  In that scenario, the Judge most likely will not make a decision immediately after you finish speaking.  Instead, you (or your attorney) will receive the Judge’s decision in the mail within a short time after the hearing.

After you hurry up and wait, get ready to hurry up again.  In a perfect world, your hearing would take place in a quiet, relatively empty and peaceful courtroom, where the Judge could devote unlimited time to your case and give you his/her undivided attention.  We do not live in a perfect world (thanks, Captain Obvious.)

For instance, if you are in Court on a Motion for Temporary Orders, understand that Motion hearings move very quickly in Probate and Family Court.  You will not be able to present every single iteration of every single fact in a slow, methodical matter; and, you will not have an opportunity to necessarily respond to every single thing your spouse’s attorney says.  Rather, each attorney presents — on behalf of his/her client — a summary argument as to why his/her client is asking the Court to enter a certain Temporary Order.  Unlike at a Trial, your attorney is generally not given an opportunity to cross-examine the opposing party at the Motion hearing.

This may feel unfair or inadequate to you, but understand that the pace of a Motion hearing is more a matter of practicality than anything else.  Judges in the Probate and Family Court each generally have one (1) day per week on which they hear Motions.  Given the caseload that each and every Judge carries in the Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts, your Judge’s “Motion day” is an extremely busy day in that Judge’s courtroom.  It would be impossible for that Judge to hold a formal hearing in every case, and still reach all of the cases scheduled for Motion on any given day.

With that in mind, your attorney is going to (and, if you are representing yourself, you should) focus on the most important facts that are directly relevant to the issues before the Court that day.

You will have an opportunity for that longer, formal hearing where you have the Judge’s undivided attention for a span of hours or days, but not until the end of your case — at your trial.

I hope this information has been helpful to you.  If we haven't connected by phone yet, then we should talk.  Click here to gain direct access to my calendar to schedule an initial complimentary call with me.  Take care until then.