| You can fire your attorney and you can get back whatever remains of unearned attorney's fees from your retainer together with an itemized statement of the earned fees.
You get too excited. Divorce petitions are just that--petitions. What is not requested in the petition cannot be gotten. But one can give up everything regardless of what they asked for in the petition. It is the decree or order which decides who gets what. So you are jumping the gun. After the requisite time period has lapsed so that it is time to draft the final decree, your attorney needs to get you to come into the office and have you sign off on a statement that he has advised you of your rights in the marital property, including equities in real property, retirement accounts, etc. and that you have advised him that you do not wish to pursue any of those. This is to protect him from a malpractice case because clients who "all they want is out of the marriage," have a way of coming back to haunt their attorney a few years down the road when passion has cooled and reason has returned. That's when they start looking for someone to blame as to why they have nothing out of the marriage and that blame falls on their attorney. So when he gets your message, if he has much experience in family law, he will probable be more than willing to accommodate you in filing either a motion to withdraw as attorney of record or a motion for substitution of counsel, whichever you would prefer. |