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.