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How do you start divorce proceedings in Kenya?

Sister's husband filing for divorce. When does she need her own lawyer?

  • She's got a meeting scheduled with her husband and his lawyer, and she doesn't have a lawyer of her own yet. Brief timeline: 1. Happy marriage (apparently) for 10 years. He works long hours. She's a stay-at-home mom to 4 young kids. 2. One day, he admits to an affair, and lying to her on many occasions. Says he's miserable. Thinks the marriage should end. 3. She refuses a dissolution. Wants to make the marriage work. 4. She eventually convinces him to go to couple's counseling with him. Counselor basically agrees with her, tells him he's got to get his act together. He stops going to counseling. 5. He moves out, moves in with his parents, who gradually become more sympathetic to his side of things. Start blaming my sister for not being a good enough wife. Wondering why my family has so much sympathy for her, so little for him. 6. He has now filed for no-fault divorce, citing "incompatibility". 7. First meeting with husband and husband's lawyer is coming up. Sister does not yet have a lawyer. She says her plan is to go to the meeting, listen to what they have to say, sign nothing, take the papers/forms they give her, and then find another lawyer and show them the papers, or otherwise figure out what to do from there.. Apparently, this is what her counselor suggests. Her counselor, herself a divorcĂ©e, says that when she divorced her husband, that's what she did, and they even ended up using the same lawyer. My family's gut instinct is that she shouldn't walk into that meeting without her own lawyer. But we really don't know. Our primary concern is this: when they got married, my sister moved away from us so that they could be near her husband's family. Assuming the divorce goes through, she (and the kids) will probably eventually move back near us -- both because of not wanting to be near her ex, and also because of the increasingly poor treatment she's getting from his family. We don't know much about divorce proceedings, but we're all afraid that they (the husband and his lawyer) will try to make it harder for her to ever move back. Is this a reasonable fear? Is it normal to go through some (or any? or all?) of the divorce proceedings with only one of the spouses represented?

  • Answer:

    Now. She needs a lawyer now. Depending on where they live and the circumstances, there are any number of ways her husband could already be working to screw her on division of assets, alimony, custody, etc. Her husband can make it damned near impossible for her to move with the children, and could use the fact that she wants to move to argue that she should lose primary custody. He could drain her bank accounts. He could leave her penniless. And the longer that he has expert legal advice and she doesn't, the bigger his advantage over her gets. You can't know whether he will try to do any of those things. Maybe he'll be a nice guy, and they'll be able to divorce amicably and agree on everything and use the same lawyer. But maybe he will take everything from her and leave her with nothing. And she won't know what he's planning to do until it's too late. IAAL, IANAdivorceL, TINLA. This is not my advice as a lawyer; this is my advice as a woman who has seen people get totally screwed in divorces because their spouses had good advice and they did not.

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Oh, and she may want to consider reporting her counselor to whatever mental health or medical board licenses her, because she's giving unauthorized and extremely dangerous legal advice, which I have to assume is totally outside the scope of what she's licensed to do as a counselor. And that needs to end right now.

decathecting

It sounds like your sister has a case of Good Guy Syndrome - she knows she didn't cheat, didn't want to end the marriage, probably doesn't want a contentious divorce - she wants to be the clear Good Guy, and not having a lawyer is a symptom of that - that she isn't trying to be difficult. The problem with that is, her husband has no problem with being the bad guy, and when it comes to divorce, the bad guys generally win because the good guys would rather roll over and be right than fight for what's actually fair. Divorce is awful and painful and expensive enough without having to kick yourself later for not approaching it with a clear head about the need to fight back. She needs a lawyer at that meeting. Ideally only the lawyer should go, and report back to her. Not just because she needs the advice and protection, but also because it will get her into the frame of mind she needs to protect herself financially as well as emotionally: That good guys also fight for what they deserve.

Mchelly

So clearly as you can see from the responses, she needs to lawyer up now. Have her interview wisely because she needs a motherf*cking SHARK. She needs someone with a proven track record of bleeding people dry because with 4 kids, she needs to take him to the cleaners and consider the next 20+ years of what her kids will need (tutors, extracurriculars, camps, braces, after school care, cars, college, etc.). Her husband has shown that he is the worst possible kind of person and that is going to play out in his offer. Some more advice which I WISH TO GOD I HAD KNOWN when I got divorced with 3 little kids: make sure that college funds and life insurance policies and retirement plans for her that he pays into are built into the child support order. The state department of revenue is happy to be responsible for getting that money withdrawn from his paycheck or by liens on any property or accounts he owns and she doesn't have to do it herself. Don't have him fund those accounts on his own, because if he decides to stop, she has to hire a lawyer to sue him and in court he can say he's broke and all that money for the future is GONE.* So yes. Lawyer up. And find someone who can bleed him dry and protect her and the kids for YEARS to come. *This is exactly what my ex did. Cashed out the college funds, spent the $, cancelled the life insurance policies, refused to pay anything other than state-mandated minimum child support and I couldn't collect a dime because my lawyer never thought to get it built into the child support order.

kinetic

She can also just refuse to go to this meeting, if she's feeling time pressure on getting a lawyer before the meeting.

jaguar

Depending on the jurisdiction, if the divorce paperwork has been filed, there may already be an automatic order in effect that makes it impossible for her to move until the court orders otherwise. Your sister will probably get served with this paperwork at this meeting, and if she becomes emotional or upset, this kind of behavior may become evidence against her in the future. The husband has repeatedly cheated and lied, and filed for a divorce, and his family is being terrible to your sister. Trusting the husband and his lawyer to be kind at the meeting seems risky. The MeFi Wiki http://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Get_a_lawyer page has general information about how to find an attorney.

Little Dawn

and they even ended up using the same lawyer Well now there's a red flag! Or at least evidence that the counselor's situation was nothing like your sisters. She should probably get a lawyer when she decides she doesn't want to get completely screwed by her husband and his lawyer. It's not like a lawyer is going to give her a discount for waiting until the last minute or something.

ryanrs

It seems like she is still hoping for reconciliation. I would tell her this: having a lawyer is not the same as being hostile having a lawyer is about having support having a lawyer gives her more options in the future anything she says during that meeting could be used against her even if she doesn't SIGN anything her getting a lawyer is in the best interest of the kids Having a lawyer does not preclude an amicable divorce. Finally, good on you for being there for her.

M.

She is the stay at home mother to four children. She needs a lawyer to protect their interests. Interim spousal support and child support are going to be very critical and very urgent issues. She knows less than you do about this and needs qualified advice and representation.

DarlingBri

Never attend a meeting with an adversary's lawyer without your own lawyer in-tow. Full stop.

Thorzdad

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