I was in the middle of a blog post about something sort of negative, when I was interrupted by a phone call that changed my entire afternoon. I’m going to go home to blog about it when laundry’s going, but I’ll set up the preface right now.

Yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from a clerk downstairs who sets up divorce cases and assigns them to different courtrooms. The divorces that don’t require court hearings (for example, if both sides have signed a marital settlement agreement and there’s nothing in dispute) can be processed by clerks who don’t work in family law, like me. I review the files and paperwork for procedural requirements, and if they’re okay, I send them on to my judge, who will look them over a final time and then sign off on them. Then I do the processing to get these people divorced. So anyway, yesterday the clerk who assigns these cases to us calls me and says that there’s an attorney here who wants his case rushed, and she’s been calling different courtrooms to see if she could get a hold of someone who’s willing to rush a divorce case for him. The petitioner (male) has a brain tumor and wants his divorce finalized as soon as possible, and his wife is not fighting the divorce. I said that’s fine, go ahead and assign the case to me and put it in my mail bin. I made a wry joke about how I’d feel if my husband’s dying wish is to be divorced from me. I wouldn’t contest it, either. (Except that as a widower, I’d legally get all his stuff as opposed to only the stuff we agree on for the divorce.) I got the file today, but because of various other things going on in this courtroom, I didn’t get around to looking at it. I did the more pertinent things first, such as the orders the judge (who is not my own judge; my judge is on vacation) wants processed and mailed out, and tending to the hearings we had in open court today.

Around 3:30pm, I get a call from that divorce clerk again. She asked, “Cindy, did you get a chance to look at that file we talked about yesterday?” I said not yet, I was about to get to it. It was literally on my desk in front of me as the next thing I was about to do. The judge had left for the day already, but I was going to review it and if it’s good, have the judge sign it tomorrow morning. The clerk said that the attorney is there in front of her right then. His client may not hold on much longer; he’s in the hospital and fading fast. I didn’t know it was that much of an emergency situation!

To be continued when I get home… and I’ll tell the story behind this sad case.