By Alanna Davis, Paralegal
Just making the your first appointment with a family lawyer is a big step. Our clients have all sorts of feelings when they attend their first appointment – this is because everyone is unique and people are at different stages of processing the breakdown of their relationship. Often it can be most difficult to physically attend the first appointment.
There are ways to prepare for your first appointment, to help you make it as productive as possible.
Firstly, decide if you want someone to come with you. Do you think you need a support person? An extra set of ears, someone who is thinking a bit differently to you? It is common to bring a support person, such as a parent, sibling or friend, even a colleague.
If you do want to bring someone with you, make sure it is someone your trust and feel secure with. It’s also a good idea to make sure the lawyer you are meeting with is okay with someone else attending.
If you are seeking advice about financial matters, it can be helpful to have an understanding of what your financial status is (as best you can). Writing down a list of all of the assets, liabilities and superannuation owned by you and your (ex)partner, with a rough estimate can be super helpful. However, if you don’t have a complete list, that’s okay too.
Have a think about any inheritances, windfalls or payouts either of you received during the relationship and how that was spent. Or are you about to receive any of these types of payments in the near future?
Be ready to talk about your relationship history and about how you divided tasks in your home in the past (eg did one parent take on more parenting while the other took on paid work)?
Also be prepared to give an indication about what you and your ex earn, what you do for work (and what your employment potential is), your age and state of health, whether either of you have repartnered and/or have access to a financial resource (like distributions from a family trust). These are all relevant factors when dividing property after the breakdown of a relationship.
If you are seeking advice about a parenting matter, it’s important to help your lawyer understand what, if any, issues there are. Sometime there might not be any issues, and other times there are risk factors which need to be discussed. If you have any concerns, it’s important you raise these with your lawyer immediately, these concerns can impact how your matter is managed moving forward.
If you have a child (or adult child) with additional needs, it’s important we understand exactly what’s happening, what needs to happen and how we can support you to ensure continuity of care and wellbeing for your child(ren). Please have a think about what needs to happen, or what’s not happening if you hold concerns.
Your financial status can also impact parenting matters. This might be the case if one party wants to relocate to another State/Territory or even another Country, or if you can’t agree on private education. These are just examples.
There are also some dates which are relevant to your family law matter. Things such as date of cohabitation, marriage, separation and divorce are all important, as is the date of birth for both parties and children. If you don’t know these dates, please take the time ascertain these dates before meeting with your lawyer.
If you have received any documentation from your (ex)spouse, or a lawyer on their behalf, particularly any draft agreements or orders, we encourage you to chat with our office well before your appointment so we can work out the best way to get them to our office before your appointment so we can make the most of the appointment with you.
The most important thing to do is write down any specific questions you want answered before your appointment. We have years of experience and understand people can become emotional and forget to ask questions, which is why we encourage people to write down any specific questions before their appointment. Of course, you are welcome to send them to us beforehand.
We want your first appointment with us to be as productive as possible, and to do that, we need your help.
If you would like to make an appointment with one of our lawyers and have more questions about how to make the most of your first appointment, we encourage you to call one of our Paralegals for an obligation free chat. They are only too happy to chat with you.
