Divorce can be an intricate legal battle. Errors often occur, which may have lasting repercussions that have an enormous effect on life.
Attorneys may make errors that cause serious emotional trauma during a divorce case.
Legal Malpractice
Legal malpractice can have devastating repercussions for divorce cases. When an attorney acts negligently or incorrectly during your case and causes you financial loss as a result.
Example of negligence would include when your attorney inadvertently brings evidence into court that violates applicable laws and rules of evidence, thereby harming your case. Likewise, this would include when they fail to conduct thorough discovery in your case and your ex-spouse hides assets that remain undetected.
To establish legal malpractice, you must demonstrate that your original attorney owed you a duty of care that they breached in some way. To accomplish this, collect communications and documents related to your case that can help your new lawyer review them and assist in filing a suit against them for damages.
Negligence
Negligence refers to failing to act with reasonable care in certain circumstances. It’s a form of negligence and can result in financial damages; for example, your lawyer could fail to file your legal claim before its deadline, or fail to review and consider evidence properly in your case.
If your attorney was negligent, you have grounds to bring an action for negligence against them. But to do so successfully, it must be demonstrated that their conduct violated what reasonable people would have done given similar circumstances; otherwise it may be difficult to establish liability.
Fault-based divorces were once common before New York adopted its no-fault law, however if your spouse committed an act such as battery or domestic violence against you it can provide grounds for such a divorce. Consult a qualified family law attorney about your options; they can assist with understanding local laws as well as exploring your best options moving forward.
Emotional Distress
Emotional distress is an umbrella term that encompasses multiple emotions, such as anger, fear, confusion, anxiety and grief. Chronic emotional distress can take its toll, often manifesting itself through unexplained physical symptoms that serve as indicators.
Stress from work or daily activities that you once enjoyed can result in low energy, disinterest in work or activities you used to enjoy, and physical health problems. Therefore, it is vitally important that any physical manifestations of your stress be documented; testimony from friends, family and medical professionals will strengthen your claim further.
Negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) is a tort that allows those experiencing severe emotional trauma due to someone else’s extreme and outrageous conduct to sue for compensation. For such conduct to qualify as “negligent”, its behavior must go beyond what would usually be tolerated in decent society; This study employed representative survey data from 113 nations during COVID-19 pandemic years to accurately gauge global changes in feelings of emotional distress during 2009-2021 period.
Affair
Uncovering that your spouse had an affair can be one of the most traumatic events for a marriage, yet even though affairs often lead to divorce settlements they do not affect directly the outcome.
Formerly, having an affair could have had a devastating effect on a divorce; but that no longer holds true in California, where now it is possible to obtain one based on irreconcilable differences rather than fault such as domestic abuse or extramarital affairs.
An affair may only affect financial situations when it has an adverse impact on them, and can demonstrate significant expense increases or an impact on care for children, leading them to pay out more during a divorce settlement agreement. An attorney could possibly negotiate more from your ex’s side.
An affair can also wreak havoc on a divorce by contributing to wasteful dissipation of marital assets, with your spouse using marital money on expenses related to their affair partner such as hotel rooms, secret getaways, dinners or gifts for them.