Q: Am I by law required to respond to my exs lawyers emails?
The parenting time and decision making has been ruled on in my favor. The child support and tax returns are what we have left to work out. His lawyer is rude, nasty and just an awful person (to the point the Magistrate had to intervene and stop her screaming vicious attack while I was on the stand). I am representing myself. I am not keen on responding to her whatsoever at this point and feel dealing with her in court should be sufficient. There is zero possibility of coming to an agreement on these issues so I see no reason to respond. If I'm required to respond can my response be a simple I have nothing to say so please accept this as my final response to you unless it is a reasonable settlement offer on these issues?
Thank you for your help!
A:
Yes and no. You are required to maintain a minimum amount of contact as a condition of all court filings (all court motions require notification via VOICE prior to filing). However, you are not required to negotiate with the lawyer beyond mandatory mediation.
Some, less than professional, lawyers think raw aggression translates into good lawyering. I have found that long pauses, never entering into a debate, repeating your final offer/position, and saying "ok" without commitment works well. Also, be mindful of traps.
Every county has lawyers that behave poorly. Fellow lawyers AND judges do not respect this type of lawyer. If you really don't want to talk to the lawyer or you feel she is setting up a trap, you may want to hire an attorney (hiring an attorney will automatically prevent the lawyer from ever contacting you).
As an aside, I have found lawyers that behave like this to be very poor lawyers. In one case, I had the lawyer motion for temporary orders hearing partially based on claims I had not provided material (I had). This lawyer failed to file any court-mandated material, could not find the client, AND failed to appear to the requested hearing. The lawyer was very unpleasant, but handed me an easy case.
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