Legal Writing

PREPARATION OF A LEGAL OPINION

FACTS:

Felice Mercado went to your law office for a consultation and to seek for a legal opinion. Felice
Mercado is 41 years old and married to Justin Mercado. The couple’s union resulted to three (3)
children namely: Clint (2 years old), Raymond (6 years old), and Marisse (10 years old). The
couple’s conjugal abode is in a house in Greenswater Subdivision, Talamban, Cebu City. The
couple owns two cars as well. The couple got married on May 25, 2005.

Felice is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) but she has not been working for years
already since she first gave birth to take care of the children. Justin is a bank manager who is the
primary breadwinner in the family.

Felice relayed to you that the for months now she has been noticing that her husband is
acting in a strange way. He is always busy with work. When asked why he is suddenly so busy,
Justin told Felice that he is eyeing a promotion in the bank. His long hours at work worsened and
it came to a point when Justin would only come home to change clothes and then go back to work
again.

One day, while Felice was going over the laundry of her husband, she noticed a piece of
paper tucked inside the front pocket of his polo. She read it and discovered that it was a receipt
for a hotel. At the lower bottom of the receipt there is a list of the guests indicated and two names
appeared: Justin Mercado and Catriona Gomez. She recognized the names as that of her husband
and a teller in the bank branch he is managing. She confronted her husband about her discovery
and her husband admitted that he is seeing Catriona Gomez and had intimate relations with her.
Although heartbroken, Felice chose to overlook what she discovered and the subsequent
confession of her husband, all for the sake of love and family unity. She was scared of what would
happen.

Despite the sacrificial move of Felice, her husband continued his philandering ways.
Eventually he left the conjugal home and moved in with Catriona Gomez in an apartment he is
renting. Further, Justin only sent measly sums to Felice to cover the support of the children. The
amounts would not even cover the costs of maintaining the household. After weeks of enduring
the heartbreak and the new situation, Felice then decided to take some legal action. Felice is
considering the filing of a civil and/or criminal case against her husband. She wants to know what
options she has, given the circumstances she cited. She also wants to know how she can get the
support she needs right now as she is out of work and cannot keep up with the financial needs of
her three children.

Please draft a concise and comprehensive legal opinion for Felice Mercado, applying the
legal knowledge that you have to the facts she narrated. You may use whatever legal references
that you can find but please make the proper citations for the sources. Please place your printed
legal opinion in a long bond paper. If possible, use recycled/scratch paper. You can choose your
own font style, but use the font size 11. Submit your legal opinion on or before December 21,
2018, 6:00 p.m., in the law office.