After the judge enters temporary support and custody orders, the parties in civil cases, including divorces, usually begin discovery. This is essentially the evidence-gathering process in these matters, and both parties are obligated to share information with each other. In a few cases, discovery is rather informal and may involve little more than exchanging W-2s and paystubs. But in most cases, there are assets to divide and debts to apportion.
There may also be telltale signs that one spouse is trying to hide assets from the other spouse. This is especially common if the couple’s relationship has been deteriorating over time and a divorce has seemed likely for several months or even several years. In one of the more common income-hiding schemes, workers increase their tax withholding to make their paychecks seem smaller. In other cases, account balance email alerts suddenly stop coming or one spouse finds unusual legal documents around the house, and the other spouse does not have a good explanation when confronted.
Types of Discovery
In both contested and uncontested cases, the discovery tools are mostly the same. Written discovery is more common because it is relatively inexpensive to send and process. The major types are:
- Request for Admission: RFAs contain a series of statements and demand that the responding party either admit or deny the fact. RFAs often narrow the issues and help the case move along more quickly; moreover, if the party fails to respond within the required time and certain other conditions are met, all the facts are deemed admitted.
- Request for Production: In some cases, it is possible to turn over a waiver instead of the actual documents, so the responding party complies with the request without making things easier for the other party. But the better practice is simply to turn over financial documents and allow property inspections when these requests are reasonable.
- Interrogatories: INTs are essentially depositions in written form, because the party must answer questions about the case and sear that the answers are true and correct.
Oral discovery is a better tool in many cases. First, these depositions can be used in court if the witness later becomes unavailable. Second, depositions serve as “dress rehearsals” for trials, because the day of testimony is a bad time to find out that a witness stammers, is shifty-eyed, or otherwise appears not credible.
Challenging Discovery
In oral depositions, lawyers make any objections they deem necessary and appropriate. At trial, the witness waits to answer questions until the judge resolves the objections. But in depositions, the witness must answer the question and a judge later decides whether or not the answer is admissible.
Written discovery works a bit differently because there are specific objections that lawyers can make in these cases. For example, lawyers can object to questions as being:
- Overly broad,
- Not likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, and
- Unduly burdensome.
Procedurally, the objecting party must answer the question or produce the document, and the judge decides later whether or not the document or answer is admissible.
Contact Aggressive Attorneys
At Glasgow & Olsson, we stand up for your legal and financial rights in marriage dissolution proceedings. Contact us today for a confidential consultation with an experienced family law attorney in Schaumburg because the sooner you call, the sooner we will start working for you.