What keeps people from trying to reach a negotiated or mediated divorce settlement? Two people close to me are going through a divorce. I am trying to understand why they are spending so much money on lawyers' fees rather than even trying to reach a negotiated or mediated settlement. This question is asked in order to get some broader perspective. In general, what can keep two people who both want a divorce from pursuing a negotiated or mediated route?
Acrimony Mowzer makes some good points. Another one is the parties may just hate each other. In some strands of legal theory, it's considered a type of transaction cost that keeps people from bargaining before and after litigation.
I am a notary public in Vermont and have had to deal with people who had name variations. Readers of Law StackExchange like to citations to reliable sources; I'm not going to do that, just describe my experience. Many states do indeed allow a person to adopt a new name through usage. Government agencies and large commercial agencies don't like that, and they can and do thwart the law by imposing their own administrative procedures. If you don't like their procedures, fine, give a lawyer a $20,000 retainer, have the lawyer sue, and wait three years. And after spending all that money, the court might find that although it isn't a crime for a person to change their name by usage, there is no law requiring the administrative agency to accept it. If you don't have tens of thousands of dollars to waste or years to wait, you have two choices. Get married, and use the marriage license as evidence of your name change. The format of marriage licenses is different in every state, so how well this works depends on the state. The other option is to get a court-ordered name change.
Not successfully It is not required that a person knows they are dealing with an agent of the principal rather than the principal directly - an agent speaks with the principal’s voice. Robert has consented to allow Elizabeth to act as his agent. It actually doesn’t matter if he consented before she acted or afterwards, he has agreed to be bound by Elizabeth’s actions. Rachel &amp; Jared have agreed to enter the lease and indicated as much by signing the document. It doesn’t matter who signed it for the landlord or even if it was signed - leases have to be in writing but there is no common law rule that they need to be signed.
This appears to be a complaint about lawyers using the legal process to achieve what their client wants. Forgive me, but this seems to be like complaining that doctors only want to cure the client's disease, architects only want to design the client's buildings and generals only want to kill the client's enemies. Your lawyer is not your business strategist or your life coach! A civil case is always about the money. If you are pursuing a civil case over a principle then you are going to spend a lot of money and probably lose. The use of a lawyer should always be part of your wider negotiation strategy in the same way that your armed forces are part of your diplomacy; in both cases the threat of use is usually better than the actual use. A civil case always follows a failure to successfully negotiate. Not all by any means, but most, civil cases would be better settled by agreement than litigation by all parties. If you believe that your objectives can best be served by a social media campaign, political pressure, etc. then go for it. Your lawyer can advise you what the risks are wrt to defamation etc. but ultimately how you choose to pursue your goal is up to you. Lawyers, understandably, look for legal solutions. A public relations professional is far better placed than a lawyer to inform your media strategy.
Short Answer Chain of custody is a common challenge to the admissibility and weight of evidence. Qualification This sounds like a real case. Not a hypothetical. The outcome can go either way. It sounds like it's heading for litigation. The result will depend on the facts and legal arguments. If this is meant to be a hypothetical there are too few facts described to be able to analyze it. I suggest you hire an attorney and forget about getting the question answered here. Generally speaking, it's impossible to prove a negative. So on that basis, proving they did not tamper with the data will be a challenge at best. Lawyers can always challenge evidence. And chain of custody is a common challenge to the admissibility and weight of evidence.
Admissibility is one thing, enforcement is another. My observations, which are more detailed than casual, is that Family Courts are a different breed, and more than most any other court, "they do what they want." I have associates who had agreed to stipulations, detailing how a child might be handled, only to have a family court decide at some point to implement some completely different plan, and in doing so run against what both parents were interested in doing. Prenuptial agreements appear to be meaningless, as this is not about the assets of the couple, it is about the state's interest in the child. Even then, the courts seem to act in manners which appear to not be in the best interests of the child (and sometimes even say so.) Back to your question, would an agreement be admissible? Yes. Does it mean much? In my opinion, and based upon the preponderance of evidence, no. Do whatever you have to do to stay out of family court. Being married doesn't matter. Working together for 21 years does. In the future, you should state the jurisdiction you are in. It does change the answer, but in this case only subtlety.
The most likely reason the other driver doesn't want to go through insurance is to avoid a raise in his premiums. However, there could be more serious consequences, up to and including having his insurance cancelled, for example, if the son was not supposed to be driving the car, or based on the criminal nature of the offense. However, there can be serious consequences to not dealing with insurance. Some (if not all) insurance policies require him to report the accident; by failing to do so, he may risk losing his insurance. More importantly to you, if he does not report a claim to his insurance, his insurance will not pay it. This is important to you, because insurance companies, as a general rule, pay claims. Random people don't always; they ignore you, they move out of state, they go bankrupt. If this is a serious amount of money, you need to talk to a lawyer before you enter into a contract with this person, to make sure that it's enforceable, and that if you don't get paid, you have some recourse.
A settlement can include whatever terms the parties agree on, short of terms prohibited by law. Usually one party gives up at lest some claims. Then other party nay also give up,claims, or make a payment, or both. There may be other terms as well, including confidentiality of the details. It is not uncommon for both parties to give up all claims against each other. Settlement agreements are legally binding on both parties. We cannot advise on what kind of settlement a particular person should take in a particular case. For tht, consult a lawyer.