California
I am on the verge of filing for mediation and a hearing about relocating from San Francisco to Sacramento. I have an 11 year old son with my ex wife, we have been divorced for 8 years and ever since we separated our son has lived with me from Sunday to Friday. She has never been very reliable as far as picking him up, and lives in a studio apartment with no kitchen (she has a mini fridge, microwave, electric skillet, and a toaster oven that I let my son take from my house so he could cook chicken nuggets) no bathroom (there is a shower in the unit, butto get to the toilet they have to go through a janitors closet and into the business at the front of the building) and they sleep on mattresses on the floor.
I messaged her several weeks ago telling her that I needed to relocate, and gave her the reasons why (financial reasons mostly), her response was that we were going to have to “negotiate”. A couple of days later she messaged me with some very specific questions about how much I was expecting to pay for rent, what kind of job I would have, and how much I would be making, I gave her very non specific answers as I felt her questions were a little intrusive and not relevant to her custody after the move. I then messaged her with a proposed pick up/drop off schedule, complete with halfway meeting locations, drive times and distances, public transportation schedules and cost, and an updated vacation plan, with a breakdown of her current hours per year and the hours per year that she would get with my proposal, which was a difference of 33 hours per YEAR. Her response was that she needed time to come up with a counter offer, and when I asked what she did not agree with she said she wasn’t sure.
So now I’m getting everything ready to file for a court order to grant me permission to move because I feel like she is just trying to disagree for the sake of disagreeing. Now for my question: since she works at a law office, one could reasonably assume that she is getting counseled by either her employer or another attorney in the building, yet when she goes to court she does not claim to be represented by anyone, can she do that? Can she work with a lawyer all the way up to the point of standing in a courtroom and claim to be representing herself? How can I keep from getting railroaded in that situation?
thanks everybody!