Contested Family Law in Minnesota
The term “Family Law” normally includes matters between family members such as divorce, child support, child custody, legal separation, paternity, order for protection, harassment, and the like.
All persons have a due process right to contest a family law dispute in the District Courts. Unfortunately, a contested case can be a very complicated process including expensive filing fees, long waits, court ordered mediation, and a myriad of pre-trial hearings that will occur before your trial.
No two family law cases are the same, so it is impossible to generalize about how a case could turn out in court without spending a considerable amount of time of learning about all of the relevant facts that could impact a decision.
To complicate matters there is a high percentage of people who will not be truthful in court and will take steps to try to create a false impression or false facts about an opposing party that can make the process more of a challenge. There are many different ways to expose individuals who engage in these tactics such as pre-trial discovery, depositions, cross examination, and investigation and preservation of evidence.
If you find yourself in a situation where a contested trial is your only option to obtain justice for yourself or your children, then you should hire experienced legal counsel as early as possible in the process. Our office recommends that you preserve all evidence that may be relevant at trial such as photographs, e-mails, text messages, letters, written records and anything else that can be used to prove your case in court. We have found that relying on a smart telephone to preserve your evidence is a risky way to preserve evidence. You should make reliable copies of your evidence in case one of your storage devices is lost or destroyed or deleted, etc. We have also found that text messaging is not a good way to make a record about things going on because the use of fragmented and abbreviated sentences and words can be construed in different ways.
In most trials, courts are put in the position of trying to determine who to believe. You can help your case by providing tangible evidence to support your case. If you provide the court with reliable, provable facts, you are more likely to get a result that is based on the truth instead of lies and manipulation.
The courts in Minnesota are fair. The problem with the courts is that some of the people that use them will not hesitate to lie or mislead the court about facts. You should protect yourself from individuals that will engage in this kind of activity. An experienced lawyer is your best insurance for getting justice in the courts. Our office can help you get justice in the courts in the counties of Dakota, Carver, Hennepin, Ramsey, Goodhue, Anoka, Rice, Washington, and Scott.
