Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts

If we agree, are our lawyers necessary?

The father of my son and I have been to court once already; our son was 3, and before then we had never gone to court to finalize either custody, visitation, or child support. He was pushing to get joint physical as well as legal custody, although his visitation schedule had been only every other weekend and two afternoons a week. The judge did NOT order for joint physical custody - he merely gave his father visitation (less than he already had). But neither one of us thought it would do our son any good to see his dad less, so we stuck with the visitation schedule we already had been using.

Now, after several months of agreement on what visitation AND child support should be, we would like to get our temp orders altered to reflect the real visitation schedule and the amount of child support that he pays now. My lawyer has typed up a stipulation, and I altered it according to what the father and I had agreed on. But our lawyers will charge us an arm and a leg to get this done. Since he and I agree completely, can we go ahead and do this ourselves? If so, how? His lawyer says yes, go ahead and do it yourselves, but my lawyer says no way....it would cost me more to get rid of her than to finish it.


Asked on 6/28/04, 3:50 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Martha Kovner Law Offices of Martha J. Kovner

Re: If we agree, are our lawyers necessary?

You can always go into probate court without a lawyer. If you are agreed about everything and it is all drafted for you, I do not see any reason why you can not do it alone. You should probably type it up with the changes that you made. There is always a chance that a judge will not accept it with your changes and that might be why an attorney is needed. Probate court is a strange place and sometimes having a lawyer there makes it go smoothly. I don't understand why it would cost more to get rid of her.

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Answered on 6/29/04, 8:31 am


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