Thursday, April 16, 2009

Yesterday's challenge, today's accomplishment

This is a follow-up to yesterday's Blog.

Among the things that I did yesterday, in my efforts to get records from the life insurance company reflecting whether or not the estranged wife had changed her life insurance beneficiary in violation of the ATROs (I didn't include ALL of my efforts in yesterday's blog) was - I went into the life insurance company's website and clicked into its "Contact Us" button and sent an e-mail advising that I'm a Los Angeles Family Law Attorney handling a divorce case, and I requested contact information to enable me to serve and speak to the Custodian of Records of the company. I realized that the "contact us" button was put there for customers, applicants, beneficiaries, and perhaps potential agents, so I didn't put all my stock into receiving a response.

Today, much to my surprise and pleasure, I received an e-mail from the Custodian of Records of the life insurance company, identifying herself, providing her telephone number, FAX number, address, etc., inviting me to FAX the Subpoena to her. I tried to reach her on the telephone to propose that I e-mail the Subpoena as an attachment, but she was un-reachable, so I merely e-mailed the Subpoena to her, and I subsequently received an e-mail from her advising me that she accepted the e-mailed Subpoena, that she was sending me the signed Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt of service, and that she would be producing the records, shortly.

What appeared would take well over a month to accomplish is falling into my lap because I didn't put all my eggs in one basket. Not only did I mail the Subpoenas to the company and agent yesterday, which would have resulted in a month's delay in my receipt of the records, but I made a longshot request via the company's "Contact Us" button, and I hit paydirt in a day!

Subsequently, I received a call from the California Agent who sold policies for the company to advise me that he had received the Subpoena, but that he wasn't the wife's agent as far as he knew. I related to him the success that I had achieved through my website inquiry, so I wouldn't need to get the records through him, and he then graciously offered to assist me in any way possible through his contacts with the life insurance company.

Tenacity and creativity paid off and I'm far closer to the finish line as a result of not having been discouraged from making parallel efforts, even though the website option seemed to be a longshot. A diligent attorney employs appropriate backup plans to ensure success.

Written by Certified Family Law Specialist DONALD F. CONVISER, of Warner Center Law Offices, a Divorce Attorney with over 35 years of Family Law experience, serving clients throughout Los Angeles County and Ventura County in all aspects of family law.

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