Why Read the Law?

Jo Ann knew Bradley had been having an affair for the previous four years of their marriage.

He and Jo Ann had married in Wisconsin on July 7, 1992. They moved to Arizona in December, 1993, and had two sons. In September, 1996, Brad learned he would likely receive an enormous inheritance in a few months that would provide almost one million dollars per year in earnings. Now they could move his family from their small home. He and Jo Ann had talked of living in either California or Texas.

Eventually, Bradley convinced Jo Ann to move to Texas.

He inherited his fortune; they lived together for three more years; they conserved their money, accumulated a small fortune. Then she filed for divorce on March 2, 2000. That was one week after she walked into my office.

I had never met someone more prepared. She had researched a site similar to Lawyers-and-Laws.com, then confirmed her understanding with a good attorney. She wanted to be ready if her marriage could not be saved.

If you're going to talk with a lawyer anyway, why should you read the law about issues that concern you? I'll tell you why.

1. To better evaluate your attorney. Do you want to know if your attorney is a specialist in this area of law? Do you want to entrust your legal decisions to someone who seems only vaguely familiar with the key statutes? When you read the statutes that address your principal questions, you will be much better prepared to evaluate your attorney's familiarity with them.
   
   
2. To better formulate your questions. Don't you want to focus on the parts of the statutes that are unclear? What if your attorney tells you a great deal, but fails to address the unclear parts of the statutes. If you have read them, you will know to ask the attorney about that unclear part. And you won't waste time with the obvious part you already understand.
   
   
3. To better understand your attorney's answers. Will you better understand your attorney's answers after you have read the statutes? Will thinking over the statutes help you more readily grasp the answers? Of course it will. If you first try to grasp the law about your case, you will more readily recognize the answers that clear up any ambiguities when you meet with an attorney.

If Jo Ann had researched the law and talked with an attorney, why didn't she insist on moving to California? She already knew Bradley was having an affair, that her marriage was in jeopardy, and that divorce was a real possibility.

Isn't California famous for its generous alimony statutes? And isn't it a community property state just like Texas? Yes, like Texas it is a community property state, and unlike Texas, California has very generous alimony statutes. So why did she agree to move to Texas?

She studied the law. She called an attorney. She asked the right questions.

She learned a very important point of law:

In California, income from separate property is separate; in Texas, income from separate property is community.

Here's what that means. Bradley's inheritance was separate property to him. In a divorce she would have no claim on it. And in California she would also have no claim on the income from that inheritance. In California, income from separate property is separate.

But in Texas those millions in income would be community property that the court would divide, presumably equally. In Texas, income from separate property is community.

That's why three years earlier Jo Ann did not insist on moving to California.

The Texas judge awarded Jo Ann 1.3 million dollars from the community savings.

Read the special article explaining how to look up relevant laws and statutes on this site. And learn, too, why it's also important to know how local judges interpret the law and apply it.

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• The Law that Matters
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• How to Use Lawyers-and-Laws.com
• Why Read the Law?