Legal Question in Family Law in Montana

We have a final court case coming up in a couple weeks, however our lawyer has previous court engagements that day and has filed to reset the final hearing. The judge never responded to our lawyers request therefore she has filed to withdraw from our case. If the judge signs off on this, we will be forced to find a new attorney for our very complicated custody case. This is very short notice and if we don't find a lawyer in this time, we will have to represent ourselves. What can we do?


Asked on 3/23/12, 6:06 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Carolyn J. Stevens CJ Stevens|Law

How long ago did your attorney file her motion to reschedule the hearing? Did she call the judge's clerk to "remind" the court of the pending motion? It's possible that the judge hasn't seen the motion or that it's buried under other documents. Seems to me that, if the judge were going to deny the motion, s/he would do it pretty quickly to allow the attorney and client to clear off the conflicting matters. Also I'm puzzled about your attorney moving to withdraw -- if the court is not going to allow the hearing to be moved to another day, why would the court allow the attorney to withdraw so close to the date and leave you possibly unrepresented? Doesn't make sense. Best first step (in my opinion) is to call the judge's clerk and ask if the clerk has a sense when the judge will rule on the motion to reschedule.

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Answered on 3/26/12, 8:30 am


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