I'll provide my email address in just a moment, but there are some things you should know first:
Please feel free to ask just about anything you care to, and I really will get an answer right out to you, just as soon as I am able to do it. Yes, of course it's free: that's why we call this site Child Custody And Divorce: Free Legal Advice.
I have, however, developed three, but only three, pet peeves: you should try to avoid them. Here are the examples of each:
1. The question arrives, by email:
I am a twenty year old college student, who recently gave birth to a beautiful child, and the father says he's going to file for custody. Can he do that?
The answer is exactly this:
"You haven't read my web pages, and you should."
That's the entire answer. Here's why:
I have spent a lot of hours, putting this information up, and if this person isn't even going to read that information, if this person thinks that I'm going to draft some personal essay for her, (oh, and for free, too) she can think again. Please read the pages first: the question is very likely answered there already, and if you have a question after reading the pages, your question will be quite different: you will have a basic understanding of the process, and it will show in your question, when I read it. Please don't hesitate to ask something, because you think it might be a dumb question: ask it. But that question above is just a little too much for me. Thanks.
2. Bad Grammar, or, more correctly, a total lack of grammar: Pronouns.
'He', 'she', and 'they' are very useful words, but, as your fourth grade English teacher taught you, they are pronouns: those words refer, without fail, to the last preceding noun. Remember that I don't know you, please. You may have lived with this divorce/custody situation for some time, but I haven't a clue as to what that situation is, and, if you can't communicate that situation to me, I can't answer a question. Avoid pronouns. Avoid using 'he', 'she' and 'they', please. Use the person's name often (I know it sounds stilted, awkward, but do it), and AVOID something like this:
"I got a divorce just after my girlfriend did, and she has two kids also, and our ex husbands have been threatening both of us, about our daughters, and when he said that he was going to get help from him about her school, I was wondering if he could use that against her, or if he was just wasting his time there, that they wouldn't think it was important, and if I could use it against HIM?"
You see the problem, I'm sure.... And what do you want to bet that the marriage (or maybe marriages, I'm still not sure) broke down because of a 'lack of communication'? :)
3. Your email program, or your ability (or lack of ability) to use that program:
Every email program has a "settings" or "options" function, where a person sets up the program to be just exactly right for themselves. Forever after, when that person sends email (and you can observe this on your own 'inbound' messages), the correct email address (for the Sender) pops up when the recipient (me) hits the 'reply' button. The address of the person to whom I should send this 'reply' is added automatically, and it's very easy to send a proper reply to a proper question. What if the email program isn't set up properly? Or what if the person is an Internet Newbie, and hasn't even ONE idea of what I've just been talking about? Why, then, their mailer reads "Reply To: insert@yourname.com" instead of reading just "Reply To: whalen@childcustody.net" as it should, and, by the way, MY REPLY WON'T GET TO THE PERSON ASKING THE QUESTION. Even worse, the reply will bounce back to ME, with hate mail from my internet service provider "You sent us some pretty weird mail there, Jim. You gonna make a habit of this?" Etc, Etc.
Please check your mailer: make sure the 'reply' address is correct.
I have discovered, after working at it for some time now, that I have more than three pet peeves.
Here's another. Please DON'T type in all caps. No. Don't do it. I can't count the number of times (but it's a lot) that I've had to write back to someone "Hey, you're obviously an Internet Newbie, but please don't type in all caps: it's considered shouting, and it's rude. SO NO MORE SHOUTING, PLEASE!". Don't type in all caps.
And, while we're on the subject of newbies, DON'T set up your mailer to attach some sort of 'signature file'....these files usually have labels like 'Don Smith.vcf', or 'Jerry Jones.vcf'....and those files just pile up on people's hard drives. You DON'T need a signature file unless you're talking to an incompetent bank. Please don't use these files. Please make sure your email program does NOT attach some signature file.
OK, OK, I feel much better, now that I got all that off my chest: send me a bill for the therapy, letting me vent a little. I really feel much better, thanks.