rip off?

[curious564]

Dear Soc,

A friend has had his children for two years while stbx ran off with another man.  She has not taken all of the time offered with the children and he has tracked this.  No formal arrangement for custody or visitation or CS.  She is now fighting for 50/50 custody in MO.

His lawyer sent her an interrogatory but set no court date and no date to finish the interrogatory.

His lawyer states that depending on her answers he will hold a deposition.  But also his lawyer says that he doesn't want to spend a bunch of $$ on discovery.

Friend hears from lawyer that with this judge 50/50 arrangements usually only given at parent's request.

1.  Is an interrogatory a waste of time since he has had custody of the children de facto for so long?

2.  Wouldn't a deposition be a huge expenditure on "discovery"?

3.  Is this the procedure that you would follow for such a seemingly cut and dried case?  

This just seems like the lawyer is lining his pocket to me - what am I missing?

curious

[socrateaser]

>1.  Is an interrogatory a waste of time since he has had
>custody of the children de facto for so long?

Interrogatory is a cheap way of getting statistical info (name, address, list of people, etc.). Other than that an interrogatory request is usually a complete waste of resources, because the responding party will have all the answers crafted by their attorney, so as to provide little useful evidence.

>
>2.  Wouldn't a deposition be a huge expenditure on
>"discovery"?

Maybe not "huge," but expensive. Not enough facts to know if depo would be useful.

>
>3.  Is this the procedure that you would follow for such a
>seemingly cut and dried case?

Don't have near enough info, but nothing unreasonable, so far, in my opinion.


>This just seems like the lawyer is lining his pocket to me -
>what am I missing?

Lawyer must zealously advance client's interests. Part of this means to use the standard discovery tools. Otherwise, lawyer could be sued later for malpractice. Double-edged sword -- do nothing, then negligent. Do too much, then gouging client.