By Erik Charlton from Menlo Park, USA (Ice climbing on Mt. Rainier) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Sorry folks, that post I was going to write two weeks ago is still in draft form. Serious posts like that one take a lot of time and mental effort to compose, and well, at the end of the work day, I just haven't had the strength. The Trenches is like that sometimes. Most people, including many of our clients, think that being a family law attorney is just a job. Many lawyers think family law attorneys don't practice "real" law, because we deal so much with emotions and family dynamics. Those of us in the Trenches know differently.
This week, another attorney and I were on the phone, going back and forth until I had to get my beauty sleep at 10:00pm, and then were back on email and the phone starting at 6:00am. In between, we had lengthy conversations with our clients. All of this so we could finalize an agreement that would allow my client to buy the house he wanted on the very next day. Another client, one of my pro bono by choice ones, came by to pick up a packet. We all started talking about what was happening in her life, and how hard it was to find a job. We brainstormed with her and gave her 3 solid leads of jobs we knew about. I helped another client get unstuck and settle her case so she could finally move forward. Yet another client called us multiple times every day because her anxiety causes her to think, rethink, and rethink again every aspect of her case and life. Yet another refused to answer our calls, so we called them multiple times to find out if they were OK. I had two meetings with lawyers in two different cases to see if we could narrow the issues and brainstorm a way to meet all of our clients' needs. Please throw in a few court hearings as well. By the end of the week, we were all wrung out and coming down with colds.
Here in the Trenches, we spend a lot of time worrying about our clients. We expend a lot of energy making sure they're OK now and in the future. We help them with their legal problems. We stay present with them in their pain. We help them find ways to move forward, whether it's by legal process, finding a job, getting affordable daycare, choosing a school, picking a therapist..... We blow off having lunch and dinner with friends so we can handle a client crisis (some of which the client could have avoided had they only listened to us). We spend the night before trial on the phone with the other attorney, trying to settle the case so our clients won't have to go to trial. We think about our clients on holidays and hope the exchange of the children went as expected; we dislike holidays because our clients usually have crises then. Our families and friends have to understand that's how we are and what we do.
How do we cope? Some of us don't; more and more people are leaving family law to do something else because it is just too hard. It is hard emotionally. It is hard intellectually, because you have to know something about everything. Some of us (and people you would never expect) cope by watching every cute animal video posted to Facebook. I'm a sucker for those "feel good" stories with a happy ending about how wonderful people are. Exercise is a great release: many of us run, bike, swim and do yoga. Some of us are fanatical about our gardens. All of our extra-curricular pursuits, it seems, are about seeing the positive in life and helping things grow and improve. In short, they are about the positive in life. Without them, none of us could do the work we do in the Trenches. Contrary to a belief held by many, this is a tough job and we do care - a lot, maybe too much. Here in the Trenches.
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