Lita Annette Pettusdotson

My practice is to provide a 15 minute free consultation. Neither I nor most of my colleagues will provide 30 minutes gratis. I know of few citizens that work gratis for 30 min. Sometimes when calls are made to the office, potential clients want actual advice on their case. I tell them at the outset that is something that I cannot do. It is against State Bar of California Rules to do so. The callers are not clients. I do provide general procedural guidance on an issue. Move-away cases are the most difficult for a family law attorney to take on because the burden is so high for the moving parent. Most move-away cases are unsuccessful. Parents in this position often do not want to hear the actual percentages of their ability to persuade the court that they can move with their child. It seems that this caller wanted an investment by counsel to hear, give advice and agree with facts of their move-away on the 15 min call. That is not something I would do in any situation for a telephone consult. They further did not want to invest the time to sit down and flesh out the facts of their case with counsel at a reasonable rate over the course of an hour. There is no quick fix via phone for an attorney to provide a sound response. This caller decided not to come into the office and I respect their decision. I would not have changed my response as the State Bar of Ca. dictates the messaging that I can do by phone with non-clients. As a lawyer for 20 years, I follow the dictates of the rules of the state regardless of the requests that are made by callers to my office.

As this matter was posted anonymously, I can comment more freely than I normally would. There are some cases that come into your offices that ring bells that you should pass on but you try to assist because that is what your instinct and training has guided you to do. This matter had multiple attorneys on it prior to me and the attorneys withdrew and then the party choose to self-represent and ended up with a child custody contempt of order finding. Such a case is extremely rare in family law matters. I took the case on and it became essentially THE focus of my practice. I ultimately left the case based on the continued behavior of the client. Both the client and the attorney have the right and power to remove themselves from a case where the working relationship has broken down. A client that fails to listen to the advice of counsel sets themselves up for failure a good percentage of the time. But in the end it is their case. Such was the case here and the judge informed the client as such. I made my intentions for leaving the case clear. This former client has a long way to go in this matter with the court. There are now multiple outside third parties instituted in the case by order who will hopefully bring the matter to some resolve over the course of the next months or years. No one is perfect and that includes attorneys but I worked and focused on this matter more than most professionals I know. A review of my record is clear that this matter was atypical of most of my clients responses and that is because this case was atypical of the types of cases that generally present in the average family law practice. I wish this client well in their endeavors with the court.