TGIF

It's Friday again.....

Finally getting off the stress highway ....

Watching friends and family make difficult choices,

So we can all find peace.

Bibbity, Bobbity Boo

I started writing on one subject today, then I got news that really made my blog post seem rather trivial.  So, what I'd rather talk about is another of my favorite blogs, 1000 Awesome Things.  It's all about those little things in life that make you smile, like a snowy day, when a friend calls to say they got home safely, when you can hear the train coming into the station.  Bet you were smiling just reading that list.  Sometimes, we're so busy getting through the day, the week or the month, that we focus on what we need to do and what's gone wrong.  We completely miss all those little things that make life worth living:  the smell of chocolate chip cookies, a puppy nose in your face when you wake up, the wonder of a small child who really believes that the just-poured foundation for a house addition really could be a swimming pool.  Life is too short and uncertain not to enjoy its pleasures.  Take a breath and a minute just to enjoy being.

Dinner With The Girls

There are six of us girls.  We all met because we are related in some way to the practice of family law:  4 lawyers, 1 CPA and 1 mortgage broker.  We all love working with divorcing families; we love helping them move forward in a productive way.  What we don't like is investing ourselves in our cases, caring about our clients, doing a good job for them and have them leave us without paying their bills in full.  It doesn't matter whether we've "won" or "lost" their case - a successful outcome is no indication of whether a client will pay the bill.  They don't complain about the bill - they just don't pay it.   So, what is it that makes clients think that they can take full advantage of our expertise and our time, and not compensate us as agreed?  The problem is that the nicer you are about giving them time to pay their bills, the worse it is, because if you're not urgent, you're not important.  It feels like a betrayal.  It hurts to know that we do our jobs, we do them well, we care about our clients and what happens to them, and the same people in whom we made that investment don't value what we do.

TGIF

Long Week

Short weekend

Then it's Monday again - of another long week

Divorce Court

Just finished two lovely stressful days in divorce court.  I let my "Trial Karen" out to play, because unfortunately, she was needed.  Some people are so angry and so incapable of moving on (even after over 3 years of separation), that settlement is impossible.  Believe me, we tried, and tried, and tried, over the last 3 years.  Unless my client would take nothing and just go away, the other spouse would not settle - literally.  When that happens, all you can do is put on the best case you can and hope that justice will prevail.  Yesterday, it did.  My client got everything for which she asked.  There's a price for being stubborn and unreasonable, and yesterday her husband learned it is a steep one.   

Collegiality

The word collegiality can connote respect for another's commitment to the common purpose and ability to work toward it.  Sometimes lawyers on opposing sides of a case lose sight of the fact that they're supposed to be working together to further the cause of justice, a/k/a the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity. I mean, that is what I went to law school to do.  It's really nice when two lawyers can work together to make sure the court gets all the facts necessary to make an appropriate decision, that all the evidence goes in correctly and that the judge understands the parties' positions.  That was today.  The case is really contentious, one unreasonably angry party fighting just because he can.  It'd be easy for the issues to get lost in the fight, except they didn't.  The other attorney and I worked together to present the facts and documentation to the judge so she could sift through the chaff and find the wheat.   It made a long, tiring day in court less exhausting.  

What Would Atticus Do?

I'm off today to fight the good fight in court.  That's right - in court.  As I've said so many times, very few folks make it all the way to trial.  Of those who do, usually one or both of them is unreasonable, too angry to see reason, unrealistic or suffering from some type of emotional issue.  Rarely is there really an issue that needs to be decided by a judge, and today is not one of those days.  What a terrible waste of time, money and effort.