Tom Padgett claims that he was subjected to harassive litigation by the attorneys for his wife, while he pretends was hardly able to defend himself.

How many lawyers did Tom Padgett have? Many, many more lawyers than his wife did.

During the decade-long span of his case, he had at least 9 attorneys who entered and left while, his wife had only two: MIchael Hallyburton (for about 5 years) and William Whitledge.

From the 2001 deposition, Laura's attorney questions Tom Padgett about his attorneys

(We've dealt with Tom Padgett's claims of bias in the Hopkins Circuit Court, so his claims ring hollow.)

Let's look at the attorneys Padgett had just during the first five years of litigation -- while Laura's sole attorney in the divorce proceeding was Michael Hallyburton.

1) Lora Philpot Lewis of Lexington was his first attorney and stayed with him through this period, usually practicing with other attorneys also working for Tom Padgett.

2) Tom Turner was the first co-counsel with Lewis. He lasted a couple months with Padgett before dropping out November 12, 1992. Padgett then stiffed him for his fee and Turner had to sue Padgett to recover the money he owed.

(Despite Padgett's later claims that small-town bias against him kept him from getting an attorney, one suspects that the legal community would be wary of a client so deadbeat that he had to be sued to pay for a lawyer's services in an ongoing case. Not to mention Padgett's unorthodox -- to put it politely -- conception of court rules and Judge's orders.)

3) Steve Robey entered on Padgett's behalf 1/11/93 and withdrew on 3/15/93 -- two whole months.

4) In March 1994 Ed Dove signed on and lasted a year, withdrawing on 3/9/95.

5) Shortly thereafter, Padgett signed up Robert Ristaneo, who moved to withdraw in June 1995. What was his reason? Harassment? Not by the opponent, but more likely by his own client. His Motion to withdraw cites as the reason "The undersigned states that he and Mr. Padgett have serious and significant differences of opinion as to how to proceed and that those differences are irreconcilable."

6 and 7) Milton Tobey and Karen Perch withdrew in May of 1996. The Motion to Withdraw which they signed remarks that "the undersigned counsel state that irreconcilable differences have arisen over the manner of representation in the above action."

So, during just the first five years of litigation, Tom Padgett churned through at least seven attorneys, and at least three of them (Ristaneo, Tobey and Perch) withdrew because of what he attempted to have them do in his case.

During this time, Padgett was sometimes represented in court by several attorneys simultaneously, while Laura sat at a table with her sole divorce attorney during this period, Michael Hallyburton.

And the money he was spending on his lawyers was money he could have given to his children.

Padgett claims that he was faced with Scientology-like litigation. Anyone who has observed Scientology in trial knows that they generally use more lawyers at a time, and often go through more lawyers in a case, than their opponents.

So now we know who the real "Scientology-like" litigator was in this case. It was Tom Padgett.

Another example of the harassive litigation that Padgett engaged in is the lawsuit filed against Laura in 1992 in Florida by Padgett's mother Shirley, with the initial lawyer fees paid for by Tom.