New Stuff

Woke up this morning to a 5 foot drift of snow in front of our garage. Which is an issue when your cars are parked in the garage. Oops. I would have loved to just call into work, but no such luck when you work for yourself and have court, hun? I had two hearings this morning and a ton of paperwork too.

The drive to work was horrendous too. None of the roads ANYWHERE were cleared. Not near our house, not on the highway, not near the office. Accidents everywhere, people driving like idiots. Fun. It took us double the amount of time to get to court today.

I had two hearings today. One was something new for me, at a hearing for someone *supposedly* way behind on child support. I say supposedly because the Friend of the Court messed up his account. He had custody of the child from 1997 on, in a court Order, and they never stopped his support from accrueing. So, now after today's meeting, they are doing an audit to fix everything. My client was so glad he was not going to jail. I told him that would not happen, but people always think they will. Other hearing was a divorce case, which I finalized. I was pretty shocked it did, because the parties were pretty far off on what they wanted, but somehow, we did it.

Oh, Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate it! I personally don't. For some reason, the holiday kinda annoys me. Don't ask me why, I don't really have a reason. I just don't like it. I guess holidays in general annoy me, because I hate having this *obligation* to buy things for people. I would rather pick things up for people when I *want* to, not because it's Xmas, or Easter, or whatever. Kurt did buy me some gum today! Ha.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

It's Kurty's birthday today! Happy 36th birthday honey! I told him he is old today, as he is closer to 40 than 30, LOL, and I have not even hit 30 yet. Ha.

We went to dinner tonight with our friends, Tammy and Tom. We went to Uno's. I had salmon teryiaki and rice, and a smoothie. I think the smoothie was a mistake, as I am somewhat lactose intolerant. I usually can handle a smoothie, but now, my stomach hurts. Rather, it started hurting about half way through my workout, and I had to stop. But, half a workout is better then none, right? It was nice to see Tam and Tom, we have not seen them in forever.

We also stopped in Home Goods and I saw this ottoman that I may go back and buy. It would literally look perfect in the sunroom. It is really modern, and the same colors that are in there. Went to Michael's as well and bought frames for the gym posters as well. Just need to bring them in the house and hang them up now, and the gym will be pretty much complete. The only things left really then are hooking up the satellite down there (right now we have the TV hooked through upstairs), and need to buy a couple mirrors for the walls. I also would like to get a DVD player and some videos.

Had to workout alone tonight because Kurt had a little bit too much to drink at dinner tonight. Three raspberry pina coladas and three rum and cokes too much. Ha.

So, court was somewhat annoying for Kurt this morning. One hearing went well. It was filed pointlessly by a father. In MI, there is rule that you cannot move more than 100 miles from your residence without permission from the court or the other parent in the case. Well, our client moved like 103 miles away. She did this like 3 months ago, and the father never said anything. She says he actually agreed to the move. 3 months later, he files a Motion for Change in Custody based on her violation of this rule. Done out of spite, pretty much. So, she hired us over the phone, as she lives in a differnet area now. Met Kurt at the hearing, and Kurt pretty much got their Motion thrown out. She was thrilled. The other hearing was the annoying one. We had a client that was very unreasonable. We filed a Motion to Change Custody for him, as the mother moved to another state and left him with the kids. He wanted her to have no parenting time, or parenting time only in the state of MI. The other side hired an atty, and they stated they only wanted 2 weeks in the summer. This is very, very minimal, and less than the Judge would probably give her. Our client would not agree. Somehow, miraculously, Kurt got him to understand and agree, but the guy was not happy, and told Kurt he was not working in his best interests, yada yada. Kurt was like "it would not be in your best interests to go in there in front of the Judge, because your deal will be worse....." Sigh. People seriously just dont get it. Why do they hire lawyers if they think they know everything? Seriously.

The rest of the day was nice though. Phones were fairly quiet, which is not the norm on Friday afternoons. I got some paperwork done, returned some calls.

Oh, and we heard through the grapevine that a lawyer we know was disbarred! Apparently, he stole money from a law firm he was working with as well as a local bar association. How stupid can you be? I am wondering if there is more to the story, like a gambling or drug prob.

My Gym

OMG, having a gym in the basement is SOOO awesome. And working our with my husband is amazing too. We used to work out together in Bay City, Lansing, and Taylor, but since then, we have worked out separately, or not at all during my law school stint. Anyway. I forgot how much fun it is to work out with a partner.

So. I am going to start a new page and link it in my sidebar to track my workouts. Today, I ran 2 miles, did abs, and then did chest and back exercises with Kurty. We watched Jeopardy and then Deal or No Deal. It was awesome having a TV down there too. We still need to do some odds and ends in there, but overall, I love it. Need to buy batteries for the top part of my recumbant bike, and need to buy something to pump up my ab balls......

I am so going to hurt tomorrow, and I so don't care. Yay.

Work today was crazy busy, as most Mondays are. Lots of phone calls and appointments and Kurt had court all morning. No interesting hearings to report on though. Ended one divorce, and the Judge in another case referred it to Mediation.

So weird too, we were talking about getting a refrigerator for the gym and literally an hour later, Rebecca sends me an email regarding a friend of hers who is moving and the fact that has a frig to give Rebecca (who is in turn probably giving it to us). How ironic. It will be nice to store Propel and other water down there.

I am so sleeping well tonight. I am falling asleep right now, and What About Brian is on!

Lesbians in Love

So, today, Kurt had an interesting and somewhat amusing hearing.

We filed a divorce a while back, and had an Ex-Parte Order signed at the start giving our client 4 days with the child one week, 3 days the next week. The Mom objected to the Order and asked for a hearing. Today was that hearing.

Our client had told us that his wife was living with her girlfriend. Yes, she is now a lesbian. She was exposing their daughter to this. Judges really hate, during a divorce anyway, when you bring your significant other around kids, let alone LIVE with them. He had videotape of this relationship (he bugged the house while they were still married).

She had not told her lawyer about this. So, instead of bringing it up, Kurt decided to use this as his "wild card" and kept the info quiet. He knew if they had time to discuss the info beforehand, they would come up with some story, like the woman was a friend, or whatever.

So, during his argument, he announces that she is a lesbian and living with her girlfriend, and he has videotape footage. Kurt says the other attorney literally *gasped* and stepped back. LOL. She tried to deny it and her client says "I am a lesbian. I live with my girlfriend and we just signed a year lease. I am not breaking it." Kurt was thinking in his head "THANK you for admitting this on the record......No need to prove my case here." Ha. The Referee told her that her girlfriend needed to move out. I wonder if she will listen or we will be in court on this again?? One can only wait and see.....my prediction is she will not listen.

Had a school board meeting tonight. We got t-shirts from the girls varsity color guard that are really nice. Also got cookies for board appreciation week. The meeting went well.

Grey's was great tonight. Can't wait to see if Christina says yes and what happens with the George situation in which I hope Callie says no. One should never say yes to a marriage proposal when someone is in the state George is in.

World Record

So.

Incredible things are happening at our house. The oven? It was used two days in a row. Yes, yes it was. I made two meals in a row. In the oven. This is truly a remarkable thing.

Ha.

So yesterday morning, I had my first multiple hearing day. Also, I had my first hearings at the Friend of the Court. Everything went well, and I was especially pleased with one hearing. Here are the deets:

Child: Age 6, boy.
My client: Dad, has not been allowed to see the child much in 6 years, and has gotten nowhere asking for parenting time himself.
Other side: Mother. Control freak. Has enjoyed having complete control over parenting time for 6 years. Pregnant with third child, only 23 years old. No lawyer, representing herself.

We filed a Motion for specific parenting time and reduction in child support. Went in front of the referee and advised what was going on. Said we wanted specific schedule. Referee asks other side what she wants, she agrees with me. OK. She also says, I will agree to whatever you want, Mr. Referee. OK. I jump all over that. I tell the referee we want every other week in the summer (which is VERY rare) and every other weekend during the school year. The Ref asks her if this is OK and she just says YES. I am thinking, WHY are we in court? Anyway, my client was thrilled and the time starts this weekend. Strange. I usually have to argue more than that. Which would have been none. Gotta love those cases.

Oh, and everyone welcome home my laptop! After vacay, I took it in for repairs. They called me becausse they needed my restore disks, and I could not find them at first. Finally found them and took them in and picked up the finished product today! I am beyond thrilled to be sitting on my couch and typing and watching American Idol. Now I just need to get Kurt's fixed, which requires calling Dell, which is basically my worst hell. I hate calling there.

I think that's about all going on in the household in the past couple days......I miss having Rebecca around to talk to! Damm her going on a cruise....

For all those who read this who are wondering how she is doing though, she emailed me today from an Internet Cafe and she is having a great time. She says she is getting an awesome tan, and today, her and her Mom were on shore in the Bahamas and were going to Atlantis to a casino and aquarium. I am so jealous! She also advised that she bought Kurt three bottles of foreign rum, so he will be psyched.

Revenge of the Attorney

OK, not really. But, it was a crazy busy day. Misty does not work on Wednesdays, so normally we like one of us to be in the office if the other is not.

Well, we had a hearing at court and an arbitration scheduled. Tried to move the hearing, BUT the other attorney had different ideas. So annoying. Scheduling is NOT a client issue. Most offices do not ask their clients for an OK to move a hearing, unless it's an emergency issue. If there are scheduling conflicts, you just do it. Well, this attorney said he would have to *ask* his clients permission, and with the hatred in this case between the parties, I knew she would never agree. She did not. So this attorney is totally on Kurt's "shit" list, as he puts it. We are just waiting for the day he asks us for a favor. He has done this to us once before (when Kurt had the flu and was literally vomiting), and it's just obnoxious. We really put forth an effort to work with and have a great relationship with other attorneys' offices, and normally, this attorney is very kewl. I can just see the future conversation...........Let' s picture it, shall we? Here we go.

Let's set the stage. Divorce case. Annoying attorney wants our client's paystubs or some simple piece of information. *Normally* this information is subpoenaed or a document request is sent, but for offices who get along, to avoid this extra work, you just call the office and ask for the info. NOT next time. Here we go.....

Atty X (this is what I shall call the annoying atty): "Hi Lori, I was wondering if you would send your clients paystubs over to me?"

Lori: "Hmm. Let me call my client about that and get back to you, should not be a problem."

OK, pause here. With other attys who attempt to work with us, I would get the paystubs and send them over. OK, let's continue.

Lori (calls Atty X back on phone): "Sorry, Atty X. I have discussed this with my client, who actually does not want to turn over his paystubs. Therefore, I guess you will have to send over a document request or subpoena."

Atty X: "C'mon, Lori. this is information the judge will give us, don't make me do extra work..."

Lori: "Sorry, Atty X. It's our office policy to ask clients what they want to do, and thus, I can't give them to you."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

We already told the guy that we will never move a hearing for him, so don't bother asking. he knows we were really mad (both times), but, who the hell ASKS their client's permission on crap like that? There is NOTHING in the ethical code that says we must, and you can't give your client the final decision on EVERYTHING, especially in cases where the parties can't stand eachother. Use logic! Geez. Oh, well, we know eventually, we will get to drive our point home and we can't freaking wait for that day.

So, today, I had court this afternoon. The case I was referring to above. It was a settlement conference, to try and resolve the last pending issue of a case, parenting time. We finally got it all settled, my client got pretty much he wanted, so that worked out well. But, not being at the office for two hours meant I came back to a note and check under the door, 19 phone messages and 5 appointments within a two hour time frame. Ugh. Which also meant we did not get home until after 8 p.m. Double ugh.

Last night was so much more relaxing. We got home, and I did a bunch of things that reminded me why I am so glad to be done with school.

1. Took a bath with bath crystals, a book, and bubbles. I have this amazing jacuzzi bathtub in my master bath, which rarely gets used. I jumped in last night to relax........

2. Learning Spanish. Popped in my new cd for about 15 minutes to practice new stuff.

3. Aimlessly watching TV. it's nice to watch TV and not know I *should* be doing something else.

Anyway. I am totally exhausted so I am heading to bed. Night!

Spam

So, my life has been crazy busy. We are trying to hard to get like everything caught up at the office, but every time I get close, we have more people hire us. Well, I guess I should not complain about it....

Last night was fun. My Aunt and I went to dinner and the theatre. Dinner was at Cuisine, this place I love. I tried something new, called skatefish. Loved it, and highly recommend. Then we saw "Spamalot" at the Fisher. I really liked it, it was funny. I recommend it if it's in your area, especially if you love comedy and theatre. The variety in the show was incredible and the singing was awesome.

Got my Secret Santa gift in the mail today! One of my online message boards does an exchange, and I got my gift! I hate not being able to open it until Friday. Blah. It's sitting on the counter begging to be opened.

I am started to get excited about my trip. I called my cell phone company today to ask about the cost to call home and it's like $1.99 a minute. Don't think so. I will prob be getting a calling card or something while I am there. Or just contacting people by internet. Kurt and I are both taking our computers for night and when we are in our room, which will be rare, I am sure.........I can then work on pictures I took during the day and stuff too. Hooray!

Monday was a fun day for me. I argued my first contested Motion in court. It was on a custody case. Basically, long story shot, the Mom and Dad, for the first two years of the child's life, shared custody on a 50/50 basis. The Mom started to get some kind of aid from the state, and because she did, the state went after the father for repayment. The Mom had lied to the state and said the child lived with her fulltime. So, he hired us to take care of it and get everything in writing with the courts re their agreement. Well, the Mom showed up and did not want that. Anyway, I won. The Dad now has half custody of the child, until the court's can look into the situation and make a final decision. So, I started off on the right foot with my contested motion stuff. Yay.

Two More Down

I did two hearings today! One in family court, one in federal court. Nothing was complex, but I was excited to get in there and do more, as it is making me more confident with it all.

New furnace is still not on. They came today and did half the work and supposedly, the rest will be done tomorrow. Fingers crossed. I can't take much more of the house and these temperatures. It is only like 60 degrees in the living room and that's with the fireplace on and two space heaters. Gretel came into the office today with us because she keeps shivering because of the cold and Kurt felt guilty. She was so cute being the office dog in her little sweater. :). She insisted on sitting on our laps at all time, which makes working a little bit more difficult, LOL.

Ordered my new contacts today. They gave me some new ones to try at my last appointment, but I did not think after a couple days of wear they were any better than my old ones, so I am sticking with the old ones. Really hope they come in the mail before we leave on vacay! :). Oh, the new ones they had me try are Acuvue Oasys. The old ones are Acuvue Advance.

The Feds

Got sworn into Federal Court today! Yay! Now I can appear at our bankruptcy hearings AND family law stuff. The Judge was so super nice too....one we did not know, but he took me into chambers and swore me in there. It was really fast, and now I am set.

The office was crazy busy today. I am so tired right now from multi-tasking. I can only take so much multi-tasking in one day and today was pretty much doing so ALL DAY LONG. Argh. When we want to go to lunch, we literally have to run to the car to avoid the phone ringing or someone stopping in. It's exasperating. Then, I come back from lunch to 10 messages. Sigh. At least I have a long weekend......with no work.

Came home and did some laundry and a quick run to the grocery store. Bugsy, my spoiled, spoiled kitten, was out of the specific canned food he likes and dry food. So, I had to pick it up for him.

Found out today that our downstairs furnace is officially dead. We need a new one. Just love the cost of that. Yuck. We are getting a second estimate in the morning, and will go with whomever is more cheap.

Need to get back to my errands.

Surprises and Court

I have a surprise for my Mom, and I would post it on here, but she reads this blog sometimes.....so, can't write about it just yet, but can't wait until she finds out! hehe. So, Mom, if you are trying to find the surprise out here, good try! But, you are just going to have to wait. ;). I think this kind of beehavior by me is why I am the "second favorite daughter".

So, this morning was my first court appearance. I ended a 23 year marriage for one of our clients.......I was not nervous at all, and then when I went up there, I suddenly was terrified! LOL. I did fine, ended the divorce. I hate how I can't control my feelings though. I tell myself I am not nervous, am convinced I am, and then suddenly, the adrenaline hits me and I am crazy nervous. Oh welll. I need to get in there and have more appearances, so I can stop the nervousness. The more I do this, the easier it will get. Me and my fear of public speaking....

Went back to the office after that and worked until 730 p.m. I am glad for the short work week, but the longer days to make up for it are not fun. I did get a lot done today, which is amazing since the phone rings off the hook on Mondays. I feel like I am clearing off a lot of paperwork from my desk.

Now am home for the night, watching TV and chilling. I have some pics to download and some laundry to do....I will post pics if I have a chance later....I took some great ones of Bugsy playing with water. I have the strangest cat. He loves faucets and water. No idea why. Toby, our cat who passed away, would not go anywhere NEAR a faucet.

Sundays Suck.

Ok, not really. But, after getting to sleep in today--*bliss*--I took a shower, and headed to the office for 4 hours. Blah. Kurt was not feeling well, so I had to go in myself. I worked on a bunch of bankruptcies. They are really hard to draft during the week when I keep getting interrupted by phone calls and people stopping in, as I really need to concentrate on them and compute figures, etc. Decided to close stop a little after 5 because I saw it was snowing outside and I did not want to drive home on bad roads.

Got home and did some stuff around the house. Did two loads of laundry and a load of dishes as well, then made dinner for everyone.

So, I kinda posted about this before, but for sure my first court appearance is in the morning! I am ending a divorce for someone. It will be easy, but great to get started doing that. Kurt will love getting a break from being down there all the time.

I love how I can harass Kory about guns. Ever since he started working at Cabela's, he has become obsessed. We were watching a show about crime, and there was some thing about England, and Kurt said "Aren't guns illegal there?" And I said "That could be why there is less crime there..." And Kory chimed in with some pro-gun comment...haha. I agree with him, it's a Constitutional right, yada yada, but it does not mean I have to "like" that right. Kory wants to get his concealed weapons permit, which I love to harass him about too, because we live in freaking NEWPORT. Ummm, rural area, no danger whatsoever....I think it's cute that he tries to justify his want of this concealed weapon thing, when there is no basis for it at all except that he wants to be able to say he has it. Ha. He about had a heart attack the other day when he heard Jennifer Granholm wants to take the concealed weapon right away.

So, off to bed....need to switch over the laundry and get some sleep, early morning tomorrow.

Cards and Shoes

Almost forgot! Got my bar card in the mail today! It is shiny and pretty and new and now I can go through the special attorney lines at the Friend of the Court! Yippee! The only thing I have left to do now is get sworn in at Federal Court, and I am waiting for them to send the application in the mail.

Oh, and my really cute new shoes came in the mail today! Click here to see them! I got them for shipping only because I had gift cards on Amazon.com to use. They seem really comfy and I may just have to try them out tomorrow at work. Yippee for new shoes too!

First Meeting

**Above picture is of one of the flowers from the plant that my friends Deanna and Brian and their son, Ben, sent me when I passed the bar exam.........Love them and the flowers.

So, tonight was my first board meeting! And boy was it a long one! We had a board workshop previous to the meeting, then the board meeting, and a closed session as well. All in all, I was there from 530 p.m. until 9:00 p.m., but this is was an out of the orindary thing. We don't normally have closed sessions or workshops. Anyway, it was great and I am so excited about being part of it.

Slept in a little bit this morning, which I really needed after getting up so early the previous morning. Work was really productive today, which was great.

I think my first court appearance is going to be Monday. We have a divorce that is ending and are simply presenting the judgment to the court for entry. I am going to start off slow and work up to cases where I need to actually argue things in court. Can't wait. I love how being a lawyer is really testing me with my public speaking skills, since public speaking is not my favorite thing to do.

Anyway, that's about it for today's post.....Night everyone.