Consultations with Attorneys and Judges
Thank you for the confidence demonstrated by your request for assistance.
Dawn sets aside time to provide brief free technical assistance to attorneys. Dawn also offers paid consultations and Petition drafting for Tennessee attorneys.
Judges may always call directly and anytime at 865.933.8173. The judge is responsible for compliance with the Rules of the Tennessee Supreme Court 10, RJC 2.9 (A)(2) on consulting disinterested experts.
Technical Assistance for Attorneys
Brief, Free Assistance
Ms. Coppock assists colleagues with simple questions for free. There is a large volume of requests. These requests prompted her to write a law book with the answers. If, after reviewing Coppock on Tennessee Adoption Law, 8th Edition, Tennessee attorneys still have questions, free technical assistance requested here is offered as a service to colleagues.
Free technical questions are asked and answered electronically. Assistance is limited to specific questions that are posed in hypothetical form and without identifying information or facts that could create a conflict should Dawn represent or come to represent a party in the case. Advice by phone is not free. The colleague assistance intake form is provided below.
To maintain quality standards for Dawn’s clients, client matters are attended to first, so response times will vary.
If you are an attorney with a question about adoption law and your question is too involved for Dawn to read and answer in 5 minutes, you may hire Dawn to consult on your case. There is a one-hour minimum for paid consults. See details below.
If you are working on a case pro-bono, please indicate that in any message. Pro-bono attorneys go to the top of the colleague assistance pile. Thank you for your service to the public and to the bar.
Paid Consultations
For matters that require more than 5 minutes, paid consultations are available. For paid consultations, a conflict check will be conducted prior to the call or meeting and prepayment for one hour is required. Time reviewing pleadings, research, and other materials in advance of a call is considered part of the time of a consultation. The hourly rate for consulting with attorneys, with or without clients, is $450.
These may be as limited or as involved as needed and as Dawn has time available. For those who want Dawn to ‘walk me through” their first independent, interstate, or contested adoption, for example, a paid consultation is the way to go. Other common consultation topics are whether a case is viable before it is filed, trial preparedness or strategy, settlement options, how to convert a case from contested to a voluntary consent, how to best prove a particular ground, or whether a decision should be appealed and if so help outlining the appellate brief.
Petition First Draft Service
Ideally, the initial petition establishes a strategic plan toward the ultimate goal of termination of parental rights and adoption.
Attorneys often ask Dawn to review their initial petitions before (or after) filing. A better approach is to bring Dawn into the initial strategic thinking and let her prepare the first draft of the initial petition. Drafting is faster than searching for omissions and revising an existing petition. This approach allows Dawn to work with the attorney and clients to come up with a strategic plan, to anticipate issues, and get off to a good start. Additional consultations post-petition are available also, but often attorneys proceed with confidence and without additional assistance after using the first draft service.
The first draft service process begins after a conflict check. Dawn provides a data sheet to collect basic case information for the lawyer to complete, then Dawn reviews the datasheet, talks with the lawyer, prepares a first draft of the petition, and sends it to the lawyer. Follow-up calls and revisions are also available. The lawyer is responsible for reviewing the petition with the client for accuracy before it is signed and filed.
This service is offered on the same terms as other consultations, hourly at $450 per hour with a one-hour minimum. As a rough estimate, drafting a simple petition without termination of parental rights can normally be accomplished in under 2-3 hours, depending on the time spent talking with the lawyer about larger case planning issues.
Information about consultations with non-lawyers is found here.
Adoption Law Resources and Services for Attorneys, Judges and Courts
Consult with Dawn
Time is set aside almost every week to provide consulting assistance. You may use the form below to email your question or to schedule an appointment.