What To Expect At The Final Divorce Court Date
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The final date before the Judge in a divorce case is often referred to as the prove-up date. It is where a recitation, including testimony of the petitioner, is presented before the court. It is basically a final request by the petitioner to have a Judgment for Dissolution entered before the court so that the terms of the agreement become embodied in a court order.
The first part of the prove-up is the introduction by the attorney. The attorney will set the facts to be presented before the court. The attorney will tender to either the Judge or the Clerk of Court the appropriate documentation in order to proceed. The documents typically include:
1) Proposed Judgment for Dissolution;
2) Settlement Agreement;
3) Joint Parenting Agreement (if applicable);
4) Stipulation by the parties;
5) Military Affidavits; and
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Well, I’m not in Texas, so my personal experience with mediation may be different from what yours will be like…
My experience with mediation is that they do not try to intervene with any moral judgments on their part. This sounds good at first, because you don’t have someone else’s opinion to contend with. However, if you think something is wrong with a part of the agreement, the mediator will not take your side and say it is wrong too. Do not rely on the mediator to back you up. On the positive side, you do not have to worry about the mediator backing her up, or taking her side, either.
The mediator’s only job is to help you to come to an agreement, and so they’ll endorse just about anything.. They’ll try to get you to agree to anything that she proposes, and they’ll try to get her to agree to anything that you propose… The goal is to get an agreement, and not really so much with coming up with what they think is the “best” agreement for the child.
So yeah, I’d say… Stick to your guns, if you feel like a part of an agreement is bad, but don’t rely on the mediator to back you up!
It wasn’t easy by any means to come up with an agreement, but my experience with mediation was positive. Getting an agreement hammered out one-on-one is a lot better than having a bunch of lawyers and a lengthy court process with a lot of uncertainty… Yes, there’s uncertainty in the court system, even if you are certain you are right!