Judges are human beings. It’s important to know what judge you’re going to be before, and your attorney should know who that judge is, and understand the personality distinctions of that judge; their propensities, their leanings. When you go into to court, you have an idea about who you’re speaking to and what they may think of your case. That’s a very, very important part of the strategy.
Judges have standards, like, what’s in the best interest of the children, what’s a fair split of the marital assets and marital debts. But all of those things, fair split, best interest of the children, are all subjective determinations made by that judge. It’s very hard to appeal those decisions because they are subjective decisions, and as long as the judge is not negligent in making those decisions they’re final. An important point; you should learn about your judge, but your attorney should know your judge.
You can expect judges that tend to be annoyed by small issues. So, if you’re fighting over who’s going to get the afghan, or who’s going to get the tea collection, you’re going to get an annoyed judge. It’s important with your lawyer to work on, what are the things we go in front of the judge on, and what are the things that we probably should just deal with, and not bring in front of this judge.
If the judge is annoyed with you, it may not turn out well for you. I’m not saying that will definitely happen, but they’re human beings, right? And, if they feel that you’re asking for things that are annoying and ridiculous, then that’s going to affect how they deal with your case.
In that instance, as well as in instances where you’re dealing with child issues or whether there’s an endangerment to a child, all of these issues are issues that you need to make sure you have really good evidence for, so that the judge doesn’t think you’re frivolously dealing with them, or wasting the court’s time.
What you can expect is that the judges will be overloaded. They will have strict docket restrictions because they’re trying to get through a case load, and depending on the county, that’s either not so much or worse, depending on the county. I would say Douglas county, for instance, is completely overloaded. Alternatively, things move very quickly through Denver county.
As part of your strategy, It’s important to sit down with your attorney and know who your judge is where you are, and what the situation’s going to be like. If you’d like to work with an attorney who is very familiar with Denver area divorce judges, contact Lewis & Matthews Law Firm at (303) 329-3802.
