Court etiquette?

[2boys and an addict]

Question 1.  When in front of the Judge during a trial how much latitude does one have in asking questions.  Is everything relayed on through the lawyer?

The reason I am asking is the last court appearance was suppose to be a trial.  It turned out to be a marathon session in which the Judge forced the two sides to come to an agreement on the property and monetary issues (401K).

At the end a hand written agreement was completed and we had to state in front of the judge that we agreed to the terms.  Since the finance issues were settled I raised the question as to whether we still had an oral hearing in regards to temporary support in June.  The Judge sad it would be silly, however the lawyers would not decide at that moment if it should be canceled.  The one would have to call and discuss it??  Since I have lawyers that don't agree except to disagree can I force more of these issues to be resolved or the judge to make a decision on issues.  After numerous pretrial and temporary support hearings and a year into the divorce, this seems to be the only thing accomplished.  And my main reason for the divorce is numerous drug relapses with my wife which in my opinion is the systems second concern.  After determining the $ pie which seemed like a no brainer split it in half.  

Question 2.  How much or what gets done in these pretrial meetings?  Is it dependent on the Judge?  When I ask questions I get case management.

One parenting evaluation was completed at my request and now I have an expert witness and not a non-bias report.
 
Since the 401K funds will be released to my wife she or her lawyer wants another parenting evaluation conducted for her expert witness.

Question 3.  Does anyone offer a feel on how much delay this could place on the divorce process?  Right now I feel like I am buying time to just get it to trial or paying someone to wait with me for another relapse.  And I might get to trial but not have enough $ to pay for the expert opinions times, to transform her report from hearsay into testimony, my lawyers time and of course the court is going to determine how much of my wife's layers fee I am responsible for.  What Gives?

I would appreciate your insight into this court process.

[socrateaser]

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