Time. We have so little of it. We waste so much of it on direct. We do not have to. If you do any work in divorce courts, you are familiar with the excruciatingly dull business of live testimony of needs and expenses. In every support trial, you hear lawyers helping clients read their own affidavits out-loud into the record. Hours are wasted on this unnecessary exchange: Wife’s Lawyer: And turning to page three, line two, what is your monthly water bill? Wife: I am sorry, I do not remember. Wife’s Lawyer (tapping his finger on the page and…
Do you need to introduce business records—bank statements, company business journals, diary of a call-girl with her clients’ names and charges, records of the daily weight-checks for the tiger cubs in Dream World, list of tardies that the child’s school keeps? Do you wake up in the middle of the night wondering whether to subpoena the custodian of—as Rule 803(6) puts it— memorandum, report, record, or data compilation kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity of a business, institution, association, profession, occupation, and calling of every kind, whether or not conducted for profit? Good news: the North Carolina Court…
If any of your cases involve defined benefit plans, you are probably relying on Bishop v. Bishop, 440 S.E.2d 591 (1994)—the North Carolina Court of Appeals’ classic. Bishop has been the divorce practitioners’ staple for almost twenty years. Bishop‘s five step approach has never been officially overruled—or received any negative treatment for that matter. But do not let the Westlaw’s Shepard lull you into a false sense of security. You will want to read the last week’s Court of Appeal’s opinion in Johnson v. Johnson. Although the Johnson Court does not explicitly distinguish Bishop, and even appears to follow Bishop…
Let’s say your client is bitterly unhappy with the result of her equitable distribution hearing. You re-read the trial transcript and confirm to yourself what you knew all along: you have a good appeal. You advise your client accordingly and brace for the inevitable: she wants to appeal now. Right away. Yesterday, if possible. But her alimony claim is still pending. Now what? In the olden days, you were stuck. You could have yourself an immediate appeal of equitable distribution order. Or you could have yourself an alimony trial. But you could not have both, because any unresolved…