If I Had a Shovel.....

I work very hard to settle cases.  I probably work harder to settle cases than I do trying them.  Why is that?  It is because settling cases is more difficult than trying them.   Trying cases is what I was trained to do.  It has choreographed steps.  It has set rules.  You apply the rules to the facts, make the argument of your client's position by using evidence and witnesses.  I never ask a question to which I don't know the answer.  I don't care what anyone except my client wants, and I want the decision maker to want it too.  That's my goal and my only goal.

Settling cases requires that I ask a lot of questions to which I don't know the answers.  I have to dig hard to discover not only why my client wants what they want, but also why their spouse wants what they want.  That's really difficult to do, because most clients here in the Trenches are entrenched (sorry for the pun!) in their positions.  They know what they want, but they can't articulate why they want it.  Emotion will do that to you.  It takes a lot of questions, a lot of building answer upon answer, unravelling pain, anger and fear, to get to the heart of the matter.  It's exhausting work, more so than most clients think, but it's the most worthwhile work I do.   Surprisingly,  when you get down to it, what my client and their spouse usually want is not all that differnt.  That similarity is probably why they got married in the first place.  Helping them find their commonality again so they can use it to want to help each other get what they need to move on is the best, and hardest, part of what I do.  Here in the Trenches.