Change of advocate in maintenance case.

You can ask your previous lawyer to give it back to you or in case he/she refuse to do so, you can apply for the certified copy of the whole file, in that you will get whole documents along with with orders of the court

Thanks,

Regards,

Aman Chawla

Yes. You have the right to fight your own cases without engaging any advocate. It is not necessary that you must engage an advocate to fight your case in a court. A party in person is allowed to fight his own case in the court.

According to Order 3 Rule 1 of the Code, “any appearance, application or act in or to any Court, required or authorized by law to be made or done by a party in such Court, may, except where otherwise expressly provided by any law for the time being in force, be made or done by the party in person, or by his recognized agent, or by a pleader appearing, applying or acting, as the case may be, on his behalf:

Provide that any such appearance shall, if the Court so directs, be made by the party in person.”

Section 32 of the Advocate’s Act clearly mentions, the court may allow any person to appear before it even if he is not an advocate. Therefore, one gets the statutory right to defend one’s own case through Advocate Act in India.

And moreover Section 13 of the Family Court act 1988 empowers the Court to permit the parties to fight thier own cases

But it’s not advisable, as you may defeat your own case due to technical grounds which only Advocate is aware about and remember one thing learning the court ethics and mannerism is also difficult as these are not learned overnight.

Thanks,

Regards,

Aman Chawla

Yes, you can engage a new advocate.  Proper course of action is to take no objection from previous lawyer.  If he refuses to give no objection, then also you can engage a new advocate.  He will apply and get a certified copy of the petition.

Yes. You can replace your lawyer if you have lost faith or confidence in your lawyer to represent you, you have the right to change counsel. Ideally, it would be good to speak with your lawyer about what is making you unhappy or uncomfortable and give that lawyer the chance to fix the problem. If you cannot resolve your issue(s) with your lawyer, you have the right to fire that lawyer and replace them.However, firing your lawyer and hiring a replacement does carry with it certain consequences.

First, the lawyer that you fire is likely entitled to be paid for work already done. If you are current with your payments this may not be an issue. If not, you will need to finalize what the lawyer is owed pursuant to your retainer agreement and make those payments.

However, if your lawyer had been working on a contingency or percentage fee basis, you may be required to pay the lawyer’s hourly rate for time already spent on your case, plus any costs and expenses to date.There are also sometimes additional costs connected with hiring a new lawyer. If you hire a new lawyer in the middle of a case, that lawyer will need to get up to speed on the case and that will likely cost you some more time and/or money.

In some cases, you may not be able to switch lawyers depending on how far along your case is already. Judges have the discretion to keep a lawyer on the case if the case is too far along in the court process to have a new person be able to step in and take over.Firing a lawyer is your right but it can be costly in both time and money and is often a last resort when things between just can’t be resolved.