Divorces and the Election - The Number of Letters in the Words is Not the Only SImilarity

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  This quotation by George Santayana has taken many forms throughout the years and been attributed to many.  It feels particularly apropos right now.  No, this is not going to be a political commentary.  That's not what this blog is about.  This blog is about my personal observations and their relation to the Trenches.  I have to tell you that since the election, I've had a difficult time focusing on this blog, not because I didn't have anything to say, but rather because I could not order my thoughts in order to fit them into this blog.

The reason the opening quotation to this post is so apt is because the words are so subjective.  What is the past to which we refer?  Is it the past of slavery, segregation, Japanese internment camps, and concentration camps?  Is it the past where the only people with votes were white landowning males?  Is it the the past of abolition and of women's rights?  Is it the past of integration and civil rights?  Is it the past of non-partisan politics?  Is it the past of the forces which led to the Great Depression?  Is it the past of the creation of Social Security and Medicare/ Medicaid?  Is it the past of the nuclear family; or the demise of it?  Is it the rise of corporate farming and genetically engineered food; or the lack of sufficient food for all?  Is it the past of global inclusion or the past of isolationism?  Is it the conditions that led to climate change?  Is it the denial of global climate change?  Go out on the street corner and ask any ten people to define the "past" in the Santayana quotation, and I'll bet you'll get at least 5 different answers.

Here in the Trenches, everyone has their own version of the past.  Was the past when he cheated?  Or was the past when she criticized everything he did for years?  Was the past when she ran up the credit cards?  Or was it when he stopped putting enough money in the bank to pay for household expenses? Was the past when they agreed one of them would stay home to raise the kids?  Or was the past when the stay at home parent refused to go back to work?  In the end of any marriage, the spouses almost never agree on the defining moment for the beginning of that end.

This presidential election has caused a lot of people to question everything they thought they knew about America.  Those people are confused that the country in which they thought they were living isn't the country that the election results indicated.  The same kinds of feelings come with the end of a marriage.  Sure, there are some divorces in which both parties agree that they need to part and why.  With most, however, the behavior of one spouse leading up to their separation leaves the other wondering how they could have known their spouse so little.  I can't tell you how many times a client tells me that their marriage was great and the divorce came out of the blue.  I wish I had a nickel for every time a client told me that they didn't understand how their spouse could do "x", because it wasn't like them.

That other people in my society have different views than I about from which past we need to learn, which in turn leads to actions that are not in keeping with my belief about the tolerance and inclusion of the American people, is causing me a lot of stress.  The same is true of our clients who discover that the marriage that they thought they had and the spouse they thought they married are not in keeping with objective facts.  What I am describing is cognitive dissonance.  Humans don't like cognitive dissonance; it's stressful.  Our entire country in general and my clients in particular suffer from this stress.

What to do to reduce that stress? You can do any one of four things. You could change your cognition.  In my case, it would be to see America as it is and not how I thought it to be.  You could justify the cognition by changing the conflict.  In my case, again, it would be that people like me live in the America I see, and those who don't agree with me are simply not as educated.  You could justify the belief by adding new pieces to it.  Again, in my case, it would be to acknowledge that America isn't as I thought it to be, but come up with ways I could make it the way I thought it was.  Finally, you could ignore any information that conflicts with your belief.  I find that last one is really unhelpful, yet it seems to be the one many Americans and my clients choose.  Kind of like an ostrich sticking their head in the sand; the problem is still there when you emerge.  Which stress reduction method would you choose?  Here in the Trenches.

Regaining Control

I moved into the Frederick office three years ago.  My contractor set up the office so I could install rope lighting in the soffit area of all the rooms in the office except the copy room and bathroom.  Then, he didn't install it.  A year ago, I installed the lighting in the conference room.  It looked great.  I ran the rope lighting in my office, but didn't finish it up.  So, for the last two years, the view from my desk was two coils of rope lighting and cords in my bookcase.  It annoyed me every day.  Today, we had office cleanup day. We closed and destroyed files, and installed the rope lighting in my office and the other office.  I am ridiculously happy.  I mean it - ridiculously happy.  Such a little thing, just an hour of work, and I am thrilled.  Now, about the hood emblem that was taken off my car.....

Life is all about what you will tolerate and what you won't.  Most people tolerate a lot of things in their marriage.  That's part of living with another person.  When the marriage is going well, it's no big deal to tolerate imperfections or different ways of doing things.  When a marriage is ending, all those little things are major annoyances.  Then, when a couple separates, things are usually not just as perfect as either of them wants - more tolerations.  

This is what I want you to do. Make a list of all the things that aren't as you want, but that you're tolerating.  It will be a very long list, trust me.  Some of them will be big and others will be small.  Now, get to work getting rid of them, one at a time.  When you're here in the Trenches, you have no control over whether you're getting a divorce, you may be in a process which gives you no control, and your life is changing in unexpected ways.  Here's a place you can exercise some control.  It will make you feel better, and make all the rest of the things you can't control tolerable.  Trust me.  Give it a try.  Here in the Trenches. 

If You Don't Know Where You're Going.....

A few weeks ago, I ran the Navy/Air Force Half Marathon.  I try to run one race besides the Disney Princess each year.  Why, you may ask?  For the time, of course.  Here's the deal.  Disney has a rolling start to its races.  They line you up by corrals A-P.  They corral you're in depends on the qualifying race time you submit.  I run Disney with Daughter.  As Daughter only runs two days per year, the Enchanted 10k and the Princess Half Marathon, and as she is not a runner, I know my times on those two races are not my fastest.  I always run the Princess with Daughter, so I know I'll be starting in her corral no matter what.  I like to see what I can do, and where my corral would be at my fastest, so I try to do one race during the year just for me.

Why don't I start in the corral for which I qualify on Princess weekend?  Because speed's not my purpose for running the Princess.  I run the Princess to spend time with Daughter (and Cousin).  I'm very clear that my purpose on Princess weekend is family and fun, not speed.  I run for speed at another time.  At the Princess, I have fun.

I run my races like I run my cases here in the Trenches.  There is nothing I do that doesn't have a purpose, and I'm clear about the purpose before I do anything.  I ask myself why I'm doing something and what I hope to accomplish before I take any action.  I think about whether my action will lead to my desired result, and consider if there is something else that could meet my end as well or better.  I don't just take a deposition because that's what lawyers do; I have a specific reason in mind before I note that date.  If a client tells me they want me to do something, I always ask why.  I know my purpose and it guides my actions.

I try to help my clients do the same.  If they don't have a purpose, then they're kind of like the colloquy in Alice in Wonderland between Alice and the Cheshire Cat:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.” 
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

If the client doesn't know their purpose, then I don't know which process to suggest they use.  I don't know what information to gather, so I have to gather more than I need (which costs more money).  WHen the client doesn't know their purpose, we end up running in circles and that takes a lot of time, and time in the Trenches is money.  It's why I spend a lot of time with my clients talking to them about their purpose, their goals and their needs.  Spending that time now saves them time and money later, and it obtains a result with which the client can be satisfied.  Purpose determines process; process determines outcome.  Here in the Trenches.

Be Our Guest

If you have read any of these posts, you know the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend has become a family tradition, beginning the year after we lost Office T and the year I lost my dad.  That first year was a blast.  Daughter and my Aunt Pebs joined me.  The crowds were there, but manageable.  The race was wonderful.  There were Disney characters at least every half mile, and I stopped for photos with all of them.  The lines for photos were longish, but not too long.  Then, the next year, Disney introduced the Glass Slipper Challenge (for those of you who don't know, that's a 10k on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday).  Registration exploded.  For the next four years, the crowds at the parks became progressively worse.  That's not all, however.  Every year, I've noticed fewer character stops.  Places where there were photo opportunities with the characters suddenly had none.  The goodies in the finish line goody bag also changed; it has really become not worth getting, and yet the number of sponsors for the race has grown.  What we have gotten more of is...water stops because the race is attracting people who don't know how to race.  But I digress.

This summer, without any announcement, Disney decided to stop allowing deferrals.  For those of you who don't race, a deferral is telling Disney that you are unable to run this year, but you'd like to run next year, so they guarantee your registration the next year - for a hefty fee, of course.  Every major race, even the Boston Marathon, allows deferrals.  Many even permit you to transfer your jersey.  Disney used to allow deferrals, until suddenly they didn't.  Now, if you break a leg, you forfeit your registration fee.  Just so we all understand what that means, it means that a race for which you had to sign up 9 months in advance and pay several hundred dollars (far more money than for any other race I run), tells you "tough tookies" if the unforeseeable happens, even if it happens 6 months before the race.  

Why am I telling you this?  The name "Disney" carries with it a certain set of expectations.  The biggest expectation is that its customers are treated as guests, not consumers.  For most, that means things are done first class, because that's how you treat a welcome guest. A Disney event has lots of Disney characters, because that's what their guests want.  A host does not tell a welcome guest that they don't care that they are sick or injured.  That's not the expectation.  The expectation is that the host puts themselves in the shoes of their guest and tries to see what the guest sees and anticipate what the guest wants.  Disney has forgotten that the people who come to their parks are guests.  They are focused solely on the bottom line.

Even though law offices are not Disney, we could take a lesson here.  So many times, a law office sets a client expectation at odds with reality.  The client meets with the named partner during the first interview, and then never sees them again.  The partner makes them feel safe and comfortable, but the person handling their case is someone else, and the client wasn't told that was going to happen.  The client is told that the lawyer will be there for them when they need them, but the lawyer never returns their call.  The lawyer talks about a retainer, but doesn't mention that retainer may not cover all of the legal fees.  The lawyer charges hundreds of dollars an hour, and also charges for every stamp, and $0.10 a page for copies.  The lawyer never sends to the client copies of pleadings and letters sent and received for the client.  The lawyer sends notices of hearings without any explanation.  Ditto for attending mediation.  I know these things all take time or otherwise affect the bottom line, but happy clients send us more of the same.  Did I mention registration is falling off for the Disney races this year?  Here in the Trenches.

10 Dos and Don't for Being a Better Client

There are weeks when I love my job; and there are weeks when it takes an entire weekend to recover. As you all know, I love reading blogs.  I must have 25-30 I read on a regular basis.  Some of them are law related, and some are not.  The law management related ones periodically list things that lawyers ought to do to maintain client satisfaction.  I try to follow those; although I am not always successful, I keep plugging away, because I would like to be my clients' bright spot in their divorce journey.

What I realize as I read blog after blog, is that there are plenty of opportunities out there for clients to complain about lawyers, and there are tons of blogs as to how we can provide better customer service, but there are precious few blogs out there that help clients be better clients.  I periodically post my dos and don't, and lately, it feels like we need an update.  Here goes.

1.  Do be an active participant in your divorce.  Don't throw it in my lap and tell me to take care of it. Don't drop off the face of the earth.  Don't ignore me.  Without your input, I will negotiate for what works for me and that may not be what works for you.

2.  Don't treat me like the drive through at McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's.  I can't drop everything every time you call or email.  At any one time, I have 20-30 active clients, all of whom need my help, but not all of whom have issues that are time sensitive.  After all of these years in the Trenches, I'm pretty good at figuring out what is and isn't an emergency.  I will get back to you in a timely manner, I promise, and rest assured, when you have an emergency, you are at the top of my list.  When everything is an emergency, eventually nothing is.  Do remember that.

3.  Do what I ask you to do.  When I ask you to do something, it's because I need you to do it in order for me to do my job.  I don't make up tasks simply to keep you busy.  When I don't hear from you, and don't receive anything from you when I've asked, I figure you're not doing what I've asked.  Don't then turn around and tell me I'm not doing my job when your inaction has made that impossible.

4.  Don't expect your failure to plan to become my emergency.  If you didn't realize Christmas was December 25, or July 4 was on....well, July 4, until the day before, don't think that I can work a miracle and save your holiday plans.  Similarly, if you refused to plan, refused to listen to my advice to plan, and everything goes to hell in a hand basket, don't think I can fix that in a New York minute either.

5.  Do make time for me.  I know you're busy living your life.  I don't really ask for much of your time, but when I need it, I need it. I need you to make time to prepare for mediation and to prepare for court.  Don't simply show up on the day of mediation and wonder why nothing gets accomplished; or come to trial unprepared and wonder why things don't go your way.

6.  Do come to terms with reality.  Even if you didn't want the divorce, if your spouse does, it is going to happen.  If you want to be friends with your ex and she doesn't, it's not going to happen.  Don't let your fantasy of getting back together or being that couple who remains friends after divorce get in the way of your making sure you will be OK post divorce.  Don't give away the farm so she doesn't get angry or refuse to make a decision so it will never end.  A good therapist is invaluable.

7.  Don't expect me to act out your revenge fantasy.  Yup, flip side of #6.  Your divorce is one of the hundreds I have handled.  It will be over and you will leave me.  My relationship with other attorneys and with the court will live on.  I've worked really, really hard to cultivate good relationships with all of them, and that is to your advantage.  If we all play nice in the sandbox, you get more of what you need because the other side is more motivated to work out a win/win with someone they like.  Judges also are more likely to believe an attorney whose arguments are grounded in reasonableness and who are trustworthy with the court.

8.  Do say "thank you" every once in a while.  I know we're doing our jobs, but we're people too.  We pour our hearts and souls into you and your case.  We lose sleep over what happens to you.  We work really hard for you, and not just because it's our jobs.  It feels good to be appreciated.

9.  I've also noticed that the clients who don't do #8, don't do this one.  Do pay me.  I know it's expensive.  I try hard to keep your costs down. I depend on your payment to pay my rent, my paralegals and for my Puppy Boy.  When I don't get paid, those expenses still need to be paid.  I know money can get tight, but at least call me.  Tell me what's going on.  Let me know when and how much you can pay me.  I'm human; we'll work it out.  When you don't pay me and don't call me to work it out, I figure you don't appreciate what I do and that you have no intention of paying me.  That's the surest way to lose your lawyer and get sued for fees.  So, do pick up the phone.

10.  Don't kill the messenger.  I didn't marry your spouse.  I didn't have children with them.  I didn't buy a house at the height of the market.  I didn't fail to save for retirement.  I can only work with the facts I'm given.  There's only so much I can do with them.

Thanks for listening  to me.  Here in the Trenches.

10 Dos and Don't for Being a Better Client

There are weeks when I love my job; and there are weeks when it takes an entire weekend to recover. As you all know, I love reading blogs.  I must have 25-30 I read on a regular basis.  Some of them are law related, and some are not.  The law management related ones periodically list things that lawyers ought to do to maintain client satisfaction.  I try to follow those; although I am not always successful, I keep plugging away, because I would like to be my clients' bright spot in their divorce journey.

What I realize as I read blog after blog, is that there are plenty of opportunities out there for clients to complain about lawyers, and there are tons of blogs as to how we can provide better customer service, but there are precious few blogs out there that help clients be better clients.  I periodically post my dos and don't, and lately, it feels like we need an update.  Here goes.

1.  Do be an active participant in your divorce.  Don't throw it in my lap and tell me to take care of it. Don't drop off the face of the earth.  Don't ignore me.  Without your input, I will negotiate for what works for me and that may not be what works for you.

2.  Don't treat me like the drive through at McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's.  I can't drop everything every time you call or email.  At any one time, I have 20-30 active clients, all of whom need my help, but not all of whom have issues that are time sensitive.  After all of these years in the Trenches, I'm pretty good at figuring out what is and isn't an emergency.  I will get back to you in a timely manner, I promise, and rest assured, when you have an emergency, you are at the top of my list.  When everything is an emergency, eventually nothing is.  Do remember that.

3.  Do what I ask you to do.  When I ask you to do something, it's because I need you to do it in order for me to do my job.  I don't make up tasks simply to keep you busy.  When I don't hear from you, and don't receive anything from you when I've asked, I figure you're not doing what I've asked.  Don't then turn around and tell me I'm not doing my job when your inaction has made that impossible.

4.  Don't expect your failure to plan to become my emergency.  If you didn't realize Christmas was December 25, or July 4 was on....well, July 4, until the day before, don't think that I can work a miracle and save your holiday plans.  Similarly, if you refused to plan, refused to listen to my advice to plan, and everything goes to hell in a hand basket, don't think I can fix that in a New York minute either.

5.  Do make time for me.  I know you're busy living your life.  I don't really ask for much of your time, but when I need it, I need it. I need you to make time to prepare for mediation and to prepare for court.  Don't simply show up on the day of mediation and wonder why nothing gets accomplished; or come to trial unprepared and wonder why things don't go your way.

6.  Do come to terms with reality.  Even if you didn't want the divorce, if your spouse does, it is going to happen.  If you want to be friends with your ex and she doesn't, it's not going to happen.  Don't let your fantasy of getting back together or being that couple who remains friends after divorce get in the way of your making sure you will be OK post divorce.  Don't give away the farm so she doesn't get angry or refuse to make a decision so it will never end.  A good therapist is invaluable.

7.  Don't expect me to act out your revenge fantasy.  Yup, flip side of #6.  Your divorce is one of the hundreds I have handled.  It will be over and you will leave me.  My relationship with other attorneys and with the court will live on.  I've worked really, really hard to cultivate good relationships with all of them, and that is to your advantage.  If we all play nice in the sandbox, you get more of what you need because the other side is more motivated to work out a win/win with someone they like.  Judges also are more likely to believe an attorney whose arguments are grounded in reasonableness and who are trustworthy with the court.

8.  Do say "thank you" every once in a while.  I know we're doing our jobs, but we're people too.  We pour our hearts and souls into you and your case.  We lose sleep over what happens to you.  We work really hard for you, and not just because it's our jobs.  It feels good to be appreciated.

9.  I've also noticed that the clients who don't do #8, don't do this one.  Do pay me.  I know it's expensive.  I try hard to keep your costs down. I depend on your payment to pay my rent, my paralegals and for my Puppy Boy.  When I don't get paid, those expenses still need to be paid.  I know money can get tight, but at least call me.  Tell me what's going on.  Let me know when and how much you can pay me.  I'm human; we'll work it out.  When you don't pay me and don't call me to work it out, I figure you don't appreciate what I do and that you have no intention of paying me.  That's the surest way to lose your lawyer and get sued for fees.  So, do pick up the phone.

10.  Don't kill the messenger.  I didn't marry your spouse.  I didn't have children with them.  I didn't buy a house at the height of the market.  I didn't fail to save for retirement.  I can only work with the facts I'm given.  There's only so much I can do with them.

Thanks for listening  to me.  Here in the Trenches.

Taking Time to Grieve

When my father died, in a moment of intense emotion (all right, insanity is the more correct word), I announced that I would make quilts for 9 family members from Dad's old ties.  There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 of them.  I dutifully dragged all of them home, washed them, took them apart, ironed them, ironed stabilizer on them, and then burned out.  Just recently, I picked them up again and decided to take on quilt at a time.  Mom's, of course, is first, and so this weekend, I have been working hard on her quilt.  The top is almost finished.  I'm glad I took the time off, even if it was over a year.  It let me get past the burn out.  I've been having fun with the quilt, looking at the ties and remembering Dad wearing them, remembering the ones that held special meaning for him.  I also remember my Dad.  When I was preparing all of these ties for quilting, I felt overwhelmed and sad.  Now, I smile as I work, remembering him and anticipating the pleasure Mom is going to get from the quilt.

Divorce is like a death, just a bit different.  Certainly, people are sad at the end of a marriage.  They are also angry, hurt, and shamed.  Those last emotions can accomnpany a death as well, but they don't usually.  Even so, I wish more of my clients would treat their divorce like the death of a family member.  Why?  Lots of reasons, but here are five:

1.  They would accept that they need time to grieve, and that the sense of loss doesn't go away overnight.
2.  Even though this is part of #1, they wouldn't jump into a new, serious relationship right away, again, because grief takes time.
3.  They would find a support group or a therapist to help them work through the feelings they have about the end of their marriage and analyze what happened, so they don't end up in my office again.  Anyone who says they need no support group or a therapist during their divorce is kidding themselves.
4.  They wouldn't throw out every reminder of their marriage, especially if they have children.  Hear me out on this one.  Most marriages have some happy times, and there will be a time when they will be able to smile at them.  For those marriages that had no happy times, you need to keep something to remind you of where you've been, at least so you don't go back there again.
5.  They wouldn't make major changes in their lives, other than the obvious, for at least a year.  I can't tell you the number of people who have bought a new house during or right after their divorce, only to find it doesn't suit a year later.

A Man and His Dog Walk Into a Hotel.....

Last week, I was visiting family in Ohio.  I happened to be in Canton around the time of the Hall of Fame induction.  I met a really interesting man who was in town for his buddy's induction.  (In case you're wondering, his buddy is Brett Favre). We started talking, and he showed me pictures and videos of his family (aren't smartphones amazing?) - a lovely wife, seven beautiful children and two dogs.  Yes, I said seven children - all 13 years old and younger.  The pictures he showed me were of a happy and close family group.  He told me proudly that they all sit in the front pew at church every Sunday, and they all behave beautifully.  He wanted to tell me how that was possible.  So, he told me about his dog.

You see, he had a dog from the time he was a junior in college, through the births of a number of his children.  When he first got the dog, he worked with a trainer.  The trainer told him that even though being strict with his dog would feel hard, providing the dog with rules and boundaries would allow him to feel safe and secure.  In point of fact, knowing the boundaries allowed his dog to relax and focus on just being a dog.  Positive reinforcement is a wonderful thing, and the dog and owner trained each other.  Fast forward to when his first son was two years old.  My acquaintance was out in the yard running football patterns with his dog and his son.  The football went into the street; the dog and the boy went after it.  The acquaintance yelled "stop."; the dog stopped, and the boy did not.  Don't worry, a pro football player is faster than a two year old, so his son was fine.  It started this young father thinking, however.  He decided to work on training his children, and establish firm boundaries and expectations just like he did with his dog.  He told me how he worked with them to gently and positively reinforce the behavior he expected.  He let them know the structure he and his wife built for them to live in would keep them safe.  Obviously, it worked.  His children know the boundaries, so they don't have to think about them.  They can concentrate instead on daring their father to try to do back flips on camera, and on dreaming the big dreams in life because they have a safe container from which to operate.

One of the hardest things we do here in the Trenches is to build a safe container for our clients.  Like my acquaintance, we educate our clients about the boundaries of the process they've chosen to resolve their dispute.  We let them know we will help guide them and will keep them moving forward within the process.  We build the trust that lets them know they are safe within those boundaries, and that we will support and advise them as they forge ahead.  If we do our jobs right, our clients trust that we will protect their process.  This frees them up do the hard work of  thinking about what they want to do, where they want to go, and how they might get there  They have the freedom to dream about what might be in their future and to work toward that goal because they know we have their back.  They feel safe - if we've done our job.  Here in the Trenches.

High School Football and Yoga

My regular Sunday yoga class was joined today by 3 of our local high school football players.  My regular Sunday yoga class is comprised of 25 women and 3 or so men.   Of those 28 or so regulars, at least half have been attending this class for at least 5 years.  What that means for those high school boys is that approximately 14 people old enough (or older than) to be their parents could stretch farther and balance better than they could.  It was quite an education for them, huffing, puffing and grunting their way through class.  Will they be back?  Only time will tell.  High school boys, and as I recall, Daughter when she came to class with me, are not too excited about being shown up by a bunch of old folks.  Don't worry, we didn't rub it in their faces; in fact, quite the opposite.  We went out of our way to show them how we do things to prep for class, and what props to use to help them.  Our instructor was as solicitous as could be, and went above and beyond in educating them about the different positions.  We helped by showing them modification for poses as well.  As we wait until next Sunday to see who comes back, we can ponder whether these boys are interested in learning something new that will help them in their football, or whether they're invested in playing and preparing to play football the way they've always done it and think it ought to be done.

This past week, I had two clients with unrealistic expectations for what was going to happen, not only next, but all the way through the process.  (I know, I hear you saying "Only two?" ). With each of them, I drafted a very long email.  With each, I checked in to make sure I understood what they were saying and why I thought they were saying it.  Then, I went through a detailed explanation of the process from this point, and what they could expect each step of the way.  I compared what we were doing to what would happen in other processes.  The funny thing is that this is exactly what I do in my initial interview with a client.  I know, however, that most initial interviews contain too much information for the clients to retain: they are emotional and nervous, so retention is an issue.  Also, until they get into the process they choose, they have no point of comparison.

At any rate, one of those two clients, who was very overwrought, read my email and calmed down immediately.  She knew what to expect, and she also knew that if she needed more information, I would give it to her and educate her.  She very quickly switched from a nervous novice to a willing student.  The other client?  Haven't heard from the other client.  It makes me a little nervous.  We'll have to wait and see if she wants to learn. Kind of like waiting until next Sunday for the football players.  Here in the Trenches.

Do You Have a Pair of Rose Colored Glasses?

I have an absolutely awful, no good custody case, filled with bad actors, alienation, child protective services, police, the works.  There is definitely a good guy and a bad guy.  Yet, if you look at social media alone, you would think that the bad guy and the good guy were reversed.  I hear you asking how that can be.  It's all in the story and how you tell it.  It's in what facts you include, what ones you leave out, and what ones about which you outright lie.  It's also in only hearing one side of the story, and in having a personal relationship of any kind with the one telling the story you hear.  None of us likes to think we're bad judges of character; it's sort of like Lake Wobegon, where our children are always the ones who are above average.  Therefore, if we've decided someone is a good egg, we view everything they do through those glasses, and it takes a long time for us to believe that the "good egg" is really rotten.

I must let you in on a secret - lawyers are people too.  As I've always said, for a successful attorney and client relationship, the attorney and client have to have some mutual respect, if not liking.  Guess what?  Our clients usually only tell us their side of the story.  It is an extremely rare client who provides an evenhanded and accurate portrayal of the situation which brings them into the Trenches.  In fact, for most of us who have toiled in the Trenches for any length of time, we are so certain we are only getting part of the story that we withhold judgment on the veracity of our client's portrayal until we hear from the other side.  Still........, even when we hear the other side of the case, we discount it if we like our client.  That's right, even seasoned professionals can be a bit deluded.  It happens more often than you might think.

Does it matter in the end?  Actually, yes.  You pay us for our objectivity, not our emotional enmeshment.  Although it feels really good to have your attorney like you, make sure it's not blinding them to the unvarnished truth.  You want an attorney who recognizes they might be deluded, who tries like heck to counteract the feeling.  You do not want an attorney whose feelings for you get in the way of their impartial judgment on your behalf.  You do not want an attorney who cannot see how to help you resolve the issues in your family law matter because they're too concerned with your feelings to be honest with you.   You have friends.  What you need is a professional who can see all sides of the story, tell you the truth even when it's unpleasant, and be able to help you come up with solutions that meet your needs, but are not necessarily what you want.  After all, it's impossible for all of our children to be above average, whether or not we live in Lake Wobegon.  Here in the Trenches.

Here One Day, Gone the Next

I sat on my couch last Sunday, desperately trying to figure out how to save all of the photos off my dying cell phone before I traded it in on a new one.  As I saved the photos, I came across Daughter's prom photos from her senior year of high school: May 23, 2010.  Then, I saw the photos from Daughter's and my big birthday weekend (her 18th and my 50th):  October 20, 2010.  Featured prominently in both sets of photos was Office T, looking healthy and happy.....and alive.  To look at us all then, no one would ever have known that less than two years later, Office T would be dead. Oh, and also in the birthday photos was Dad; who'd have thought he'd outlive Office T by over a year.  Certainly not me.  Office T had 60 more years to go, by my reckoning, and Dad, maybe 10 if we were lucky.  Then one day, they just weren't there.

I woke up this morning to the news of 50 people dying in a nightclub shooting, with another 50 wounded.  Last month, a man shot his estranged wife outside Son's school and then killed two random people the next day.  They were there, and then they weren't.  At the end of the day, does the reason really matter?  All of those people, who others loved and cared about, are dead.  THeir loved ones will never be able to tell them they love them, will never be able to make amends for wrongs they inflicted, will never be able to tell them they forgive them for the wrongs they suffered.  Every day, then week, then month, then birthday and holiday will go by and their loved ones will miss them and cry for what they've lost.  Yes, they will also remember the good times, the love and special moments they shared, but humans being humans, the anger, pain and the regret they feel first and longest.

Which is probably why some folks fight so hard here in the Trenches.  Divorce is the death of a marriage.  It is the death of a family structure.  It hits people hard.  They feel pain and regret.  The problem is that their spouse is still there, serving as a constant living reminder of what they have lost. Some people overcome the pain and anger of the loss and can remember the good times and love.  Others never do.  Let's turn this around for a minute.  If you were Office T, Dad, the people in the Orlando nightclub or the folks shot by that woman's estranged husband, would you want your last day or moment on earth to be consumed by anger and pain?  Would you rather give others the benefit of the doubt, let go of your anger and count your blessings?  I know which choice I make (sometimes with difficulty, but I make it every day), here in the Trenches.

How Do You Determine the Cost of Trial?

Here in the Trenches, when we talk to clients about the cost of going to trial, they think dollars and cents.  Certainly, going to trial is very expensive, and the financial savings realized by settling a case is not insignificant.  I tell clients there are other costs to going to trial and they need to be prepared to pay them.  Some understand and internalize what I mean, and others, well, they just don't.  Let me give you some examples of costs that are not financial.

1.  Having family and friends come to court to testify, because everyone wants everyone they love to be inconvenienced and know their dirty laundry.
2.  Having family and friends forced by the other attorney to appear for a deposition, because if there's anything better than #1, it's being questioned by the other attorney about things that may only be related tangentially to your case.
3.  Subjecting yourself to cross examination by the other attorney (If you don't believe that is a cost, you've never been cross examined).
4.  Having the negative emotions from your divorce, that you thought you had dealt with and from which you believed you had healed, come rushing back to the surface and overwhelming you.
5.  Having to deal with the uncertainty of waiting for the judge's decision, weeks or months from the day(s) of trial.
6.  Having someone who doesn't know you or care about you or your family decide your future, because by definition that's a judge.
7.  Having no control over what happens because that's what it means to ask a judge to decide.
8.  Frustration that the rules of court don't allow everything you know to be true to come into evidence, so there will be things the judge won't know.
9.  Having you and your life placed under a microscope.

Sometimes, you have to go to trial.  Sometimes, for a lot of reasons, a judge needs to make a decision.  Most times, however, a reasonable settlement is possible.  In deciding whether to accept it, the offer itself is not the only consideration; the costs of going to trial have to play a part in your deliberations.  Here in the Trenches.

Memories Fade - Or Do They?

Yesterday after yoga class, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things for my lunches this week.  As I was checking out, I saw a woman in the next line.  When she turned around, I saw that this woman was someone who had been my very good friend before my divorce.  My divorce changed all of that.  Not only did this woman cut me out of her life, she also told my former spouse some very personal things that I had shared with her while my marriage was dissolving.  Those things were nothing that would create any sort of legal issue during my divorce, they were simply not things I wanted shared - they were intensely personal, and my former spouse used the fact that he knew about them to demonstrate to me how isolated my divorce was going to make me.  It's funny, I can't remember what I told her, other than the effect of the disclosure.  What I do remember, and what came flooding back to me in a rush at the grocery store yesterday, was the feeling of betrayal.  I understand that when people divorce, friends fall away for a lot of reasons.  Very few of them, especially those who you hold closest, affirmatively act to hurt you.  The details fall away, but the pain remains.

But only the pain remains, and only when I was exposed to a direct stimulus.  I think that makes me healthy.  It means I've moved on. I wish I could say the same for all my clients.  Some of them never move on. They relive the hurts of their marriage every day in great detail.  They weigh the injury. They remember all the details.  They can't forget.  No, I take that back:  they won't forget.  These folks either don't go to therapy or they don't invest in their therapy.  Their lives are given meaning by the pain they've endured.  Their self worth is tied to how much they were wronged.  The pain I felt in the five minutes in the grocery store?  They feel it all the time.  I don't know how they stand it.  I can't help them make the pain go away and move on, because they don't want to.  Truth be told, having these clients is the hardest part of what I do.  Here in the Trenches.

Did I forget the Moat for that Sandcastle?

I was reading yesterday's post, and I thought you might get the wrong impression.  I am not saying that it is acceptable for the client to tell the lawyer how to run the case.  There are things we do as a matter of strategy. There are things we do to position our clients for the future.  We do them because we can see the 5 or 7 steps ahead that our clients cannot.  That is part of the advice we give and why we, and not our clients, guide the process.  Please forgive me if I led you to believe otherwise.

There is a difference, however, between process and substance.  It is in the area of substance that we here in the Trenches need to really listen to our clients and work with them, and not just for them.  I think I should illustrate.  As you know, I'm taking Brene Brown's online course based on her books, Daring Greatly and Rising Strong.   The course revolves around the process of becoming more aware of your emotions, being comfortable with vulnerability and developing strategies for working through and rising above set backs.  I've mentioned it here and there in this blog, and talked about how hard the process is to work through.  Well, yesterday, a friend who is also taking the course and I were talking, and she said that although she is enjoying the process of the course and appreciates the work, understanding why someone is a jerk or why something makes you feel bad doesn't solve the underlying problem.  The person is still a jerk and that something still makes you feel bad.  In other words, process can only take you so far.  You still need substance to solve a problem.  Here in the Trenches.

The Tide is Coming In. Is your Sandcastle Protected?

Most lawyers are control freaks.  Not only that, we are problem solvers.  Give us a problem and we will give you a solution.  That's what we're trained to do, and what comes to most of us naturally.  It's part of what attracted us to the law - we thought the law provided an answer for everything. Of course, we discovered that it didn't.  No matter, with our experience and education, we believe we are able to solve our clients' problems.  That's why you hired us - right?

Being good problem solvers was such an asset in the old days, when clients came to us for just that reason.  Back in those days, what the lawyer told the client to do, they did it, no questions asked.  Those days are long gone, thankfully.  Greater access to information and more attunement to feelings has created a client who wants to have a say in what happens to them.  That new client is why there has been a rise in the use of alternative methods of dispute resolution such as mediation and collaborative law.  The client wants to make their own decisions and wants the lawyer to advise and support them and reality test their options.  Personally, I think that's a wonderful thing.  After all, who knows the other side and what they will and won't do better than their spouse?  Who knows what will work in their lives better than the person living it?  Frankly, a more empowered client takes a huge weight off my shoulders.  It's hard not only providing information and advice but also deciding the future of someone else's life.  Am I still a problem solver?  Sure, but I've let go of the outcome, let go of the need to control it, and instead use my problem solving skills and legal knowledge to help my clients solve their own dilemmas.

Some lawyers don't have an easy time letting go of the control.  They can't stand that they are not in charge of the outcome.  They shudder at simply helping their clients work out their own problems.  They don't listen to what their clients tell them about what their spouse will and won't do. (I know my first attorney didn't, and they were wrong; thank heaven for my second lawyer.) Mediation and collaboration make them antsy because it's too touchy feely, and the solutions that the clients reach are outside what may have been reached traditionally.  There are clients for these lawyers, just as there are clients for lawyers like me.  There are just fewer of them.  The legal world is changing, and lawyers need to change along with it.  It's hard to do, so be patient with us; but not so patient that you agree to something you know won't work just because your lawyer tells you to do so.  It's your life, after all.  Here in the Trenches.

Vanquishing the Trolls

I love reading blogs, and listening to their audio counterpart, podcasts.  I have somewhere around thirty blogs of which I keep track, in all areas of interest.  As you might expect, one of those areas is the law.  I have a love/hate relationship with one of them:  Above the Law.  I like ATL.  It has some great columnists whose writing I enjoy greatly.  I love a lot of the subject matter of the columns.  I find a lot of it helpful, both substantively and just to feel less alone in some of the trials and tribulations of the practice of law.  I know, you're wondering about the "hate" part.  What I hate are the comments.  Most of the comments have nothing to do with the subject matter of the column, and everything to do with the bigotry, pettiness and general nastiness of the commentator.  For a long period of time, it felt like ATL had no interest in controlling the trolls who commented on their website.  I stopped reading the comments, but I knew they were there. It was depressing, it colored how I felt about ATL, and I felt as a matter of principle that I shouldn't patronize the blogs on the website.  Yet, the blogs were so good....  I was torn.  Then, ATL announced they were eliminating the comments sections of their website.  Hallelujah!  Enjoyment without guilt.

Our clients here in the Trenches suffer a very similar dilemma.  They hire us and other professionals to help guide them through a very difficult time in their lives.  They hired us because they thought our advice was good and relevant to their situation.  In general, they still feel that way.  What we tell them helps them move forward through the Trenches.  In the background, however, operate their friends and family.  Some of them are supportive personally, and supportive of the work of the professionals helping them.  Others, in the guise of being supportive, are anything but.  They second guess the professionals in the case and attack them personally.  They offer their own advice about what the client should do, and offer that the professional disagrees for reasons unrelated to their professions, and in fact for reasons completely unprofessional.  The client knows they shouldn't listen to those less than well meaning folks, but sometimes it's hard not to do so.  The client thinks, probably correctly, that those opinions would not be welcomed by their helping professionals, so they don't tell them.  It just poisons the well, and they start to second guess them.  Those of us in the Trenches, unlike ATL, can't eliminate the commentary from the sidelines.  We do, however, want to help our clients know whether they're being helped or undermined.  If we aren't told the commentary, we can't help our clients distinguish between helpful and harmful.  Reality testing is a large part of what we do with clients, so we hope they tell us.   Then they can take our advice with firm conviction.  Here in the Trenches.

More Senseless Loss

Finally, a new iPad and a keyboard.  I never post at the office, and without an up to date iPad or computer, I was unable to post at home.  I practically hugged the UPS guy when he delivered the keyboard.  There have been so many posts in my head, all spinning around, and no place to put them. I had grand ideas for the first new iPad post,.....then I read Facebook this morning.

As you know, I am the "grandma" for Son's wrestling team.  I go to all the matches, home and away (but only the finals of tournaments - I served my time when Son wrestled).  I know the kids, some better than others, and more so as the years have gone on.  Last night, one of Son's wrestlers who graduated last year was murdered.  Yes, I said murdered.  The police don't know why and no cause or altercation was apparent.   It doesn't matter; he's still dead.  I can't believe it.  Neither can Son.

As I was walking Puppy Boy this morning, I was thinking about the young people I have known and for whom I have cared who have died in the last four years:  Office T, my friend's daughter, and now this young man.  In my humble opinion, none of those deaths make sense.  I am sure their parents would give anything to have another day, minute or hour with their child.  I am sure they have so many things they want to say, so many hugs and kisses they want to give, and I know they would pay any price to just see their child alive again.  I am sure they regret the angry words said, the time spent away from their child, and the moments where they were just too busy with life.  It breaks my heart.

It especially breaks my heart when I see so many parents here in the Trenches fighting over things concerning their children that really aren't that important.  It seems callous to say, because I know so many of these seemingly unimportant things feel so urgent and important, but I wonder if these parents knew that today was the last day they would spend with their child, would they choose to spend it disagreeing over these things?  Would they really like their child's last memory of them to be that their parents were bickering over something that in the scheme of things, really didn't matter?  Would they want to know that they wasted minutes and hours of time they could have spent with their child arguing with the other parent.  I think that should be the barometer - is something important enough to fight over that if today were the last day of your child's life, you wouldn't regret having done it?  Food for thought.  Here in the Trenches.

Mutual Consent Divorce - A Different Perspective

I admit that I have been frustrated with Maryland's requirement that, except in cases of adultery or extreme cruelty, couples have to be separated for a year before they can obtain a final divorce.  It is so unbearably difficult for many couples to separate before they've sold or refinanced the house or transferred retirement assets, and they can't transfer retirement assets until a divorce.  It takes some couples the better part of a year to decide on the terms for their separation agreement, which is necessary to refinance the house, and then knowing that it would be another year after that, causes some couples to make poor decisions about separating just to get the process moving.  Therefore, I was thrilled when the Maryland legislature passed our new mutual consent grounds for divorce.

In a nutshell, our new divorce grounds states that if a couple has no children under the age of 18, has a full and complete separation agreement to which they both agree, and both show up for the divorce hearing, they can get a divorce without any separation at all.  In the first month of the new law, I had three such divorces.  In two of them, the parties had been separated slightly less than one year.  In one of them, they were not separated.  I want to talk about that last case, because truly, I thought all three would end up the same.  They didn't.

The people in that third case are having a tough time.  After a very long marriage, they decided (OK, one side decided) that they were getting a divorce, they negotiated their separation agreement easily and quickly, and their divorce was a month later, while they were still in the same house.  They are now struggling emotionally.  You see, getting a divorce so quickly did not allow them time to grieve the loss of their relationship as it was and their marriage, to process what it meant to be separate and apart, to experience the reality of living separate and apart, of developing new and different support systems, and of learning to disengage from their old pattern of taking care of each other.

I know,the only difference between them and our regular divorce clients is that they began living separately after the divorce rather than before, but that distinction is not an inconsequential one.  Only if you've gone through a divorce can you understand that there is a cataclysmic difference between being separated and being divorced.  One is temporary and preparatory, and the other is final and permanent.  It may not look different in terms of day to day life, but it feels different.  Kind of like knowing a relative with a fatal disease is going to die, and their actually dying.  That feeling takes time to work its way through the psyche and to become normal.  With the end of a marriage, it takes time to set those new boundaries and the new relationship with someone with whom you've shared your life.  Its damned near impossible to do it well when you are not only mourning the end of the relationship as you knew it, but also the end of the legal status of marriage.  Both parts of this particular couple, perhaps because they have been together so long, are having a difficult time of it.  Who would have thought?  Not me.  Now, the legislature is talking about expanding the mutual consent divorce to people with minor children.  That adds another layer of logistics and grief.  Six months ago, I would have cheered the expansion of the divorce ground.  Now, I'm not so sure.  Here in the Trenches.

Divorce is a Journey

I miss blogging.  There are times when I struggle for what to say, but I love talking to you in this medium.  My home computer, where I do most of my writing, is no longer able to connect with Blogger, so my posts are very sporadic while I investigate EXHAUSTIVELY all my options. This is, of course, typical for me, as I tend to over-investigate every choice I have to make, whether it involves spending money or not.  OK, I worry it to death.  Now, if you needed to get something, I'd help you make that decision in a heartbeat....and that is our discussion for today.

You know that I am a big Brene Brown fan.  As a matter of fact, I'm taking her online course right now.  It's really difficult; this self-discovery stuff is hard.  As part of the course, I took Kristen Neff's assessment of self compassion.  I failed in the "self" part.  It seems I have oodles of compassion for others, but not much for myself.  I'm my own toughest critic - big surprise, right?  To do the work I do, I need to have a lot of compassion for others, but I think it's funny that I urge others to practice self-compassion.  I guess that those who don't do, teach.  I'm learning to be aware of when I'm coming down too hard on myself and cut myself a break; to be more understanding and forgiving of myself.  As a result, I'm enjoying life a lot more.

Mindfulness is becoming a huge part of what we do here in the Trenches.  So much of what we do is about helping our clients learn to let go and create a life after they leave us.  I've known that for years; it appears the rest of the world is figuring it out.  That would explain the popularity of Jeena Cho, and the rise in popularity of books like Splitopia: Dispatches from Today's Good Divorce and How to Part Well by Wendy Paris.  The fact is that what you get out of life depends on what you put into it and how you view it;  your divorce is no different.   Whether divorce is part of your life and your learn from it or something you never get past and over, is your choice.  I love reading Jeena's posts about mindfulness and law practice on Facebook and Twitter.  I just came across Wendy when I was catching up on another of my favorite authors, Gretchen Rubin, and found her interview with Wendy here.  It was intriguing and lead me, in turn, to Wendy's "The Principles of Parting."  I commend it to you, think you should print out multiple copies and tape them everywhere.  Life, even divorce, is a journey.  What kind of journey is up to you.  Here in the Trenches.

It Takes a Pack

A little under three weeks ago, we had to say goodbye to Puppy Girl.  It was the right time, by my reckoning, not too soon and not too late.  My wonderful veterinarian, Karen Pearson, DVM, who we have followed through a few veterinary practices, and who has treated Puppy Girl for ten years, came to our house.  Puppy Boy was there, along with the rest of her family, at the end.  We laughed, and told stories of her and her Boy and our prior dog.  Karen's part of our pack: she felt our loss like it were her own and gave us the support we needed.  I've always felt that way about her.

Now, however, Puppy Boy is without his Girl.  Like any other caregiver, he spent the greater part of the last few years tending to his charge.  He worried over her, made sure she had plenty of attention, and tormented her with puppy games to keep her engaged.  Now that she's gone, he seems lost.  Daughter's dog isn't much help- to Puppy Boy, he's a new addition and competition for affection.  What's a Puppy Boy to do?  Turn to his pack, of course. Mommy is his "go to" when he's feeling needy, with daughter running a close second.  Without us, he worried his paw and chewed it.  He looked lost and unhappy.  We've given him lots of love, and tons of attention. We've kept the rest of his schedule and life as much the same as we can, and he's slowly returning to his old self. 

Here in the Trenches, a lot of our clients are like Puppy Boy.  Their marriage and their spouse were the constants in their lives.  Without them, our clients are adrift.  We know they will get their bearings at some point, and move on to a different life.  The question is what to do in the meantime.  The temptation for most people is to throw out the baby with the bath water.  They want a clean break, they want no reminders of their marriage or their spouse, and they jettison everything from their old life all at once.  Big mistake.  Even though those things from the old life can be painful, pain is necessary in order to move forward.  It's a requirement in order to work through the stages of grief.  If you ignore it now, it will just come back and rear its head at an unexpected time in the future.  As strange as it sounds, a clean break is not so healthy.  We need reminders in order do the hard work.

What else do our clients need Here in the Trenches?  Like Puppy Boy, they need their pack.  As we saw with Puppy Boy, their pack isn't just anyone.  It's not someone in a like position, or else Daughter's dog would have done just fine.  Their pack is the people they count on to keep their lives on an even keel.  They are the folks who have been their constants through their life.  A lot of people don't want to be these folks, because they don't know what to say and do to make our clients feel better.  That's too bad, because our clients don't need someone to do something to make them feel better: just being there makes them feel better.  Really, what our clients need to know is that they're not alone and they're still loved.  By the way, Puppy Boy is doing much better, just like our clients.  Here in the Trenches.

How Will You See Your Divorce Five Years From Now?

"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough."  

                                                                                                Abraham Lincoln


A post of mine from just over a year ago is getting a lot of traffic this weekend.  One comment in particular inspired this week's post.  The commenter wrote that in hindsight, this person wished that when she got the "best" family law attorney, she had gotten an attorney who was committed to helping the client work out their issues with their spouse and not simply going forward on the litigation path.  She regretted the treatment her former spouse received at the hands of her attorney.

I wish I could say that this person's comment were unusual here in the Trenches, but it's not.  Clients come through our doors every day expressing the gamut of emotions.  Angry and distrustful people are our stock in trade. Of course, many people who decide to divorce are angry, for a whole lot of reasons.  When we have an angry client, we have two choices: we can help stoke the fire or we can help to quench it.  If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I try to quench it.  Not everyone shares my view.  Let's talk about realities of the Trenches.

Some of us work in the Trenches because we want to help people.  We feel our clients' pain and we want to help them move forward.  We want to help them close the door on this chapter of their lives and move successfully into the next.  I would actually hazard a guess that most of us who work in the Trenches feel that way.  There are those who don't, those lawyers who really don't care and figure their job is to get the client what they say they want or even simply to get the case resolved.  I hope you run screaming from those offices; you deserve better.

The difficulty is that for lawyers of a certain age, being trained as a lawyer meant being trained to try a case, or at most negotiating a settlement like you would any business deal.  Some of those folks never learned to do anything else, and their definition of a lawyer is defined by their training.  It's not that they don't care; it's that the only tool they have is a hammer, so every problem is a nail.  I know, mediation has been around a long time, so why don't these lawyers get on board?  I wish I knew.  The most I can say is they never adapted to the reality that clients, especially family law clients, don't love going to court as much as they do.  For these lawyers, when a client comes into their office hopping mad, and wanting to rake their spouse over the coals in court, these lawyers are very happy, because that's what they know how to do.  They know how to fix that problem.  I'm going to go out on a very short limb here and tell you that if that's the lawyer in whose office you end up, you need to go somewhere else, at least for a second opinion.

After over twenty five years of practicing law, most of them here in the Trenches, there are a few things I've learned about people.  The first is that some of those hopping mad folks will remain hopping mad until the day they die.  They will never understand why they divorced; they will never forgive their spouse for not being the person they thought they were and needed them to be.  Still, encouraging their anger doesn't help.

The second thing I've learned is that anger, like guilt, fades.  As time passes and life goes on, clients tend to view their spouses with a different lens.  This lens tends to be more forgiving.  It is not a distorted lens, but rather one that, instead of being the rose color of love and unicorns or the fiery red of anger, is clear and focused.  Clients, particularly those with children, realize they have to co-parent together and will be entwined until they or their children die. Clients tend to remember some of the better times they had with each other; and with time, they remember that they once loved this person.  It's at those times they regret how they or their lawyer behaved at the time of their divorce.

Those of us who work in the Trenches know this.  We see it as our jobs to pull our clients out of their comfort zone.  We question the basis for their anger.  We probe at the hurt feelings.  We look for those times when the spouses worked together in the past.  We try to find shared values.  We encourage our clients to look into the future and tell us what they want it to look like.  We ask them if their proposed course of action will get them there.  We tailor the process they use for their divorce not only to their present but also to that future.

I understand that when your marriage is ending, the last thing you want to be is reasonable.  I know that when you're looking for an attorney, you want a good one, but you don't want to have to dig too deep.  I get it.  Remember, I've been there.  I know you don't want to spend the money for a consultation with more than one lawyer.  You just want one person, the first person you see, to solve your problem.  Remember though, that lawyer didn't cause the problem - you and your spouse did.  The lawyer can't solve it - only you and your spouse can.  Don't you want the lawyer who is best able to help you do that?  Find out about a lawyer's philosophy of representation.  Find out what they consider their role to be in your case.  Find out how they intend to help you connect with your inner best self and help you solve your problem.    You might need that hammer; then again you might need a monkey wrench.  Don't you want a lawyer with that tool in her tool chest?  Here in the Trenches.

Puppy Girl and Emotional Decisions

It's no secret that my beloved puppy girl is 16 years old.  She has arthritis in her legs, and that makes standing still interesting.  She has cataracts, and a wee bit of dementia.  She's lost a lot of weight, but the vet says she's in fine health, except for the above.  She sleeps a lot during the day.  Yet, she still eats like a younger dog.  She takes half a mile walk every day.  Sure, it's slow, but she does it.  She greets me when I come home at night.  She's not in any pain.  She also still torments her puppy boy and they play very limited and geriatric puppy games (I find your bone and stand over it so you can't get it.  I lie down in the middle of your bed until you stare at me long enough to make me move).  I know we're moving toward the "big decision," and we're probably talking weeks rather than months.  It's agonizing.  She's my puppy girl, my companion, my lovely friend. Being a reading nerd, I am reading a lot about when you know it's time.  The best advice I've seen is that you ask a third person whose advice you trust.  All that c__p about how you'll know it's time and keeping track of good days versus bad days, is just that.  When you are too close to the situation, the way you interpret data is skewed.  Your heart will override your head, or you will interpret the data to support the conclusion you want.  My third party and I have talked and she knows I don't want puppy girl to suffer.  I don't want her to have no good quality of life.  I don't want her to lose her dignity.  Based on all that,  my third party says "not yet," and I concur.

Does it really take much of a leap to connect all of this to the Trenches?  Clients tell me all the time that they never saw it coming.  They tell me that they can't believe that their spouse did X, because X is so unlike them.  Their spouse said the relationship changed, that they changed, but they don't see it.  Yet, all of the people they ask me to call tell me a very different story.  Usually, it's somewhere between what my client says and what their spouse says.  You see, they were too close to see things clearly and their emotions filled in parts of their story when the facts were lacking.  Usually when people do that, what they fill in supports the conclusion they want, and not what actually is.  The third parties without skin in the game are far more reliable as to reality of the situation.

Is there another third party whose advice clients in the Trenches should trust?  Oh yes, their lawyer.  Again, the lawyer has no emotional investment in their case.  Certainly, we care about our clients, but it's not our lives, it's theirs.  We don't interpret data through the eyes of emotion, of hurt feelings, of hopes and dreams unrealized.  We don't fill in "facts" that don't exist.  We hear our clients, and dig for what lies behind their words.  Is it fear of poverty?  Of being alone? Of being judged by others? Of losing their identity as a parent or spouse?  What is it they need or want?  What is their view for the future?  Whatever it is, once we learn what those things, we can help them define their goals and advise them of their best course of action.  We don't rewrite the history of their marriage - that's for a different professional to help.  We help them write the story of their futures accounting for their hopes and needs and fears.  Here in the Trenches.

Ten New Year's Resolutions For Your Divorce

Tomorrow, my office opens its doors for the new year.  As in every new year, there will be a lot of calls from people who have vowed that they will not spend another holiday season with their spouse.  Lest you think the folks who call the first week of January are the only ones thinking that way, we get another surge right after the credit card bills from Christmas get paid at the end of the month.  For all of you joining us in the Trenches in 2016, here are ten resolutions for you.

1.     I resolve to talk to a lawyer, a financial planner and a good family therapist before I tell my spouse I want a divorce.  A lot of the people who come through our doors are woefully under-educated in both the divorce process and the realities of post-divorce life.  They leap before they look, only to find on the way down that they could and should have done things differently.

2.    I resolve to step back and put myself in my children's shoes.  Yes, I know you want equal time with your children.  I know you miss them when they are not with you.  Funny, though, that when I suggest that the children stay in the house and the parents rotate between two residences, clients look at me in horror, as they don't want to feel like a nomad and not have a place that's theirs.  Yet, that's what they want for their children, and they are genuinely surprised to realize that.  Now, I'm not saying that nesting, as that arrangement is called, is better or worse than any other custodial plan.  What I am saying is that parents need to think about divorce from their children's perspective as well and think about how their life might be like.

3.    I resolve to look at issues from my spouse's point of view.   98% of all cases settle.  Whether they settle early or after the second day of a three day trial often depends on how aware at least one party is about what the other one needs in order to feel successful.  I know, the last thing you want to do is think like your spouse, but your future, not to mention the amount of your legal fees, depends on it.

4.    I resolve to take the high road.  Just because your spouse is hiding the ball, talking trash to the neighbors or denigrating you to your children, doesn't mean you have to do it.  Life is a marathon, not a sprint.  All of that bad karma comes back, as does the good.  Your children, neighbors and friends will learn the truth, and they will appreciate that it wasn't you who pointed it out.  You'll find what you need to find, and what you can't find, you'll accept.  Momma was correct that two wrongs don't make a right.

5.    I resolve to take a breath before I do anything "for the principle of the thing."  As a trial lawyer, I hate the principle of the thing.  Sure, it always earns me more money, but my clients are rarely happy with the results, because the principle of the thing is rarely tangible.  It's a lot of money to spend just to make a point.  You need to make sure the point is worth the cost.

6.    I resolve to take an active role in my divorce.  I have said it before, and I will say it again (and again) - it's not my life.  It's yours.  If you want your post divorce life to be successful, you really should take an active role in molding it.  Otherwise, your post divorce life will look the way I want it to look.  I hope you like it.

7.    I resolve to choose the divorce process that best meets my needs. If you don't know by now that process determines outcome, please reread this post.

8.    I resolve to choose a lawyer whose approach to divorce and values mirror mine.  We are truly like dogs and their owners.  In a successful relationship, we will mirror each other.  In an unsuccessful one, we will be at cross purposes.  Certainly, I can advocate for whatever position you wish, so long as it's sustainable by the facts and the law, and I'll be successful doing it.  If it goes against my approach to divorce or my values, we may spend a lot of time discussing what you want me to do and why, and perhaps at that point, your funds and time may be better spent with another lawyer, one who meshes better with you.

9.    I resolve to take responsibility for my own decisions.  I didn't pick your spouse; you did.  I didn't have children with your spouse, amass assets or debts with them.  In other words, I didn't create the situation you are in.  I didn't create the court system.  I didn't make the rules:  I play within the system.  It's my job to help you move forward. I will help you develop options, weigh the options, and negotiate an agreement.  I can't do it alone.  I need your help.  Ultimately, with my help, you need to make a decision.  I want you to be fully informed when you do that.  If it turns out your decision didn't work out as you hoped, then it is your responsibility - mine was to advise you fully so you could make the best decision possible under the circumstances.

10.  I resolve to take care of myself.  Life in the Trenches is stressful.  Stress affects people in different ways.  Maybe you need to talk to a professional therapist.  Maybe you need to reconnect with your faith.  Maybe you need to exercise more.  What about a massage?  Whatever it takes for you to be the best you possible.

Happy New Year.  Here in the Trenches.