If you and your spouse are filing for divorce in Michigan, you will have to go through a process of divorce discovery. According to FindLaw, this is a process in which you and your spouse will exchange information documenting your respective personal and financial situations. The discovery process can be formal or informal, but in either case, the court uses the information to make fair decisions in regard to child support, property division and other issues that arise during the divorce process.
The most important thing to remember about the discovery process is that you must tell the truth. It will only hurt your case if you get caught saying or doing something dishonest. In order to help your attorney represent you to the best of his or her abilities, be sure that you are forthright in telling him or her what the discovery process is likely to uncover; even if it is embarrassing, it is likely to come out sooner or later in the discovery process anyway.
During the divorce discovery process, you may have to give a deposition, a sworn statement transcribed by a court reporter in response to an attorney’s question. The most important things to remember when giving a deposition are to stick to the facts and not to voluntarily offer any additional information.
Most divorce discovery takes place via the process of requests for document production. Through your attorneys, you and your spouse will each make these requests of one another and produce any documents related to the divorce, which all parties will be able to access in most cases.
In order to make a fair ruling in your divorce case, the court may require additional information and often obtains this information through interrogatories. Interrogatories may be broad or specific. A special interrogatory consists of questions specific to your case, but an interrogatory may also consist entirely of a form of pre-printed questions that you must fill out. You may be able to object to a question if you feel that it is too difficult to understand or otherwise unfair.
The information in this article is not intended as legal advice but provided for educational purposes only.