Divorce Corp - Part Two

Sometimes when I don't write for a few days, it is because there is nothing that strikes me that I want to share.  In the case of Divorce Corp, I have so many ideas swirling that I'm having trouble organizing them in my head, much less on paper.  I have no fewer than 4 blog posts begun on the topic. Then, as usually happens, inspiration struck this morning.

One of the premises of Divorce Corp is that divorce would be so much better if we simply got rid of the existing family law structure and adopted one just like Sweden.  Would it be great and preferable for the default method for resolving family disputes to be either mediation or collaborative law?  Absolutely.  That, however, is not what Mr. Sorge is advocating, and in fact, he edited out of his movie practically all references to the use of these methods in family law.  What he wants is to completely dismantle our present family law system and substitute the Swedish one in its place.  Here's what I have to say on the subject, in typical Life in the Trenches style.

As you all know, I am a runner.  I have had some trouble with my right knee during long runs, as it starts to hurt and then decide that bending is an optional action. Ouch!  I have tried taking Ibuprofen, with little result.  I have tried walking when it locks up until I can start running again.  That works, but still, I only do that after it has locked up once.  I found a series of exercises in Runner's World guaranteed to solve my problem.  I did them faithfully, and my knee locked up a mile or two after it used to do so.  Then I added stretching in the form of yoga, strength training for my both my upper and lower body and balance training on the Bosu ball (which I love to hate), plus I changed my stride and learned to notice when my knee was just thinking of hurting.  Oila!  15 miles without pain.  The Trenches learning point here is that any one or combination of things I did made little difference in the condition of my knee.  It was only when I did all of them in conjunction with each other that I experienced complete relief.

If we analogize my knee to the family law system, Mr. Sorge would say it proves his point that we have to radically change everything to fix the divorce process. I look at it differently.  I respectfully disagree.  If my knee is the family law system, then what my story shows is that we cannot view that system in a vacuum.  My knee, like the family law system, is part of an interconnected system of societal assumptions and governmental policies, formats and actions.  Changing the family law system to one like that in Sweden works in Sweden because the assumptions, policies and actions of the society as a whole support it.  The United States is not Sweden, and unless you change all of the United State and its government so that it is like Sweden, from their socialized medicine, subsidized daycare, family leave policies on down the road, implementing their family law system would not work.  There are major societal changes that have to be in place to make that experiment successful.  If we simply did as Mr. Sorge suggests, we would in all likelihood enter the world of unintended consequences.  If you doubt me, look at Obamacare.  No, I don't care to nor will I debate the relative merits of Obamacare.  I think, however, we can all agree that what we have with the rollout of Obamacare is a mess of unintended consequences, from website snafus to cancellation or alteration of pre-existing health insurance benefits.  At this point, the merits of Obamacare are obscured by the unintended consequences of its provisions and rollout.  Then again, if all of those possibilities and results were considered and dealt with, not only would it have taken more time than the President has in office to implement, but it still would not have gotten rid of all of the intended consequences, there would simply be different ones because at the base of the problem is our societal mindset. The consequences that occurred were because you can't change an entire society just by changing one small part.  All of society, and our view of health insurance as a government entitlement for all and not just the destitute and elderly, would have to change in order for Obamacare to overcome the unintended and unforeseen consequences its rollout created.

Closer to home, there is a move afoot to revise the domestic violence laws.  We here in Maryland have had quite a few horrific and highly publicized incidents of lethal domestic violence within the past year or so.  As a result, there is a push to relax the requirements necessary to obtain a domestic violence order.  As we all know, every action has a consequence, and today, one of colleagues here in the Trenches, Hadrian Hatfield, published an editorial in the Washington Post on that very topic.  I commend reading it to you.

Ultimately, unless we are in favor of gutting our entire governmental system and revamping everything we do as a nation from the Executive Branch down to Joe and Mary Citizen, the Swedish system is not going to work here.  Even if it were, you are talking about generations of time to see improvement.  I don't know about you, but I don't think my clients have that kind of time.  What we can do, and must do as attorneys here in the Trenches is urge our clients to view mediation, collaboration and negotiation as the primary and front lines way of resolving their domestic disputes.  We have to education our clients about all methods of resolving disputes, help them determine which method is appropriate for them, and save litigation and its mind set as the alternative dispute resolution mechanism, rather than its default.  Educating the public is part of the bottom up method of effecting real change.  It doesn't happen if we as lawyers don't embrace that change from the top down.  Moving back to our origins as counselors at law rather than the hired gun enables us to serve our clients and meet their needs in a way that feels fair to them and the rest of their family.  Just my $.02.  Here in the Trenches.