Scrivener's Error

North Carolina Divorce Law Divorce and Separation Answers
1

Quick question:

If you (Erin) were someone’s attorney, and you drew up dissolution papers, and the judge specifically mentioned putting the child support verbiage in it, and you did not amend the dissolution papers prior to the judge signing them, and now CSE needs an amended dissolution, would you charge your client for the time it takes you to fix your own error? (No, you did not actually do this, MY attorney did this, and now I’m being billed for her to fix her mistake…and I don’t think that’s right…she should have fixed it in the 10 days before the judge signed it, so that it was all signed correctly the first time, and she didn’t. It would have taken her 5 minutes to add the verbiage, and now I’m being billed for considerably more, just to fix one thing that 1. she should have already done, and 2. I could have done on my own, except for being represented, they won’t allow me to do this on my own).

And, my attorney was the “scrivener” here…no paralegal or secretary to take the blame…all on her.

Thanks!

2

No, I would not charge a client to amend an order in this instance.

3

Okay, thanks…that’s what I thought. She’s saying that she thought that the judge or the clerk would have amended the order. I’ve never heard of the judge typing up or amending any order…even when I was pro se before, I had to have the proposed order ready for the judge to sign, and the judge either signed it or didn’t.

I mentioned that she neglected to put it in the first time, and she basically said that she was not negligent here…I kinda beg to differ…she knew it was supposed to be in there, she knew she hadn’t put it in there, and she didn’t bother fixing it when it would have been easier.

I’m just happy that once this is done, the case should be done, and I shouldn’t need anything else from her…