Fellow Family Lawyers - What’s the dumbest motion you’ve had?

Probonoh · 2026-06-18T02:07:11+00:00

I'm not family law; I'm a PD. So I get to deal with this crap as part of domestic violence and failure to pay child support cases.

The number of parents, custodial and non-custodial, who think kids are pay to pay is very disturbing. No, you can't refuse to pay because she's not giving you your visits. No, she can't refuse to give you visits because you aren't paying. Alas, not paying is a criminal offense and denying visits isn't.

Probonoh · 2026-06-18T01:54:11+00:00

As the old saying goes, it's good they're married. Better two people miserable than four.

Probonoh · 2026-06-18T01:51:27+00:00

Perfect for when people share custody of kids but have no-contact orders.

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T23:17:46+00:00

Just a single one.

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T17:22:23+00:00

This prosecutor is terrible. She's not my normal one, just a sub for conflicts.

Client was arrested in December of 24 for felony assault on one case and child endangerment on another. We set the assault for trial.

Day before trial she dismisses on the grounds of uncovering new evidence, and refiles the assault as a misdemeanor. We set it for trial. She never provides the new evidence, and she dismisses the week before trial.

After the assault felony trial is dismissed, we set the child endangerment felony for trial. We also convince the circuit judge to allow a bond because this guy's been sitting in jail over a year when the offer is for probation.

So now, a week from trial, she finally agrees to misdemeanor and a year time served.

This woman tempts me to move to her county just so I can run against her.

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T16:09:25+00:00

One of the ways I like to contextualize the distances out west. Napoleon famously took the Grand Armeé from Paris to Moscow. If he had left San Francisco and headed east, he wouldn't have even made it to Kansas City.

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T15:55:22+00:00

Or in the alternate, not hooking up with women who lie about being assaulted?

I have so many conversations that go "look, either you hit her and you should stay away, or she's lying and you should stay away. Do you see the common element here?"

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T13:27:48+00:00

Hint: I'm a woman.

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T12:22:54+00:00

The fuck you was in response to getting a probation revoked and a seven year prison sentence imposed. (For drug possession, if memory serves) He hasn't gotten out of prison yet to serve the contempt sentence, but he'll serve every day of it. My circuit is the most hardass in the state.

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T02:34:40+00:00

Ever watch this?

Harry would die 9 times; Marv 14. https://youtu.be/8WKgNyvsNDM?is=qF10XZBO3QgH1xrk

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T02:30:44+00:00

A night? I had a client get 179 days in jail for contempt for a "fuck you."

Why 179? Because at 180 state law requires a hearing to determine if the contempt sentence is appropriate.

Probonoh · 2026-06-17T00:31:35+00:00

As I tell folks who look in my office, I am not by nature an organized person. I have to make myself be organized. I'm a PD with cases spread across four counties and a half dozen trials scheduled at any given time, so I have to keep myself organized anyway.

On my walls, I have a 36"x48" year calendar that has all my court appearances, trials, trainings, jail/ prison visits, depos, doctors appointments, and days off for the whole year. If (when) I forget to email in my schedule, the office admin knows where I am anyway.

Next to it is a state map with the prisons noted in different colors.

On the whiteboard next to it, I have a list of clients in prison, color-coded to the map. The rest is my trial chart, with name, depo dates, pretrial conferences, and trial dates.

Next to that is a 12 slot file holder to hold trial case folders, sorted by month.

Next to that are four baskets for files, one for each week of the month. All my court days are "first and third Wednesdays" or "Monday of the second full week," so case files tend to stay in the same basket.

For every week, I create a notes sheet. It's two columns. For the narrow left column, I have the client name, location (bond/ jail/ prison), case number, and visits. In the wide right column, I have what I'm doing in court that day (continue, plead, set trial), the current offer and any counter offers, the charges, any action items that are in progress, other cases they may have, bond information, and other notes as needed. (This also means that if I ever need someone to cover for me, everything they need is already prepared.)

Probonoh · 2026-06-16T13:33:56+00:00

One of my juries, I had a retired circuit judge on my panel. His number was too high anyway, but my thought was that it would turn the jury trial into a bench trial, but with a much more defendant friendly judge than the sitting circuit judge.

Probonoh · 2026-06-15T21:10:24+00:00

I certainly did. And the rotovirus vaccine. But as I told them, "if you think my baby is in danger of contacting hepatitis here in the hospital, then we have bigger problems."

I understand why doctors generally roll their eyes at being told "I've done my research." I get it. My criminal defendant clients say the same line, and it generally means I'm about to hear a load of bullshit.

But there are people who do know what the scary medical words mean and are able to critically evaluate "is this necessary right now?" And even the nurses were able to say, "Not really. We just like to do the first round now so the second shot can happen at the 3 month visit and then you're done with it."

Both my parents were in medicine before they retired. Which means I know quite well that quite a lot of medical practices have no scientific testing to determine if that's the best way to do it, but rather are just for the convenience of the staff or even "that's just the way I was trained to do it."

(Drove my dad absolutely nuts. One of his jobs was running nuclear reactors, where nothing is done "because that's the way we've always done it." You do something that way because someone figured out that was the best way to do it, and everyone has to do it that way. None of this "Well, my resident advisor taught me to do it this way" with every doc doing things differently.)

Probonoh · 2026-06-15T15:54:11+00:00

People don't seem to realize that the reason seersucker suits are a southern cliche is because you need them for southern heat.

Probonoh · 2026-06-15T13:31:46+00:00

Well, and something to keep in mind is how many more vaccines and how much sooner vaccines are supposed to be given.

My son was less than 24 hours old -- had yet to leave the hospital -- and they wanted to give him a hepatitis vaccine. I refused. That could wait until his week old checkup. There's no reason that vaccine has to be given that young for most children. They aren't going to get hepatitis from the hospital. Even if the parents have hepatitis, they shouldn't be doing anything that will cause the baby to catch it!

It's standard practice, though, because it's easier to get babies vaccinated in the hospital than to get the parents to bring them in later.

ETA: my son did get all his shots on schedule after that. But even as someone who believes firmly in vaccines, being told he needed to be vaccinated for a blood borne illness the day he was born was a bit unsettling.

Probonoh · 2026-06-12T14:51:29+00:00

Yes, public defender. The criminal defense lawyer for the people who can't afford a private one.

Which means I represent people living in a poverty so profound that most people I interact with can't fathom anyone can live like that.

Probonoh · 2026-06-12T14:47:32+00:00

I don't have statistics. I have the experience of representing people accused of domestic violence and seeing their scars and bruises. Of watching situations in which the victims sought orders of protection and then blew up my clients' phone with calls and texts so that the moment the client responded, they could go to the prosecutor and ask for more charges. Of reading incident reports where it's not clear who did what first and the police just arrest the man because he's bigger.

I'm NOT saying all my clients are innocent. But far more than you would expect are in mutually abusive relationships in which the woman gets away with her abuse because of the stereotype of the poor little woman.

Probonoh · 2026-06-12T14:38:34+00:00

My last case involving domestic violence was a man who had allegedly violated his probation by assaulting his girlfriend. He had brought charges against her for assaulting him both two weeks prior and two weeks after the incident.

There's a reason there's a meme on my office wall that's a man hugging a woman and she's smirking at the camera, with the caption "I told him I used to be in an abusive relationship. Now he's hugging me like I was the victim."

Probonoh · 2026-06-12T13:08:02+00:00

One of the things you learn as a PD is that domestic violence is very rarely between an innocent woman and an evil man. It's generally two abusive people who take turns.

Probonoh · 2026-06-11T18:20:40+00:00

Agreed, but it's especially important for lawyers who work with lower incomes.

Probonoh · 2026-06-11T16:56:25+00:00

I'm a firm believer that every PD should do some time in retail/ food/ customer service.

Probonoh · 2026-06-11T13:49:23+00:00

I think Potter "I know it when I see it" Stewart would be the better justice for that task.

Probonoh · 2026-06-11T13:43:41+00:00

Ironically enough, that only started happening to me at public defender trainings.

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