The following section discusses the relationship between you, me and my staff.
 

ATTORNEY AND STAFF

My  staff and I work as a team, each doing those tasks which they can do most efficiently. The legal assistants are billed out at a lower rate than the attorney; therefore, the legal assistants handle much of the time consuming tasks involved in gathering information and day-to-day contact with the client. You will be dealing with both me and  Liz and Brandon, together and individually, throughout the relationship.

YOUR ROLE AS CLIENT

This is your case, not mine. There are a great number of things that you must do during your case.

1. Be Informed

You should be as informed and as involved in your case as possible.  You should read and understand any and all documents that are produced in your case.  If you do not understand something, please do not ignore it or avoid asking questions, call and talk to Liz or Brandon.

2. Keep A File

All correspondence and documents produced in your case will be forwarded to you. Please establish one file in which to keep all of your divorce related documents. Please bring that file with you each time that you visit me.

3. Tell the Truth About All Facts

You should be totally honest with me on every aspect of your case and give all information about anything of importance to your case. This includes not only information helpful to your case but, equally important, all facts which might be harmful to your case. Chances are your spouse^'s attorney is going to find out about them anyway, so please do not let me be the last to know. Also, these "bad facts" are usually not as harmful as you may think.

In this respect, you do need to be made aware that_, at any time that you are placed under oath at a deposition or a trial, you will be required to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If you do not, you subject yourself to criminal perjury charges. Likewise, Texas law requires your attorney to see to it that you tell the truth; therefore, when you are under oath, I cannot and will not condone any testimony by you which is less than the whole truth.

4. Information Gathering

Facts are the heart of your lawsuit. You will be given information sheets to fill out and requested to gather information and documents. This will be time consuming and tedious work, but it is extremely important. It must be done. You, the client, have a much greater knowledge of and access to this factual information than I do. Further, as you research and piece together this information, you begin to develop the necessary understanding of your case. Also, you can do this work at no charge to yourself, whereas I, if required to do it, will be billing you for my time and labor. For all of these reasons, you should do as much of the information gathering, under the direction of me and my staff.

5. Review Spouse's Documents

I will provide you with copies of all documents supplied by your spouse's attorney. It is very important that you review these documents immediately, familiarize yourself with them completely, and ask any questions or detect anything important or unusual in the documents (e.g., checks written for unusually high amounts or to unfamiliar persons or sources).

6. Decision Making

No final settlement of your case will be made without your approval and consent. Other major decisions will also be made with your approval and consent (e.g., to demand a jury or not, to seek child custody or not, etc.). However, you will need to give me the authority to make other decisions which bear on your case, but which involve professional judgment or courtesy. For example, I should decide how to phrase allegations contained in your pleadings and when to file the pleading. On occasion, your spouse's attorney may ask for a continuance or postponement of a hearing on a motion, deposition, etc. Resistance to a legitimate request of this nature is often not in your best interest. For example, I may know that your side will need to make a similar request in the future. I should be the decision maker for these and similar matters.

ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP

You and I and my staff are in an attorney-client relationship, which is recognized by law to be a very special relationship. We owe one hundred percent of the allegiance to you and your case and owe no allegiance to your spouse whatsoever. I am  required to represent you zealously, but within the bounds of the law.

Do not be mislead if you find me dealing with your spouse's attorney on a friendly basis. Professional and common courtesy dictate this. Good lawyers are perfectly capable of zealously defending and promoting their clients' best interest, without becoming personal enemies. Attorneys are in fact trained to be advocates for the children without becoming emotionally involved. One of the very reasons you hire a lawyer is to have someone on your behalf who not only has legal expertise, but who will not become emotionally involved. You want your lawyer to use her head_, not her heart. Indeed, you should expect your lawyer to be objective and to remain unemotional on your behalf, because it will often be hard for you to do so.

 ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE

By virtue of the attorney-client relationship, there automatically arises what is known as the "attorney-client privilege". This privilege prohibits from disclosure any information, whether communicated orally or in writing, between the attorney and the client, so long as the communication was intended to be confidential.  Such communications also include all correspondence or documents from your attorney/staff to you, and vice versa (e.g., information sheets you prepare for us), as well as all telephone conversations and in-person conferences between you and me and my staff.

Caution: The attorney-client privilege exists only between you and your attorney and the immediate, in-house staff. The attorney-client privilege can be waived if the otherwise confidential information is disclosed to persons other than your attorney and the immediate staff. For example, if you tell your spouse something that your attorney has told you, then that information will lose its privilege from disclosure and will have to be disclosed by you in court. Also, the privilege does not exist between you and other persons who may be involved in your case to assist you (e.g., CPAs, appraisers, etc.). Therefore, be very careful what you say to these persons, even if they are "on your side", for anything you do or say may be required to be disclosed to your spouse's attorney.

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