Michael Phillip Doman

Michael Doman

A dear friend of mine for over 20 years called me last July, 2017 and asked if I could assist an acquaintance going through a nasty divorce, who had already been through two previous attorneys. I agreed to meet with Marie to review her pending divorce proceeding, and spent two hours with Marie without charge. I decided to take on Marie's case, immediately met with her husband's attorney, and the first thing I was told was that his client's twenty year old landscaping business was failing, and husband was getting ready to declare bankruptcy. I was skeptical of this claim, so I immediately prepared the following six petitions, which should have been prepared by one of Marie's previous two attorneys: 1) Petition for business valuation asking the judge to allow a forensic accounting expert to review husband's business books and records; 2) Petition for temporary relief asking the judge to order husband to reinstate his life insurance, to pay the son's ice hockey expenses, and to increase husband's child support obligation; 3) Petition for contempt against her husband for failing to give Marie court ordered access to the family summer home in Lake Geneva; 4) Petition to sell the husband's boat and three ATV vehicles; 5) Petition for attorney's fees asking the court to order husband to pay the remainder of Marie's attorney's fees; and 6) Petition for Sanctions against the husband for filing a false financial affidavit. Prior to the scheduled hearing, I took husband's deposition, which had to be scheduled by court order, because husband was refusing to agree on a date to submit to his deposition. At the deposition, I was able to discover several inaccuracies in husband's accounting practices, which I knew would bode well for Marie at the upcoming hearing on the above mentioned six petitions. These petitions were scheduled for hearing to take place on I believe, November 28, 2017. On that morning, at approximately 5:30 a.m., I received an email from Marie stating that she would not be coming to court later that morning, because she and her husband were going to resolve all six petitions, and be able to finalize the divorce by themselves. When I appeared in court for Marie later that morning, I explained to the judge the current status of the case, so the judge rescheduled all six petitions for hearing sixty days later, on January 30, 2018. During this sixty day window of time, Marie was never able to resolve even one of the six petitions, but still did not wish to appear in court. After the January 30, 2018 court appearance in which I had to explain to the judge that the case still had not settled, Marie had become upset with me, presumably because no progress had been made in finishing her case. Marie then asked me to withdraw as her attorney, which I promptly complied, and Marie went on to finish the case by herself, without any business valuation of her husband's business, without ever obtaining access to the family summer home, without selling her husband's boat, or ATV vehicles, without reinstating her husband' life insurance, and without receiving any contribution to her attorney's fees by her husband. Incidentally, the husband's landscaping business is still thriving, eleven months after the husband's attorney had reported to me that his client's landscaping business was about to go bankrupt. Had Marie accepted my advice to proceed on the above six mentioned petitions, I have little doubt that Marie would have achieved a much better result.