First Court Schedule and Discovery

[Godslove]

My attorney emailed today that she received discovery requests from Bpd's attorney. He finally hired an attorney after being served. My L said the discovery is exchanged just between the parties and it doesn't get filed with the court and she will send similar requests to them.

One is called Dependent First set of interrogatories to Plaintiff. It has 28 interrogatories. The other one is Dependent request for Production of Documents. It is asking 84 documents. It is a lot to take in. Our strategy was trying not to go to court and settle things outside of the court when we met for the initial meeting.

*I wonder if this Discovery is asked to be used in the court and he is trying to take this to court rather than solving things through mediation.

*I also wonder why my L didn't send Discovery first since we are the one who started the process and served him while he didn't have any L. Once he has all my documentation first, wouldn't he have an upper hand since he doesn't keep documents or remember incidents well or it doesn't matter?

This Friday I have the Scheduling Conference at the courthouse so we will meet to schedule the case. I feels things are going to court without my will to mediate. Is it? or is it just standard process? My L and I will meet 30 min. before the court time so we can touch base. I want to get myself educated to use this time wisely what to update and ask. This will be the second time to meet my new L. I learned my first L who gave my leverage away is fired from the firm. I still have a complaint letter I never sent. I regret not sending it... .

[Godslove]

I read a lot about discovery and learned Discovery also promotes settle before trial. and some it costs a lot. I had an account that I opened before marriage that I closed about three years ago. Little shy of three years. Do I have to disclose that too? What about CD that I bought before marriage and withdraw last year? How much potential does it have that the other party will find out things that I don't disclose and what do they have to do?

[Nope]

Interrogatories and Discovery in general help the side requesting them make decisions about their approach. For example. If they can prove you lied in your answer to an interrogatory question they can use that to cast doubt on your credibility. If you admit to certain facts in your responses then they don't have to worry about arguing that those facts are true because you are already on record saying they are. Discovery helps the requesting side collect evidence. Depending on what kind of evidence they collect that can also determine their strategy. But sometimes these things are just used as an intimidation tactic. Or to show the other party "we mean business and aren't afraid to go to court".

It doesn't matter who asks for stuff first. In my DH's case we refused to hand over our answers until the last hour before the deadline since we'd seen no proof of good will that the other side would give us anything we asked for.

The best approach is simply answering honestly. Only give exactly the information the question is asking for. Don't volunteer extra information. When in doubt, ask your L for guidance, as nobody here can give you legal advice.

I'll end with a discovery story: One of our complaints was that the kid's BPD mom had no computer or internet access at the home and this was having a negative impact on their ability to get practice in certain school subjects where the teacher had recommended a website for practice purposes. The BPD mom was asked to admit the child couldn't use the teacher recommended site at home for practice. The BPD mom responded by denying and saying the child was using BPD mom's cell phone to access the site. Boy was she red in the face and stammering when we went to court and we provided an email from the company apologizing for the fact that the program requires full Flash capabilities and couldn't be used on any phone.

[ForeverDad]

My lawyer didn't send interrogatories, neither did the other lawyer, well, not until the divorce was final and a couple years later I filed for custody under Change of Circumstances.  When her lawyer requested it, I marked some items as NA, some were "Ex has it or has copies".  Meanwhile, my lawyer sent his questions.  I prepared over 600 pages - and this was two years after the final decree!  Lawyer sent them.  What did we get?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Me, 600 pages, her, 0 pages.  And no, neither side pushed for ex to get consequences and so she didn't get any.  Par for the course.

My advice is that while preparing the response, feel comfortable with responding to some as Not Applicable, Not Available, Already in stbEx's possession or accessible by stbEx.  And don't fret overmuch.  Then let your lawyer review it.  Then... .Let It Sit.  Why do I say it?  We are the sort to feel we need to jump and comply when ordered to jump and comply.  The stbEx generally doesn't reciprocate such behaviors.  (Which is one reason why he or she is the stbEx!)  So let it sit.  Your lawyer can then respond to the other lawyer and state, "We have prepared our response.  We are ready to EXCHANGE responses when you and your client have completed yours."  Despite that careful handling, you can't force the other side to comply completely, be prepared for largely evasive, hiding, inadequate, incomplete, blaming, blame-shifting, blank and even outright lies as responses.

[Thunderstruck]

My DH filed for paternity first and I think the L asked uBPDbm for discovery. She has yet to fully comply and that was ~3 years ago.

Even though my DH and his uBPDx were never married, they still had to go through the same financial discovery process that divorcing couples do. It was really invasive, we had to produce statements from all joint accounts (yep, that means my information too!) and joint credit cards. We provided everything in full, just so that we can say "Hey, we have nothing to hide." uBPDbm went through and highlighted all of our "non-essential" expenses and tried to use that to justify us paying $1000/month in CS.   The judge calculated it per the state guidelines and we only pay $118/month. uBPDbm also printed it all out and gave it to the CE as some kind of evidence  . She's pro-se so her strategy is, well, nothing.