Page 33 - The Circle of Life

all article clerks who do it daily as cheap labour. If you read my book Tricks of

Trade - Memories of a Rogue Lawyer you will know I have a very low opinion on
the abuse faced by article clerks in the profession.

A summons for divorce is always from the High Court with a Particulars of Claim
attached and must be served on you (and only you) by the sheriff. For now let

us say the summons was issued and is now in your possession. It reads like a
story book. Which court, who is the plaintiff and who is the defendant (you) and

what they want in the particulars of claim plus the prayers (what they ask from
the court) at the end. It will also give you time limits to respond in and the

address of the lawyer involved.

You may now defend the summons by delivering a notice of you intention to
defend the matter and also within a reasonable time your plea. In your plea you

set out what you want as a divorce cannot really be defended in the sense that
you don't want to be divorced. The mere fact that a divorce summons is served

on you indicates your marriage is gone and will not in all honesty be healed
again though of course it may happen. This is also because we follow the no-

fault system which I will explain later on to you.

Therefore the court fight is only about who gets what (including children) and

lawyers love it when you argue for years about cr-p. They make exceedingly
good money from your unwillingness to settle and act like a grown-up and may

even encourage you to stand up for your rights. Revenge must never ever be

your motive unless you really have a lot of money to waste and lawyers will
gladly take it from you. That is why we say get the divorce over and done with
and settle the matter. At that point it is quick and relatively painless and cheap

enough.

If however you keep on fighting (defending in lawyer language) the normal civil
procedure is followed with pleadings being issued from both sides. Once

pleadings are closed a court date will be applied for by your soon to be ex for the
one who issued the summons is dominus litus meaning he has to drive the

process. Failure to serve your pleadings will lead to what is called a notice of bar
where you have a few days to either do it or be barred from doing so.

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