Looking for help w/out-of-state visitation

[notoriousbob]

Need to know what can be done about the following situation:

BM moved to Mississippi back in June from Illinois and was allowed to take our 3yo daughter with. We were never married. So I filed a motion to set a visitation schedule as bm is not capable of communicating. i filed my motion on 8/12/04 and provided notice to her attorney who is here in Illinois.

Hearing was set for 8/24/04 I was there pro-se as I no longer have an attorney. When they called the case I was the only one there and the judge said that there was a note in the file from bm's attorney stating that proper notice was not given as she is not her attorney any longer.

So I re-file sending notice to bm's address in Mississippi certified mail. The court date was set for 9/2/04. I showed up and so did her attorney this time stating that she just spoke to her client and client was to retain her as her attorney again. Then her attorney stated that her client never recieved the notice I sent certified mail and asked that it be stricken from the call again. The judge showed her attorney the certificate of mailing in the file and said we will set a hearing date.

The date is now set for 9/28/04, I have not seen my daughter since 6/4/04. Prior to her moving I had her every other weekend and 1 mid-week visit, and was to have her for 2 weeks this Christmas. Well all that was vacated in June when she filed petition to modify visitation to allow the move. So i feel that she is just doing this to keep me from seeing my daughter as long as she can, and preventing me from having her at Christmas time.

I went to court house today and pulled the file and found no note in file stating that she no longer had an attorney.

So my question is: can they do that ? I thought that when you are no longer represented by an attorney the other party is to be notified of this, and aren't they supposed to file an apperance with the court when they are going to be represented ?

Please help shed some light on this situation.

[Kitty C.]

You might want to post this to Socrateaser, but just make sure you follow the mandatory posting guidelines.  I think he might be able to give you more insight into this...........

[MixedBag]

DH's EX and her attorney pulled this stunt too.

If there is no open litigation going on, then no, they do not have to file something with the court saying they no longer represent the client.

You probably should have served her in the first place and NOT the attorney.

What happened to her petition to modify the visit and stuff and the hearing for that?  Didn't that happen?

[notoriousbob]

They had the hearing. The hearing was on 6/9/04 and I was unable to be present at the hearing, so about a week before the hearing I went to the court house and filed a motion to re-schedule the hearing as I was out of town due to new employment.

The judge seen my new motion in the file, but went on with the hearing anyway and granted her request to modify visitation vacating the visitation order we had from 1/13/04 and allowed her to move to MS.

I then filed an emergency motion to vacate that order, and when I went to court on that motion it was a different judge than the one we had all along. At the hearing on my emerengcy motion this new judge said he cannot vacate another judges order.

So basically I have not seen my 3 yo daughter since 6/8/04. In the last order the one modifying the visitation I was granted reasonable visitation taking into consideration the geographical distances between Illinois and Mississippi.

My daughters mother is not capable of being able to speak with me as a human being, therefore I am now patiently waiting for the next hearing date 9/28/04 to set a specific visitation schedule.