My AZ divorce was supposed to be fairly simple, it was a less than five year marriage, and we fully agreed on 50-50 with the kids, so just a couple stupid financials to figure out and there should be no reason we have to go past the mandatory 60 day waiting period.

Paid $3000 for a retainer for a lawyer, and he assured me I would be giving up a pretty minimal financial stake, which of course sounded awesome. I wanted to just send over a minimal settlement agreement and get it over with, he convinced me to do a sit down with all of us, because in his 20 years of practice that has always netted a better result, so I heeded his advice and said OK.

Here we are five weeks later (2 weeks away from the 60 day minimum), and I haven’t even heard of a set date for this… I’ve called multiple times, his voicemail is always full so I can’t leave a message, the couple times I have gotten through. it’s been his wife which I’m not sure if she’s a paralegal or just a helper, and she always tells me she’ll get back to me, but never does. I stopped by their office during the day twice, and there’s nobody there.

The last call, she tells me that the lawyer is in the hospital with a bad infection… I am empathetic to him, but there are timelines involved that are not being met.

Of course, I don’t want to argue with a lawyer about getting a refund, nor do I want to switch lawyers right when we’re so close to being able to be done…yet at the same time, nothing has been done yet .