Lawyer Stunt #1

The other day at work,I received a letter in my box. It was from the County Office of Education and it had 'confidential' stamped all over it, I mean ALL over it. I usually don't pay much attention to things from LACOE; they're usually items for the circular file. But the stamps told me this one wasn't for tossing. When I opened it, it said that there was some kind of action going on against one of their employees, and that employee was me. It took me a while to figure it out; it wasn't all that easy to read. Apparently, Bill's attorney took it upon himself to contact the court to have my spousal support payments deducted from my paycheck. Why would he do that after I had already set it up to have Bill paid twice a month on billpay? I had set it up on time, despite Bill's closing his back account and not notifying my attorney until the day the first payment was due. Bill was receiving $1250 checks twice a month, and had been since the end of September. This order I received from LACOE said that $2500 was to be deducted from my pay once a month on the first of every month, starting Novenber 1. So here's the problem with that: 1) Having the entire amount taken from my account at once makes it difficult for me to pay my mortgage, which costs quite a bit and 2) if you give Bill a lump sum at the beginning of the month and tell him to make it last for the entire month, he can't do it. He's horrible with money and needs to have it doled out to him in small quantities or he will blow it within two weeks and will then cry poverty to his attorney. And what will happen then? His attorney will go back to court and ask for more money, claiming his client can't exist on the paltry sum to which we have agreed. I can see it now. I, on the other hand, will argue that Bill has a gambling addiction that no amount of spousal support will ever be able to feed. And 3)if I hadn't been notified by LACOE, this would have gone into effect on November 1, resulting in me having the money deducted twice: once from the billpay I have set up and another time by LACOE deducting it from my check. And once that money would be given to Bill, I'd never see it again. I would double pay the spousal support and he wouldn't give it back.

I called my attorney. He knew nothing of this action. He wrote up an amendment to the action Bill's attorney had made. I signed it. Bill's attorney didn't call him back on it; he rarely does. I hope we can get it done. Now we get to spend more unnecessary money in attorney's fees.

Note to self: Bill's attorney is not trustworthy.