Legal Question in Family Law in California
I was wondering what the etiquette was for a 473 motion argument, my response, then their response. Am I supposed to respond to their response? How many times is the argument in writing supposed to go back and forth before the hearing which is in 25 days? Thank you!
1 Answer from Attorneys
The moving party gets two whacks at the apple. The moving party gets to make their initial arguments first in the motion. The opposition gets a chance to raise their arguments in the opposition. The original moving party then gets a reply, which is a reply to the opposition, and not a chance to raise additional arguments that were not raised in the original moving papers.
There is no such thing as a "surreply" or any other misspelled manner of an argument after the reply. People use these as a result of what I call the monkey see monkey do aspect of family law, but most judges are on top of the rules and reject them out of hand without reading them.