Divorcio

Glossary

• Agent: one who is authorized to act for or in place of another; a representative
• Attorney:
- strictly, sb who is designated to transact business for another; a legal agent. Also termed attorney-in-fact; private attorney.
- A person who practices the law, a lawyer. Also termed in this sense attorney-at-law; public attorney.
• Attorney ad litem: a courtappointed lawyer who represents a child during the curse of a legal action, such as a divorce, termination, or child-abuse case. The attorney owes to the child the duties of loyalty, confidentiality, and competent representation. The appointment of an attorney ad litem is a limited one – only for a specific law-suit. Also termed child’s attorney; attorney for the child.
• Attorney not of record: alawyer who is not recognized as a party’s legal representative.
• Attorney of record: the lawyer who appears for a party in a lawsuit and who is entitled to receive, on the party’s behalf, all pleadings and other formal documents from the court and from other parties. The lawyer remains the attorney of record until some other attorney or the client substitutes for him/her, he/she is allowedby the court to withdraw, or after the case is closed. Sometimes lawyers find themselves still on the record in a case (such as divorces) which they believe have long since been completed. Also termed counsel of record.
• Cause of action:
- a group of operative facts giving rise to one or more bases for suing; a factual situation that entitles one person to obtain a remedy in court fromanother person; claim.
- A legal theory of lawsuit. Also termed, in both senses, ground of action.
- Loosely, a lawsuit
• Claim:
- the aggregate of operative facts giving rise to a right enforceable by a court. Also termed claim for relief
- the assertion of an existing right; any right to payment or to equitable remedy, even if contingent or provisional
- a demandfor money, property, or a legal remedy to which one asserts a right; especially, the part of a complaint in a civil action specifying what relief the plaintiff asks for.
• Clerk:
- a public official whose duties include keeping records or accounts
- a court officer responsible for filing papers, issuing process, and keeping records of court proceedings as generally specified by ruleof statute
- an employee who performs general office work
- a law student or judge with legal research, writing, and other tasks.
• Conclusion of fact: a factual deduction drawn from observed or proven facts; an evidentiary inference.
• Conclusion of law: an inference on a question of law, made as a result of a factual showing, no further evidence being required; a legalinference.
• Counsel: one or more lawyers who represent a client. In the singular, also termed counsellor; counsellor-at-law.
• Cruelty: the intentional and malicious infliction of mental or physical suffering on a living creature, especially a human; abusive treatment; outrage.
- extreme cruelty: as a ground for divorce, one spouse’s physical violence toward the other spouse, or conductthat destroys or severely impairs the other spouse’s mental health. Also termed cruel and inhumane treatment.
- Legal cruelty: cruelty that will justify granting a divorce to the injured party; specifically, conduct by one spouse that endangers the life, person, or health of the other spouse, or creates a reasonable apprehension of bodily or mental harm.
• Depose:
- to examine (awitness in deposition)
- to testify; to bear witness
• deposition:
- a witness’s out-of-court testimony that is reduced to writing (usually by a court reporter) for later use in court or for discovery purposes
- the session at which such testimony is recorded
- the written record of a witness’s out-of-court testimony
• divorce decree: a final judgment in a suit for...