The most rewarding part of the practice for me is at the end of the case when I know that I’ve gotten my client’s future back for them, that they can stop focusing on the past, which almost inevitably they do when they first arrive at my office, and get turned around with a sense of completion and satisfaction that it’s over and they can move forward and they’re positioned to move forward into their future. So getting them facing the future is the most important part for me at the conclusion of the case.

It’s an interesting practice, really, family law, because, you know, save the baby has a little bit of meaning for us. We deal with children, we deal with the outcomes of children who don’t have their own lawyers, and it’s very satisfying to know that their needs are being met at the same time that the adults’ needs are being met. You try to craft a solution that’s not a win-lose solution, you try to come up with one that is gonna preserve everybody in the best shape they can be. And it’s really very satisfying to me personally to be able to deal with human beings and be able to achieve those kind of results for them.

The advice that I give to my clients is, number one, to have patience because people come out of relationships when they’re breaking up with an awful lot of negative energy involved and that leads them into places that they really shouldn’t be involved in, in litigation. It’s too much fighting and trying to settle old scores. Typically in a divorce somebody’s being left behind, somebody’s not really agreeable to the divorce. Sometimes they are but often they’re not. And that takes time for the passions to die down.

The other advice that I give to clients is the uncertainty, of course, of going to court and also that there’s three things the court can’t do, and so we, as lawyers, can’t provide it. The court can’t rewrite history, what’s done is done, and it can’t make money appear out of nowhere no matter how great your needs are, and they can’t make your spouse a better person. And that’s the usual complaint is why can’t you make them behave. Well, nobody can make them behave. They just have to start getting used to that and realize that once the parties are apart an awful lot of the tensions and anger and feelings subside.

Whatever the relationship was between the two adults it will not be the same in the future, it’ll be much more formal, much more distant. That’s gonna provide a level of comfort that they have not experienced up to this point and they need to hear about that.