Who will sign the petition papers

I would like to seek your expert advise on who will sign on the petition papers. Is it the petitioners or our lawyer/counsel.

We have some concerns about the petition paper. Our lawyer/counsel is preparing/drafting a petition for the legitimation of our daughter. In the petition papers, he put our names (my wife - in my behalf, and my daughter)and therefore, we should sign the papers when done.

But, since we engaged him as our lawyer/counsel to the case, we believe that his name should appear as counsel on the petition paper, and that he would sign the same as such, since he is the one representing us (petitioners) in the present case. We told him about it and below his reply.

"Under the Rules of Court, parties should sign the pleadings and verification. The counsel only signs if it is impracticable or impossible for his client to sign, or that the client is a corporation. Counsels enter their appearance in the course of the proceedings by way of an entry of appearance, usually when we file a motion for publication".

Please enlighten us.

Salamat po

petition for legitimation??

do you mean you and you husband had a child before getting married? the child's birth certificate was marked as illegitimate?

pleadings can be signed by counsel, plaintiffs/petitioners sign the verification and cert of non forum shopping.

Attorney, thank you po sa reply nyo sa first message ko.

For your info.. lalake po ako, sorry po.

It's like this Attorney. Nagka anak po kami ng babae ng present wife ko before my first marriage was annulled in 1994. My daughter was born in May 1991. I married my present wife in May 1996.

Wanting our daughter the status of a legitimate child, we executed a Joint Affidavit of Legitimation dated August 1996, and caused it to be attached to and annotated in our daughters Certificate of Live Birth and the City’s Register of Births.

On February 2009, we requested for a National Statistics Office (“NSO”) copy of our daughters Certificate of Live Birth. However, said office informed us that the legitimation of our daughter could not be processed as at the time of her birth (May 1991), I was not yet annulled (the Decision was rendered only on November 1994).

Now, we would like to cancel the Joint Affidavit of Legitimation dated 8 August 1996 and its annotation in our daughters Certificate of Live Birth and City’s Register of Births--so the latter can be issued a NSO copy of her birth certificate.

We have engaged the services of a lawyer, which he prepared a draft of the Petition. However, we noticed that there is no lawyer appearing as our counsel and the petition is directly signed by the petitioners and not through our supposed counsel. Under the draft, it seems that we are not being represented by a lawyer, which is obvious in his opening paragraph which refers to "petitioners" only and not "petitioners, through counsel". We brought this to his attention and his reply was mentioned in my first e-mail.

Please advise, if we should sign the petition papers if our lawyer do insist that we should sign it. Also, when filing the petition papers who should submit it to the court. Is it the lawyer who is representing us or the petitioner because the lawyers name is not appearing in the petition paper.

Attorney, as a matter of urgency we will appreciate receiving your advise at the earliest time possible as the petition papers is being finalized without mentioning the name of our lawyer/counsel.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Flor

as a precautionary measure, please check if the name of your lawyer appears on the roll of attorneys. see this thread: http://www.pinoylawyer.org/t7293-legit-lawyer

There is nothing wrong if you will sign the petition yourself, but I find it irregular for a lawyer to avoid putting his own details. we tend to like stamping our names.

does it mean that the nso will not issue a birth certificate even if if it is not stamped legitimated? i would think they will still issue one, but not the same one as that in the records of the LCR

Thank you for your reply Attorney.

We were able to get po from NSO a copy of the birth certificate of our daughter. But then the family name indicated in the certificate is the family name of my wife instead of my family name. NSO does not honor the annotation in the birth certificate issued by the LCR – for the reason my first marriage still not void when my daughter was born.

My daughter is already using my family name since nag schooling po cya, from nursery until college, in her SSS, sa mga On Job Trainings nya and other documents and even in land title.

Attorney, we have checked in the above mentioned link the name of our lawyer. But his name is not mentioned there. Is there a way we can check his name in the list of lawyers in the Philippines.

the official list is here: http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/lawlist.php

So you already have an NSO issued birth certificate. Is your objective to have a birth certificate where she can use your last name? the petition is for a change of name or for correction of entries?