However, if you were able to find a copy, you can try to convince the court to honor it. This might be a complicated legal battle because certain criteria apply before a court will accept a copy of a will. However, if his attorney disappeared, this may be enough to have the copy probated.
Full Answer
Jul 10, 2013 · It depends on why your lawyer does not want to give you the documents. You may have a right to copies or there may be a court order preventing disclosure on third party privacy issues. You may be creating a conflict with your lawyer that will force the lawyer to withdraw. Before you do anything hasty, you should sit down with another lawyer and go over the details …
Oct 24, 2011 · Your attorney may be in violation of attorney ethical rules. You should provide him one more opportunity to provide you copies of your file by making a written request. If he fails to comply, you should explore filing a grievance with the state supreme court's attorney regulation office. Report Abuse. Report Abuse.
Aug 19, 2011 · If you are represented by attorney, there are rules prohibiting your attorney from giving you your own copy of discovery without the permission of the court. You could always submit a public records request and get a copy of discovery. Some prosecutors may hold this against you however and not work with you towards an amicable resolution.
Dec 18, 2014 · 5 attorney answers. You have the absolute right to get your discovery. Unless it has a protective order from the court. I recommend you call the supervisor. I also think you should get a second opinion from an attorney in your area who knows what the cases negotiate for. Attorneys have the duty to advise their clients of any offers made by the ...
So what happens if you do not provide the documents requested and you have them in your possession, or if you refuse to answer Interrogatories or refuse to attend your deposition. Usually, the other attorney will either discuss the issue with the judge at the next court conference or will make a motion to enforce the court order or attorney demand. The court will usually give an additional opportunity to comply with the directives. If you continue to refuse to comply another request will be made for an order that will either prevent you from testifying at the future trial about financial matters, determine the issues solely based upon the proof of the other party and allow the court to calculate, as best it can, your income and assets without your participation.
Most, if not all, contested divorce cases where there are issues of how much money does a person have or earn will involve financial disclosure/discovery. Often there will be court orders or attorney demands requiring the production of financial records, tax returns, bank statements, credit card statements, loan applications, ...
It is never a good thing for a judge to think that you are not playing fair, hiding assets, not disclosing income or playing other financial games. The consequences, financially, are usually pretty severe. Therefore, it is best to produce your records, answer the questions and have your case resolved with your active participation.
Send a letter to the attorney requesting a copy of the complete file. If Attorney refuses, make a complaint to your local county Bar Association.
If he fails to comply, you should explore filing a grievance with the state supreme court's attorney regulation office.
Your attorney may be in violation of attorney ethical rules. You should provide him one more opportunity to provide you copies of your file by making a written request. If he fails to comply, you should explore filing a grievance with the state supreme court's attorney regulation office. Report Abuse. Report Abuse.
If the attorney doesn't surrender the file, then, I'd think that your next step would be a complaint to the Bar Association. Report Abuse. Report Abuse.
Send a demand letter to the attorney requiring that he provide you your entire file. Client files are the property of the clients and attorneys may not withhold them including for non-payment of attorney fees. Under the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC), rule 3-700 requires the attorney on termination of their representation to return all client papers and property on your request. Under RPC 3-500, an attorney is required to comply with reasonable requests for information and copies of significant documents when necessary to keep the client informed.
Your lawyer is obligated to provide copies of his/her file to you, for a reasonable charge.
Client is entitled to Discovery material. If your attorney is refusing to give it to you, consult with another attorney.
Edward Jerome Blum (Unclaimed Profile) An defendant/inmate has a right to a copy of the discovery that has been redacted so as not to show names / addresses of witnesses. The problem with getting a copy of the discovery in jail is that someone may steal it. They may then use the information in the discovery to 'snitch' on ...
Discovery in a criminal case is the right of the Defendant to get access to all of the police reports, lab and expert reports, and all evidence of any kind that the prosecution intends to use against him. Normally, when the Defendant is represented, the Attorney will provide the client with copies of this discovery. However, the Attorney may not give his client the address of any prosecution witness. This and any info that could result in revealing such addresses must be deleted from any discovery given to Defendant. Most Attorneys provide their clients with proper copies of these reports, but if he refuses the Judge may intervene. If that doesn't work then the District Attorney has the original, and a copy can be purchased from that office. If all this fails then you should contact an experienced Defense Attorney for assistance.
The attorney may have a very good reason for not wanting to give an inmate copies of their reports - anything from they don't want a jailhouse snitch to have access to the reports to make up a false confession or for the inmate's safety , depending on the charges and the allegations. Report Abuse. Report Abuse.
The defense may also file a motion to demand discovery from the prosecuting attorney if the prosecuting attorney is refusing to provide evidence that may ultimately be used at trial. Report Abuse. Report Abuse.
It is the attorney's job to let him have access to any discovery he's been given. You may need to consider hiring a new lawyer or perhaps writing a letter to the judge telling him what is going on. You may also threaten the lawyer with filing a grievance with the bar if he does not comply. Report Abuse. Report Abuse.
You need to go through the attorney. If there is no cooperation, then you need to let the Judge know at the next hearing. If this is still a problem, then there may be a breakdown in the attorney client relationship such that the Judge will appoint a different attorney I hope that this was helpful.
Discovery is a formal process of sharing and exchanging information between the parties before any trial takes ...
In addition to these standard interrogatories, you are limited to fifty (50) more questions unless you have a court order permitting more.
Be Organized – Don’t dump unorganized answers and documents on your lawyer. First, you are wasting legal fees by having your lawyer organize your records. Second, a disorganized dump of information may lead to a disorganized or incomplete discover response that may cause the other side to file a motion to compel.
Motions to Compel – If a party doesn’t respond to interrogatories or requests for production, then the party seeking those answers must file a motion to compel with the court. If the court grants the motion to compel, then the party who objected or failed ...
Generally speaking, the party who receives these questions has 30 days to answer them. Interrogatories must be answered “under oath.”. In other words, your answers, even if prepared by your attorney, must include a notary public’s signature and seal.
Depositions – A deposition is testimony that is given under oath. Under oath means that the person who is testifying is sworn, under penalty of perjury, to tell the truth. During the deposition, lawyers will ask questions of the witness, and the answers are recorded by an official court reporter.
Also, through discovery, the parties are trying to gather evidence and proof of their claims or defenses.
If, on the other hand, your policy is rigorously followed and it resulted in the destruction of certain data before you were on notice of the lawsuit, you are much more likely to receive a sympathetic reception from a court if the destruction is challenged by the oppos ing side.
In extreme circumstances, if a court finds clear and convincing evidence that you have intentionally concealed or destroyed evidence, your case could be dismissed (if you are the plaintiff), or you could be found summarily liable without a trial (if you are the defendant). See Martin v.
Information that is relevant or even arguably relevant to your dispute should be preserved. It is not always clear at the outset of litigation what is considered "relevant." At a bare minimum, documents and data routinely kept as a part of your business records should not be erased, even if you would normally conduct periodic purges of the data. For instance, many companies automatically purge deleted e-mails after a few weeks or months. Employees should not queue information for deletion if that information could be relevant and discoverable down the road. You should back up, print out or save to disk or CD-ROM any "stale" information that is in danger of being erased. While the rules do not require prescience or paranoia on your part, it may not look good to a judge or jury if you have destroyed routine accounting files, client database information, or e-mails to your customers or vendors about important issues in the lawsuit. For instance, in a pending case being handled by Maslon, a federal district court judge recently indicated her intent to sanction a party for using sophisticated software to clean her hard drive, which may or may not have contained evidence relevant to the case, despite the party's insistence that running this program was part of her routine maintenance. Another court remanded a case after entry of a $96.4 million jury verdict when the court found that the prevailing party had delayed, not even destroyed, production of electronic data. See Residential Finding Corp. v. DeGeorge Financial Corp., 306 F.3d 99 (2d Cir. 2002) (vacating court's order denying sanctions and remanding for the district court to decide whether a new trial was appropriate.)
Litigation affects many aspects of your business, and most litigants are not prepared for the time and expense involved in recovering electronic files and data that, with foresight, could easily have been preserved. If you make sure that you know how your business stores electronic data and where the information is kept, it will go a long way toward preserving information that is critical to your claims and avoiding being on the wrong end of an allegation that you have destroyed evidence. Consult with your IT department and your legal counsel if you have questions in this area. The time to plan is before the complaint gets served and filed.
At a minimum, if you have been found to have destroyed evidence, the judge may draw or the jury may be told it can draw an inference that the materials you destroyed were harmful to your case.
Your duty to preserve evidence certainly attaches when you commence a lawsuit, if you are the plaintiff, or when you are served with the complaint, if you are a defendant. However, a number of courts have issued rulings imposing a duty to preserve before litigation begins if a party knows of the existence of a potential claim ...
In addition to this general duty, litigants also have a duty not to destroy documents once a discovery request has been served for particular materials. For example, if your opponent serves you with a request for all records of complaints relating to the product you manufacture, that, of course, is not the time to go through your computer system and purge old records of complaints. [1] This is true even if your document retention policy calls for destruction of such records at that time. If, on the other hand, your policy is rigorously followed and it resulted in the destruction of certain data before you were on notice of the lawsuit, you are much more likely to receive a sympathetic reception from a court if the destruction is challenged by the opposing side.
If you fire your lawyer and hire someone else, your lawyer must turn over all of the discovery to the prosecutor. Once your new lawyer files his appearance, the prosecutor will turn over the discovery to your new lawyer. James Dimeas is a nationally-recognized, award-winning criminal defense lawyer.
This is called the “Discovery” stage of a criminal case.
The Supreme Court Rules govern what happens in court and what your lawyer can or cannot do while they are representing you in a criminal case in court. Your lawyer is required to follow all those rules. The prosecutor is required to give your lawyer all of the evidence in your case.
You can always speak to James Dimeas personally by calling him at 847-807-7405. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 415 (c).
Your lawyers’ conduct is governed by the Rules of Professional Responsibility. Those rules provide for certain ethical responsibilities that lawyers have to their clients and to the Court. The Supreme Court of Illinois has also enacted certain rules which limit what your lawyer can, or cannot do.
Your lawyer is allowed to ensure that you are aware of the evidence in your case and allow you to assist your them in defending you in your case. This can be accomplished by allowing your lawyer to read the discovery to you and allowing you to read the police reports in your lawyer’s presence.
However, your lawyer remains obligated to communicate with you and keep you reasonably informed about your case. While Supreme Court Rule 415 (c) may seem to be in conflict with the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, the legal issues have been litigated and decided by the Courts.