Inform Your Attorney as Soon as Possible

Video Transcribed: My name is Brian L. Jackson, and I’m a Tulsa Father’s rights attorney. And today we’re going to talk about what you should do if you find yourself unable to make a court date. And I’m going to kind of talk about two separate scenarios.

First is going to be, what you should do if you find yourself unable to make a court date and you have advance notice, and what you should do if you don’t have advance notice.

So we’ll talk about advance notice first. If you do have advance notice, obviously if you’re represented by an attorney, you need to tell your attorney as soon as you possibly can that you can’t make the date and the reason why.

And I will caution you up front that not all reasons are made equally, and also your attorney is going to have to take into account the nature of the court date, and the nature of the reason when you can’t be there, and the way the case has progressed.

If there’s been a bunch of continuances and it keeps getting put off, and put off, and put off, it’s going to be kind of increasingly difficult to get a continuance. And obviously, if you’re set for like a contested hearing or a trial, and you call and say… You call your attorney, I don’t care if it’s two months in advance and say, “Hey, I can’t make it that day, because I think I’m going to go get drunk,” or some other real silly reason, then that’s not going to fly.

Then it’s got to be a good reason. Good reasons would be like a medical emergency, something like that. But that being said, if you need to… If there’s a good lead time between the court date and when you are planning to go get you to need the continuance, it’s usually doable.

Now, what about the last-minute? Let’s say, heaven forbid, that your car breaks down on the way to court, and you know you’re not going to make it. Well, number one, get on the phone with your attorney immediately. And if you don’t get an answer, then you want to make sure if you have a cell phone number for them, you want to text them. If you don’t have a cell phone number for them, call their office, have them text them. They need to know immediately that you won’t be there.

Also, and again this goes without saying, better be a good reason, especially if it’s a last-minute deal. I overslept is not an excuse. I mean, they might be able to tap dance and buy you some time, but you don’t want to be in that situation, to begin with. It looks bad, it looks like you don’t care.

The key fact in both these situations is, call your attorney immediately. Do not screw around. If you need time, you need time, but you better let us know. You need to let us know because the last thing you want to have is a situation where your attorney is sitting in court and the judge says, “Where’s your client?” And the attorney’s forced to say, “I have no idea.” I mean, if it’s family court, you could get defaulted. If it’s criminal court, you can get a warrant.

The bottom line rule is, call your attorney if you can’t make it to court. And have a good reason, don’t just decide you don’t feel like going. My name is Brian L. Jackson. I’m an Oklahoma father’s rights attorney, and we’ve been talking about what to do if you can’t make a court date. And I’m a Tulsa Father’s Rights attorney. It’s been a pleasure, guys.