The Gambler

After I had the most fun a lawyer can have in a courtroom, I went downstairs to watch some of my good friends here in the Trenches try their case.  It was frustrating to watch, much less to participate in. Their judge had no expression whatsoever.  He never looked up.  Heck, I forgot to turn off my cell phone, it went off - loudly, and he never noticed.  It wasn't that he wasn't listening.  Questions and comments he made during the hearing showed he was.  He just never looked up from his legal pad.  They were arguing to the top of his head.  Witnesses would look to him while they were answering questions; he never made eye contact.  To say it was a frustrating experience for lawyers and witnesses alike would be an understatement.  To top it off, the hearing started late because the judge called everyone in chambers to try to settle the case.  In chambers, he shared his thoughts.  Like in my case from yesterday's post, they were not favorable to my Trenches friends.

Did my friends go for broke in the courtroom?  No, they did not.  But wait, didn't you say yesterday that when you have a case you're pretty sure you'll lose, you should go for broke?  No, I did not.  What I did say was that you have to weigh a lot of factors.  One of them is the judge.  Is there an argument that will sway the judge?  In this case, sadly, the answer is "no."  What kind of a hearing is it?  Is it a hearing that is important to the ultimate resolution of the case?  How important is it?  Is it important enough that you can't afford to lose?  If so, can you win in some other way, say by building a record and appealing any ruling?  Might losing actually put you in a better position to get more for your client later on?  Only the lawyer knows.  Again, it's part of what we do.  Here in the Trenches.

Remember When We Spent Those Four Amazing Hours in the Hot Tub Together After Winter Formal?

Yesterday, I had fun.  A lot of it.  I had a very important hearing.  I knew my judge, and through my knowledge, figured it was highly probably that I was going to lose.  It didn't matter that the law was on my side.  It didn't matter that my client's case was compelling.  Knowing how the judge thought, I din't think my client stood much of a chance.  I told her so.  She's a long term client, and I like to think she trusts me.  She was disappointed, but understood how the system works.  She knows that sometimes the choice of judge and not the merits of the cause decide the case.  It didn't matter, I didn't want her to lose.  She had one chance.  There was one way to word the argument to sway this judge.  I had to be prepared to go for broke.  So I did.  I even jumped up and down.  A friend in the gallery said she could see the moment I started to sway the judge. It was a beautiful thing.  My client won - big.

You might ask why we don't always go for broke here in the Trenches.  It's not that we don't put all of our hearts into our cases, because we do.  Going for broke, however, is a big gamble.  If you win, you win big.  If you lose, you also lose big.  There's very little room in the middle.  That's why we don't usually do it.  Hedging your bets a bit helps ensure your client gets at least some of what they want.  If they have the right judge and the right set of facts, they can still win big. At least they won't lose it all. Knowing how far to push, how much risk to take in the courtroom and how to still serve our clients interests is delicate.  That's a large part of why a client hires us.  Here in the Trenches.

Once Upon a TIme....

...there was a family -  a father, a mother and a daughter.  They all lived together in a house and looked so happy.  Except they weren't.  The mother was not a very good mother, but no one else knew it, because the father was so good at covering her mistakes and making up for them.  He was a very good father.  One day, the family came apart.  They couldn't agree on where their daughter should live.  They had to ask a judge to decide.  The judge decided that the daughter should live with her father and see her mother at limited times.  The judge found that the mother was unfit.  "Unfit" has a special meaning here in the Trenches - it means a parent who lacks basic parenting skills, a parent who can't be trusted to care for their children or keep them safe.  The father was sad, but content, because his daughter was safe.  Unfortunately, his daughter was not happy, and she was almost 14.  By the time the daughter was almost 15, she decided she wanted to live with her mother.  He knew what his daughter wanted, but he needed to keep her safe.  The father wasn't too worried - after all, the judge found the mother unfit, and nothing had changed. So, off to court they went, for the second time in 2 years.  The end of this story?  The daughter went to live with the mother.  Wait a minute, did I say the mother.  Yup.  The second judge didn't care that the mother was unfit.  He didn't care that the daughter wouldn't be safe with her.  The second judge only cared about what the daughter wanted.  That's it.

Would the result have been different with a different judge?  Probably.  Put that case before the 20 judges on the court and you would get 20 different results, but probably only one that would give custody to that mother.  The father was just unlucky enough to be before the one who didn't care about any of the things important to him.  That's how it sometimes goes here in the Trenches.  That father's case was a slam dunk, except that it wasn't.  When I tell clients that how the case goes depends on the pick of the judge, I mean it.  Justice has very little to do with it, and fighting the case for the principle of the thing doesn't change the outcome.  It just guarantees frustration, both for them and for us.  Here in the Trenches.

Where Are You Going? How Will You Know When You Get There?

Today, I attended a webinar by one of my favorite bloggers about the business of the Trenches, Lee Rosen.  Lee is an interesting guy.  He's a family law attorney whose passion is the business of the Trenches.  He has branched out into helping lawyers do the business better. As part of that, he gives seminars that focus on the nuts and bolts of improving your practice.  What he noticed, however, was that the folks who were attending his workshops were anxious to learn how to market better, use technology more effectively and streamline their practices.  The problem was that most of them hadn't taken the time to develop a vision for how they wanted their practices and their lives to look ten years down the road.  As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice when she asked:   "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," said the Cat. "I don't much care where--" said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.   His point was that unless you have a vision for where you want to go, all the work on nuts and bolts will only take you so far.  You have to have a vivid picture of where you want to end up for everything else to be most helpful and life altering.

Let's just take that last paragraph and apply it to our clients here in the Trenches.  So many of them are like the attendees at Lee's workshops:  they know what they have isn't working and they want to change it.  Great.  I can help.  The trouble is that most of them have no vision for what would work better.  They haven't thought about where they want their lives to be in ten years.  They're standing in Baskin Robbins and telling the clerk they don't want vanilla.  Well, there are 32 other flavors, and they have no idea which one they want.  They may try some of the flavors other than vanilla, but whether they'll be satisfied with them is a matter of chance, not design.  That's too bad.  It hardly seems worth the effort to engage in change without direction.  They may never find what works better.  I worry about the future for those clients.  Here in the Trenches.

The Slave Driver

As I said yesterday, I am in the process of developing a "new normal." You may know from all of my posts that I run (slowly), do yoga, and in the summer, swim (equally slowly).  I am determined to improve my running speed and my resistance to injury.  I have learned the best way to meet this goal is by weight training.  Of course, I knew this before, I just haven't done it.  Sure, I have used my rather large library of workout materials to create workout after workout, time after time.  After coming home from work, running or swimming, and walking the puppies, the couch beckons and I heed its siren call.  No more.  As part of my "new normal," I am determined to incorporate regular weight training into my day on a regular basis.  Luckily for me, Daughter is newly graduated with her BA in Exercise Science.  So, while she is taking her breaks from studying for her fitness trainer certification, I asked her to devise a workout for me.  I let her know that I am easily bored, like lots of variety, and....want her to keep me accountable.  Good daughter that she is, Daughter sent me a "kick your tooshie" workout for all of the main muscle groups, broken down into three separate workouts.  I dutifully did all of the exercises in three days. I asked her for a different workout.  This was her response (personally, I think she's enjoying telling me what to do):

"So Miss "I got through everything in three days", that was the plan. I sent you three days worth of exercises. I am not giving you anything else as exercises. I need you to master the ones I gave you before we move on. However, If they are too easy, add weight, add stability ball, add more reps. I will however send you exercises to help with your balance that you can add in. With the amount of cardio you are doing, you either need to take more days between resistance training, or separate cardio and resistance more. I do not want to completely overload your body with a new exercise every two seconds, you need to master exercises and increase the weights and reps rather than that. As well, if you are doing both cardio and resistance training you need to eat a lot and give yourself AT LEAST one day off from every form of exercise. Otherwise, you will overtrain and you will hurt yourself. I know you do not agree with me, but trust me. If you want to call me and yell at me about it, feel free, Momma."

Ouch!  I asked for an accountability buddy, and I really got one - in spades.  Yes, you don't need to remind me that I asked for it.  That's OK.  It's what I need to keep me moving in the right direction.

Here in the Trenches, a lot of our clients could use accountability buddies like Daughter.  They need help making sure their emails to their former spouse are neutral and business-like.  They need help grieving.  They need help choosing a new partner so they don't fall for the same type again and again.  They need help moving and sorting. They need someone to keep them on the path to their "new normal."  While they're in the Trenches, we do a lot of that for them.  Soon, however, their case settles, and we leave the picture.  Who takes our place?  Is it a therapist?  A family member? A friend?  Is it different people for different things?  They need to have at least one accountability buddy to keep them moving forward, or we will see them again.  Here in the Trenches.

The New "Normal"

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my father's death.  I have been doing a lot of thinking this last year, as have lots of my friends, in the Trenches and beyond, who have also lost loved ones in the past few years.  In fact, I had breakfast with Office Testosterone's mother just this morning.  What we all have in common is adjusting to life without the ones we love.  I call it the "new normal."  One of my colleagues here in the Trenches decided to leave the Trenches, and today marks her first day in the non-profit sector.  Office T's mom has moved from focusing on the time of his last illness to the wonders of his life and impact on others.  Me?  I'm still in transition.  This is the longest period I have gone without traveling home to mom and dad's in over two years.  It's odd having my daily or every other day phone calls with my mom that don't focus on how dad is doing.  I feel like something is missing from my daily life, and aside from dad's presence, I don't know what it is.  I am searching for something that I won't know until I find it.  Office T's mom feels the same.  It's more than just a sense of loss; it feels like a shift in focus and purpose, the direction of which is still unknown.  They say not to make any major decisions until at least a year after a loss, so I haven't, my mom hasn't, and Office T's mom hasn't.  So, it's been at least a year for all of us, and I'm sure direction will come, from where I haven't a clue.  I'm patient, so I'll wait (and work like hell) until then, and keep thinking.

Here in the Trenches, we know that divorce is like a death.  People don't treat it that way.  They are in a hurry to move on, to make changes, to do anything that is different from what they did before.  To them, I say "STOP."  It doesn't matter if the divorce has been a long time coming, or if they've been separated for a time that seems like forever, the finality of the divorce represents a loss.  It takes time to adjust to the loss.  It takes time to adjust to the "new normal."  Heck, it takes time to figure out the "new normal," aside from the end of the "old normal."  Simply reacting to the end of the old may not make for a good "new normal."  These folks didn't take ending their marriages lightly.  They thought and agonized over it for months, if not years.  Why not devote as much thought and effort to the future?  Patience is a virtue.  Here in the Trenches.

The Genius Bar

I have had six months of computer problems.  First, the hard drive on my laptop died.  Then, I couldn't get my old programs onto it without upgrading my operating system.  When I upgraded my operating system, the spinning wheel of death would hardly let me log in.  Then, when I wiped the operating system it wouldn't let me reload my old one.  After four months of typing this blog on my iPad (no easy task, mind you, and a reason for the paucity of my posts), I went in today to the Apple Store.  Turns out the new hard drive had failed.  Again, they had to replace my hard drive.  Again, I was impressed with the folks at the Apple Store, not the least of which because one of the genius's there gave me some of his personal Excedrin for my migraine.

As I sat waiting for my computer to be repaired, I again looked around the store.  It was a busy place, people buying electronics, people learning how to use their electronics, people coming in to have their electronics fixed.  The people in the latter category were not all that happy, as you might imagine.  Just like the last time I was there, the people who worked at the Apple Store were wonderful.  They greeted everyone with a smile and a kind word.  They were reassuring.  They were helpful.  It would take an insanely angry person to stay upset, given the wonderful way they were being treated.  I asked the Geniuses who helped me if any of them ever lost their cool.  They said it happens - rarely, and only as a response.  Usually, they just save it for the back room.  That's how they're trained.  It's also why they're chosen to work there in the first place.

Here in the Trenches, and especially in my office, we have quite a few of our own "Geniuses".  As you might imagine, a lot of our clients are angry and upset.  Sometimes, they want to shoot the messenger.  We understand that; it's an effect of being in the Trenches.  We, however, don't shoot back.  We listen, we smile, we reassure, and we explain.  We do our best to help.  We care.  Most of our clients know that.  They calm down.  Some don't.  Certainly, we get upset.  We're only human.  We just save it for the back room.  That's how we're trained.  That's why we work here in the first place.  Here in the Trenches.