You have or are about to separate from the mother of your children, a women you once loved very much and may still. She seeks to "keep" the children, almost as if she had a certificate of title for their physical bodies, like the registration for a car. She wants you to basically get out of her way, so she can go on and "discover her real self", maybe with someone else. And have you pay her for the privilege of seeing your children, and even then only as a visitor in their lives 4 to 6 days a month.

You are numb and confused, not wanting to have to accept the role she proposes for you. But you feel you have to accept it because that's the way it has always been. And as the man you are supposed to be able to take the pain and not show it. True, that is the way it has always been - until very recently. As the 60's song said "The times they are a changing!" So...it's not true that fathers have to accept it anymore. Here's the good news: Yes, you can stay in the lives of your children. But to do so requires strong determination and commitment. Your children deserve nothing less.

Do you have what it takes?

Any hope of your children retaining a meaningful relationship with you in the face of the historical societal and legal bias favoring mothers depends principally on three factors:

1. Commitment to your children

2. Money

3. Patience.

The fight required to defeat a parent determined (consciously or unconsciously) to seriously diminish the role of the other parent in the lives of their children can get extremely difficult. It often ( but not always) can be very expensive to properly conduct, and requires a degree of disciplined patience that would test a person even in normal times. Suddenly having your children no longer meaningfully in your life can be the worst of times for both men and women.

Even more important than money to succeed is patience. The concept of "patience", how to gain and keep it, and use it to maximum advantage, is such an important factor in the legal practice of our office that we've dedicated a separate page to it. Click here to read it.

IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS about what court can be like and whether or not you need a lawyer, or should represent yourself, spend some time in court watching others. In Vancouver you should spend a day in Court Room 32 at the Law Courts (Supreme Court) any day of the week. It is the court room in which a Master will be dealing with family law applications. It is open to the public.

Warning

Of course not all relationships end as described above. Many couples actually mean it when they say they want to put their children first. Others can mediate their differences. However, the most serious problem one faces coming out of a relationship is that there is no way to predict when a reasonable parent and ex- loved one can turn totally unreasonable, irrational and even nasty. Yesterday's agreement to shared parenting can end as fast as those reasonable communications that stopped when she hired the lawyer.

The danger of this happening can be seriously compounded by a manipulative mother who can push all your right buttons to make you think you should be the one to first move to the couch at night, (why not her?) then leave the house and stay with a friend or relative "just to give us both some space",( again - why not her?) who uses the phrase "think of the kids" to get what she wants and needs. Hoping you might yet be able to salvage the relationship, if only for the sake of the kids, you are still prepared to believe the best in her. And if that doesn't put you exactly where she wants you - out of the house - too many mothers still resort to false allegations of abuse, or set up a situation where they can provoke you into doing something stupid that is an excuse to get the police involved. Too many lawyers are prepared to coach women in just how to do this to maximum advantage

And failing all else, some mothers still resort to the most despicable falsehood that exists: accusing the father of sexually abusing his own child! In a truly civilized and rational family law system such a false allegation should result in immediate transfer of custody from mother to father of the child and other children. Any parent - of either gender - who would stoop so low to get an advantage is undeserving to parent. But our courts continue to be far too lenient with such parents, which is the only reason such false allegations continue to occur with sickening regularity.

The preferred weapon of choice by these mothers is to take a young child to a doctor, point out a rash in the genital area, or report some purposefully exaggerated statement allegedly made by the child, and ask the doctor if it "is possible" it could be caused by the sexual abuse of the father. Too many doctors get caught in this web of deceit, admit it is "possible" and send the child off to a specialist to be examined. We call these "virtual" allegations of sex abuse. To the accused father, it is no different than an outright allegation.

Why you should have hope

Statistics tell us that kids used to end up with mom after separations about 90% of the time. BUT TAKE NOTE: where fathers have the commitment and ability to contest mom's sole custody their odds of success increase dramatically. In our practice we almost always negotiate or obtain for our client's more time - often considerably more - and increased decision making with their children than the mother was initially prepared to give. And we are not alone. Some other lawyers are doing the same thing for fathers as the courts are moving in the right direction on this issue. IMPORTANT: don't be too quick to accept advice that you accept sole custody to the mother and every other week end to you. Negotiate - yes - but stick to your principles even if it means a fight. To family law lawyers (and the public) the word "fight" has a bad name, and rightly so. But human nature being what it is, both genders are equally capable of being irrational control-seeking parents who will not be reasonable until a judge wakes them up to reality. The just fight is often unavoidable. Our firm has proven ideas on how best to maximize success in these circumstances. (We use a healthy mix of open-minded negotiations, shared parenting experts, round table meetings and anything to help promote reasonableness. But we also don't shy from recommending clients tape record important evidentiary phone conversations or take a lie detector test in the face of false allegations.) And when all else fails, we are proud to go to court for our clients with no apologies.

 

We are here to help

Our office and staff do family law. While our preferred area of practice is in helping children keep both parents equally in their lives, we also handle simple divorces, complicated divorces with property settlement and spousal and child support issues. We are experienced in issues of: physical and emotional abuse by women against men; false allegations of abuse against men; the use of polygraph evidence in the face of wrongful allegations; parental alienation; jurisdictional issues; and Internet chat-line and Internet addiction disorders. You can retain our legal services by emailing, faxing or phoning any initial questions and then make an appointment to come in and talk to one of the lawyers.

We also act for children, which is a very interesting aspect of our practice. In this regard we do not act as a Child Advocate, retained and paid for by the Province to look after the so-called "best interest" of the child. Rather, we actually get retained by the child directly (being paid by a parent - ideally by both - relative or friend - or the child!) and take our instructions from the child - not from the person paying the bill. It is not something done often, but in the right case can be very effective in getting the wishes of the child front and center before the court. We have acted for children as young as 8.

Our hours are 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday to Friday. After 5 appointments are available. In rare circumstances weekend appointments can be made.

Our fees

Our lawyers and legal assitant charge an hourly rate plus GST and PST. Family law lawyers are not allowed to charge contingency fees which means getting paid a percentage of the value of any assets kept or recovered. We charge out our time and bill on a tenth-of-an-hour basis, or six minute minimums. Six separate one minute phone calls will cost the client 6/10ths of an hour fee, whereas one call for six minutes will be 1/10th of an hour fee. Be careful how you use our time. Phone or come in to discuss our fees.

Our required retainer

Most law firms require that the client pay a retainer fee in advance. The retainer is placed by the lawyer into his or her trust account in the client's name and only transferred into the general account as "fees paid" after a bill for work done is produced for the client. This way the law firm always has the funds on hand to cover fees earned and doesn't have to be chasing after clients who owe money to the firm. When the amount of the retainer gets low the firm will ask that further funds be forwarded into the retainer account.

Unfortunately it takes money to properly resist a full force attack by the other parent putting their own interests ahead of the children. The amount of the initial retainer depends upon the type and amount of work to be done. Only by meeting with you can we give you even a rough idea of what your case may cost, and then it is only a guess at best because so much depends on what the other side does.

What if you have limited resources? Or your cash is tied up?

Our firm prefers to act for clients on full retainers. But in some cases the only money a man has is tied up in the matrimonial home or business or RRSP that the wife's lawyer has frozen under a restraining order.

It is possible, in certain circumstances where assets are frozen, for a lawyer to act for a client and get paid after the case is over and the property sold or cash released.

We also help many men who have limited funds. We can maximize our effort to produce short term results that the client can then use to his and his children's advantage later on when he is representing himself. We can also do work in the office and help prepare the client at an hourly rate to better present his case by himself in court. A great many fathers ( too many!) are forced to act on their own in court. Too often they are up against the mother of their children who is on legal aid and couldn't care less about the cost of it all.

For more advice on how to act for yourself click here.

How much could it all cost

There are usually too many unknown and unpredictable factors in most family law cases to be able to give even a rough estimate of what it might cost a client. We can quote a flat fee for such things as drafting a separation agreement when all the terms are already agreed to, or for an uncontested divorce. But negotiating the settlement of a contested issue or having to prepare for and attend at one or more court hearings can run from not much to a great deal. The reason for our inability to quote an accurate estimate is that so much of our time may have to be spent on responding to material from the other side, and until you get well into the matter you often don't know what you are going to get back from the other side.

Any estimate we give is just that. It could end up be conisderably more or less.

It is very important for us to know what the absolute limit is for a client's funds, after taking into account his own cash and help from family or friends. That way we can better advise how we can most efficiently and productively put our skills to work. When the money runs out we have to stop. We don't want to find out shortly before an important application or trial that the client's funds have run out and thus leave us insufficient time to arrange for the client to continue on their own.We can do this best with an accurate understanding at the very begining of the total amount of funds available.

 

For more personal information on your own case, please give us a call.

Play this for a harmonic rendition of lawyer's billing blues....

The Law Offices of Carey Linde
605 - 1080 Howe St.
Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 2T1
Tel: 604-684-7794 Fax: 604-682-1243

lawyer@divorce-for-men.com