What would stop me from retaining the services of a lawyer? -

If my wife contacted a lawyer about our divorce and did not retain their services am I allowed to retain their services for myself in New York State?

You are allowed to retain counsel whenever and for what ever you chose...except if you are in Guantanamo or one of those secret holding places if you ve been accussed of being a terrorist. Then you get nothing.

Certainly. As long as you have money, and the lawyer is willing to represent you, it s fine.

I take it you mean the same lawyer your wife contacted. I don t see why not. For whatever reason, she did not retain that law firm s services, so no binding contract was made. But in your place, I d just do a little research and find a law firm, or particular attorney who appears to be well qualified in this branch of law. One wonders what the reason was your wife decided not to retain that particular law firm, or attorney. She may have only been wanting to have a consultation to get advice as to exactly what her position is. A lot of people do that initially, go away and think about it, and then make up their mind whether or not to go back to that same attorney and ask him/her to handle the whole case. If this is what your wife did, she may still go back later and contract that person s legal help, but my bet is the New York State yellow pages must be awash with divorce lawyers, so you shouldn t have a problem finding a different one.

500 AND HOUR.

You can contact the lawyer, but they should not take your case because they have already talked to your wife. The same thing happened to me, but in my case my ex called every lawyer in about a 100 mile radius of our home, I had to go outside of that area to get my lawyer (and pay his travel expenses to come to court)

You are asking about a conflict of interest in hiring that particular lawyer. Go to them and ask. The chances are that if they are ethical, they will refuse to handle your case. Client attorney privilege extends to the quot;interviewquot; process as well as to the paying customer. If they are not ethical and take you on as a client, if your case gets in front of a judge, it will not be in your favor.

The fees that will result if two lawyer get you two battling.

money