Well, after 2 years and 4 months I've finally received a final divorce judgment that still has very wet ink on it.  Although I don't want to turn this into a TL/DR post, I'll provide a summary of what's transpired so that people can analyze the situation and provide relevant advice.  Basically I've experienced the stereotypical harassment style divorce fueled by a rotten woman hellbent on ruining my life because she got caught cheating.  Now that the final judgment has been handed down by the court and I see that the judge took the proposed judgment that my attorney drafted and literally signed it as submitted, I feel I have my confirmation that the ex's attorney either took her for a ride or is incompetent.  Whichever of the two is the case, the result is that I've spent the last two years and 4 months of my life along with an unnecessary amount of money fighting for my rights and now that I have my judgment it is apparent that the demands from the other side were nowhere near what Florida law allows for.

I know my story is no different from the legions of men who have faced baseless accusations and demands from a scorned woman, but I truly feel that her attorney was reckless and negligent in his handling of his client and this case due to the facts of this divorce:  No kids, both of us always worked full time and maintained completely separate banking accounts, both vehicles paid off (one for each of us), we each contributed 50% to all living expenses including mortgage, she owned her own business (marital asset as it was started during marriage), all credit card debt was in my name (because she had no credit due to being self-employed, and I offered to keep all of this debt), and unfortunately there was no equity in the home due to the Florida housing bust (so no asset to fight for there).  When she filed for divorce after I confronted her about her cheating, she changed the locks on the home and over time got rid of everything I own.  My attorney sent over repeated settlement offers, with the first one going over within 30 days of filing, where I offered to take all CC debt, let her have her business even though it was marital, keep her car, keep all furnishings in the 2700 sq ft home, and even let her decide if she wanted to try and save the underwater house or walk away.  If she chose to walk away, I offered to deal with the aftermath myself (mortgage solely in my name due to above-mentioned lack of credit on her part).  Every time we sent this offer over, it was flatly refused with simply "the wife refuses the husband's offer" and was not ever accompanied with a counteroffer.  It seemed that the ex would accept no outcome other than a full out battle trial.

With Florida being a no-fault, equitable distribution state my issue with all of this is that this divorce should not have taken 28 months.  And it certainly should never have gone to trial- 3 full days worth of trial!  The ex was obsessed with my gun collection that she errantly thought was worth nearly $100k, based on nothing more than suspicion.  Ultimately I was forced to take all my guns to a local shop to get them valuated and that number came out to about 20% of what she thought it was.  Even after that, the manager of the gun retailer had to come in and testify to the value of my guns.  She was demanding literally everything we owned, even my truck, along with $2k in alimony for 5 years, all my guns, my ATV I use for hunting, etc.  She literally requested, even during trial when directly asked by the judge herself, each and every thing we owned.  Mind you, the antics of her attorney and the wife's testimony resulted in the judge outwardly displaying signs of being fed up.  

All of this has me highly dismayed that "the system" allowed someone to drag out what should be a simple divorce this long, and that I got taken along for the ride and in the process have had much of my personal property and childhood photos disappear into thin air.  My attorney said on multiple occasions to me that the ex's attorney must not be able to control his client, so I don't know if he just did her bidding despite trying to advise her that what she wanted would never fly, if he just took advantage of someone who was "seeing red" in full knowledge it wouldn't go her way, or if he is truly incompetent.  I must say that my interactions with him in court left me unimpressed.  In fact, I ran that guy when he was crossing me and my attorney even said the judge had to cover her face to hide her smiling when I made him look dumb a few times.  He also obviously was never prepared for any of our hearings or depositions- it literally seemed like he was reading the case info for the first time sitting right there in court.  One last thing- allegedly my wife has about $60k into this divorce attorney, and the last time I checked I'm only in it for about $10k or so although I haven't been keeping close tabs on that.  So he's also an expensive bastard.

Like I said, I know I'm not the first person to be disgusted with the practices of an opposing divorce attorney, but this case really seems out of line based upon the facts.  Couple that with the fact that the judge literally did not use one line item from their proposed final judgment and it just seems that this attorney really presented a load of crap, in the process causing this divorce to take far too long and cost way too much.  The final judgment denied her alimony requests, awarded me all the guns, denied her ANY of my 401k, awarded the truck and ATV to me and has ordered her out of the house so it can be sold immediately.  NOTHING they asked for happened for them- is this a good reason to contact the Florida Bar and file a complaint against this guy?  Again, I know this may be standard practice for these guys but if no one ever calls them on these shady tactics, nothing will change.  Believe me, I've moved on, I know the cost of the divorce was worth it, etc.- I'm just really wanting to let it be known that this guy is a shit attorney that played with our lives unnecessarily and in the end lost this case completely.  

Sorry for the TL/DR, but I wanted the whole picture to be painted as I seek advice as how/if to proceed with filing a complaint or otherwise exposing this substandard attorney.  

No, it sounds like your ex's attorney did exactly what your ex wanted to.  Your beef is with her not him.

Oh yeah, I get that.  I just figured, maybe incorrectly, that there's an obligation, either by professional ethics or through code of conduct via the Bar, for an attorney to not abuse the system to this point.  It sounds laughable when I say that, but given the smack down the judge doled out to them this guy was way off base in his actions.  I mean, over two damn years of delays and dragging this simple divorce out?!

Attorneys can advise their clients to do something. They can't force them to do it. I think divorce law is screwy enough that if she came up with some kind of reason why you have to pay X, Y, and Z, then he has to provide the best possible defense of his client's claim. The guns are an example. You said they were worth $10,000. She said they were worth $100,000. This is the kind of thing the court has to settle if the two parties can't reach an agreement.

Her lawyer would be negligent if he did not pursue the claims she made that may have been within the law. If she asserted that you had to pay extra because of the $20,000 Submariner you got from Santa Clause, he won't bother. But, if she says that you were a son of a bitch and therefore alimony, he has to represent his client's claim.

I wonder if he let her run up a $60,000 bill based on what you said. He would find out what the assets are pretty quickly and he'd have a pretty good idea what she's likely to get. He should be the first one to know that he'll never collect that fee. Is it possible that she threw out inflated numbers to make it sound like you're the bad guy? My brother's ex used to pull stunts like that. Three years after they separated, it was his fault when she got fired from the sixth place that fired her after they split.

Did you bring the guns to a pawn shop in northern Broward County for the appraisal a few years ago?

No, I'm a Tampa guy and this all went down this year.  And yes, I'm sure she inflated the numbers to get this guy drooling over the pool of available assets.  When the gun appraisal came back much lower than what she had been claiming, I expected things to speed up to a prompt finish.  The only thing that happened was they went silent for a couple of months, and looking back I'm sure he gave her the old "WTF?!" speech while he re-assessed the situation.  

Probably not a fight you want to have with the attorney.  He has an obligation to represent colorable claims, your ex was likely dictating demands.  I had an attorney serve a  woman in her bedroom, after his client "left the door unlocked" to the house he wasn't supposed to have access to.  It gets much worse than what you had, but sorry for your troubles.
 

It's been almost 3 years, why are you white knighting for your ex?

I think you're misinterpreting my motive- I'm certainly not trying to stand up for that soulless person.  Rather I was inquiring about calling her attorney out for dragging this simple divorce out for so long, but I've decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

Don't bother giving this matter any more thought and just let it go.

Filing a bar complaint with the Florida Bar will be a waste of your time and effort in this matter.


If you had any legally valid complaints with your ex's attorney, then your attorney could have filed a 57.105 motion for sanctions against the other attorney.


Now if you actually file a complaint, an attorney from the bar will contact the ex's attorney to get their side of the story.  He will offer up that all actions taken will be at your ex's insistence and mention why he believed her version of the story.  Then the bar's attorney will promptly close the file and that will be the end of the matter.


If for some reason, your ex's attorney fails to respond to the initial request for more information, then an investigator will look into the matter and likely close the file, especially since complaints of "he done me wrong" from "the ex husband who got screwed over by a divorce attorney" are not going to be taken too seriously.


Should things somehow get this far due to that attorney's failure to respond and the investigator finds a history of this sort of complaint and doesn't deem the matter to be minor, which can be sent to diversion, then it gets referred to a grievance committee to determine if there is grounds to prosecute the matter.


Best case scenario, the bar finds the ex's attorney guilty of something but unless he was stealing client funds from the trust account or another major bar violation, he is most likely geting a "public admonishment" (meaning 2 sentences about what he did gets published in the bar newsletter) and has to pay a fine of $1,500ish.


My advice, let it go and try to choose more wisely next time.

Thanks for the detailed response- seems like you are rather familiar with this subject.   I've already decided to just let this be and be happy with the "victory".  

 

So far I've not had any bar complaints, which I attribute mostly to being selective about my clients and dealing promptly with client problems.


However I have a lot of other attorney friends who are not as careful so I've seen a lot of them get bar complaints so I've see how it plays out.


Please note, I am not saying that the Florida Bar does not take bar complaints seriously.  Rather, I'm saying that in your case that an ex complaining about his former wife's divorce attorney's zealousness is not going to do much.  

Understood.  Thanks for your insight.  I'm sure "being in the business" you understand that the system unfortunately allows unscrupulous people to unnecessarily drag out litigation, in the process bringing everyone along for the ride.  I suppose it's just the way things are, but Florida Divorce Law is rather clear and the things that were being sought from the other side had no basis in case law whatsoever.  Like I said earlier in this thread, this divorce certainly did not have any moving parts that required 2.5 years of litigation followed by three full days of trial.  And judging by the final ruling, the judge tends to agree.   I was just surprised that her attorney rode that train all the way to trial and presented what amounted to a house of cards in court, and figured that meant he is either incompetent or unscrupulous.  

Thanks again for the perspective- it's always good to hear it from someone in the know.  

so you won and you're complaining because the win took too long to get?
be glad you won and let her deal with the fallout of her poor legal antics.

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The remedy available to an opposing party for unnecessarily dragging out litigation is sanctions against the attorney and/or client, awarded by the judge for the case in which the offensive actions take place, not filing a bar complaint.  A bar complaint would only be useful by the client of the attorney proceeding in unwarranted litigation.


This is addressed in Florida Statute 57.105, which I have linked to and quoted below.


The way it works is your attorney drafts a motion for sanctions against the other side for an unsupported claim and sends it to the other side, giving them 21 days to remedy the situation.  If it isn't fixed by then you file the motion with the court and the judge decides.  


In my experience sanctions are rarely awarded because if the claim is really without evidence the other side withdraws it and if they don't because they have some evidence and you go to the judge, they typically find the claim was supported enough to make (regardless if the claim succeeds at trial).


I have prevailed on getting sanctions awarded against opposing counsel before but it is not common as the vast majority of the time the matter ends after serving the sanctions motion.

Thanks for the info.   At this point, all that's left is the hearing for attorney's fees that we've requested and my attorney believes this is going to go in my favor as well due to the outcome of the case in comparison to settlement offers I made along the way.   Basically, the final judgment ended up worse off for her than what I offered multiple times throughout the pendency of this litigation.  Each and every time we sent the offer over, the response was simply "the wife declines the settlement offer" and no counteroffer was ever proposed by them- ever.  Two mediation attempts were also fruitless.  

I meant that her lawyer charged her a reasonable amount and she exaggerated the amount to make it sound like you're the bad guy because she had to spend so much money on her divorce lawyer. If she's as much of a psycho as you say, it wouldn't surprise me if she paid the same amount as you did and convinced herself that $10,000 actually cost her $60,000.

I'd believe shed pull some stunt like that, but we actually got the attorney's billing statements during discovery.   The $60k is legit.  

Sounds like your ex's attorney already "sanctioned" her.  Good luck getting your attorney fees covered.

 
If you get awarded attorney's fees, make sure the order is clear that the fees are in the nature of domestic support obligations to prevent the fees from being discharged in bankruptcy (as a lot of divorces often end in bankruptcy).

As one who went through a similar scenario, and currently kicking ass in Round 2 which she started, the answer- as already answered- is NO you won't get anywhere.

It is a sad state of the law.   Any accusation can be made, and you have to respond, and that costs you.   My ex twice tried to get an RO, both times without legal merit in the request, and I had to get an attorney to point that out because the judge no doubt wouldn't have bothered to note that it had no legal merit.

My ex was also given a free lawyer by the judge because she showed almost no income.   When she admitted to $80k of undeclared income, you'd "think" the judge would strip away the free lawyer and refer it for prosecution by the tax and welfare auditors...but no, he did nothing.

So eat it up and move on.

10-4.  Thanks for sharing your experience.

There is an entire documentary on Netflix about the "racket" that is divorce court and how it is setup to basically line the pockets of the lawyers and drain the assets of the divorcing couple by pitting them against one another in a "fight to the death". Of course this is "known" but watching the documentary is jaw-dropping revealing as to just how serious the problem is in some areas...

To that account I'm certain that I will never grace the doors of a divorce court. Marriage takes a LOT of work; the vast majority of people today do NOT know how to be married and how to fulfill the needs of their spouse. My spouse and I have taken advantage of every opportunity we can to learn to be better spouses and to selflessly fulfill the needs of the other and it is working great for us...

 
I don't know that I'd call divorce court a racket but I do believe it works out that way.  That is because all you need is one pissed off party and the fighting continues until their money runs out.


That is how my divorce went... she was pissed off and had her lawyer fight until she could no longer afford to pay him then we settled.

Interesting topic on that documentary.  Kudos to you and the Mrs. on being mindful of being great spouses to each other, and best of luck to you.  Although this divorce has not made me a complete cynic, it has opened my eyes to how someone that you think you know can completely transform before your eyes into an unrecognizable, vengeful monster.  One of my friends recently told me that I was the only guy he knew that was genuinely and completely supportive of his wife and her goals, pointing out that among his circle I was the only husband not shit-talking his wife any chance he could.  He said that once he saw what was done to me by that "person" that the little faith he had in women in general went out the window.  This one hit midlife and perhaps the initial stages of "The Change" and went full psycho.