Court is Not fun....... in the begining it depends on your wealth if you can afford a lawyer or not i could not and had to get legal aid.. In my situation I am the applicant. so here a list of the steps I had to take.. (remember to NEVER say anything bad about your ex unless it is relevant to your case it's not about you or her it's about the safety, welfare, and the future of the child/children, let her make that mistake!) I did not have a lawyer at first so I had to do this all on my own.
1. Write down everything you can that happens from the time of break up, conversations/ visits/ agreements and disagreements about RELEVANT stuff (the court doesn't care if she called you an ass hole, or about your sex life ect.....) , any physical abuse, drug abuse and any agreements made, your best to have agreements of any kind on paper and signed by both parties especially when it comes to rights over the kids, even if you don't agree with what she is giving you for rights take it for now as long as its on paper and she signed it she wont be able to go back on it and also it will prevent her make making up SOME lies or even better it can greatly help the judge CATCH HER IN LIE'S oh there will be lie's MANY MANY LIES.... so just write down everything you can, and keep it organized!! keep a list on you computer, INCLUDE DATES, EVEN TIMES, save texts and e-mails and what ever you can. Receipts!! photo copy them so the ink doesn't fade... KEEP AND SAVE ANYTHING, you won't regret you did.
2. (If you have a lawyer they will do all of this for you) Go to the Family courthouse closest to where the child lives, going to any other court will be wasted time.. and there will be more then enough wasted time ahead..... Once there go to the family law area and speak to the receptionist she will give you the application... Fill this out very carefully , DO NOT BASH, this is mainly just to tell the respondent and the courts what it is exactly that your are asking for and what reasons you have for wanting them, write down things from your list that are relative and that's not hearsay (stuff you can't prove) but keep your hearsay aside it can and will come in handy later. But make this all about the children why do THEY NEED YOU not why do you need them! once the application is complete hand it in.
3. They will now input your information into the computer and hand you 2 copies, one is yours don't loose it, and the second one is for you to have served to her, it is important that you do not serve her yourself although it is OK if you are there at the time, On your copy your will find your court date, it will be at-least 35-40 days or longer (can take months) away from the day you made the application you can ask for a date up to a year later if you want to.
4.Know you Must have the papers served to the respondent no later then 30 days before the court date written on your application and the person you choose to have the papers served must go to the same court house you went to and "swear in" with an Affidavit of Service that they served the papers. (the sooner you do this the better it will be for you if you are planning on getting legal aid because you can not get legal aid until you get her response.).
5. Now if you are lucky it can all end here, but for that to happen she would have to agree with everything your are asking for and if that was the case you wouldn't be in court, So she now has 30 days to respond and when she does, you will be served and you will see what she disagrees with (everything in my case) and what she agrees with, also anything she has added on...... like too much child support and supervised access only any anything else she can think of to make your like hell, but hopefully for you this wont apply.
6. Now you have to have an answer to her response on the day of court, if you disagree they may ask that you go to mediation... this for me only took 5 minutes, the guy was like OK I feel sorry for you, she's a live one.. and we went back to the court and made a date for a case conformance.
7. Now is the time you can apply for legal aid (and just prey it's quick... I went to court twice waiting for legal aid... the judge told me if i don't have what I need by the next date he would dismiss my case, the third time I finally had a Lawyer.
8. So my lawyer helped me to fill out the applications I need to fill out, and refused to do it with out a lawyer, although I could do it now that I know what is expected. We had do fill out form 35.1 - AFFIDAVIT FOR CUSTODY & ACCESS. This is where your hear say comes in handy!! If you can wait to see her copy then it's even better, because you both have to fill this out and send it to each other (the lawyers will do the sending if you have one) so if you get her copy before you do yours then you know what she is saying about you and you can just respond defensively, never attacking the respondent when you don't have to really puts the ball in your court!! especially when she is doing nothing but attacking you... you just prove her wrong and leave it at that. start talking about the child's well-being... also Financial Statement (Support Claims) – Form 13 and Financial Statement (Property and Support Claims) – Form 13.1. You must complete one of these forms depending on the specific circumstances of your case.
9. So now is the case conference every case will have at least one this is basically where the judge gets to know you both, don't get caught up in any arguments. It's OK to get angry if need be even use a firm voice to get a point across but NEVER argue with the judge or the respondent! remember you have to show the court you have parenting skills and can handle your own when things get tough!! The judge will make some sort of short term decisions here, like I was given supervised access at a center and had to pay less for child support then I was paying anyways (because of how much I was making)(and she was asking for more...) Don't get me wrong I still pay what I can even if it's more then what I have to pay I spend all my extra cash on my little girl anyways!!
10. We had to have an OCL (Ontario Children's Lawyer) come and investigate both of our homes and make a decision solely based on the needs of the child... Our OCL recommended EVERYTHING I had asked for!! she said my ex is nuts and she was actually afraid of her.. if I knew that I would have asked for more.
11. Now you have another case conference the judge is going to try one more time to let you both agree on something before he comes up with a plan, In my case since we did not agree and I had done everything I had been asked to do ( parenting classes, drug tests, all the supervised access, a criminal record check,) and proved EVERYTHING she was saying about me wrong!! I got everything the OCL recommend, and will be going back when she is 3 to get more rights!
This was quite summed up and I may have missed a thing or two.. feel free to ask questions or leave comments about your own experiences, invite your friends to the conversation, I want to hear from everyone! Together we can help each other and carve a path for all other MEN who wish to fight for the rights of there children!!
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