THE FAMILY LAW LAWYER/CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
By THOMAS C. DART , Family
Law Department
There is, in my view, no area of practice more in need
of a good lawyer client relationship than family law. As
client, you have to have utmost confidence in your lawyer
at all times, regardless of your particular legal service
need, but, in family law, you need and deserve more than
just a good lawyer with good knowledge of the law and good
negotiating skills. You need someone who cares about your
problem, understands the emotionally charged nature of this
area of law and is able and willing to provide service,
accepting as a given the nature of this area of practice.
A good family law lawyer is, it is often said, part social
worker/counselor/therapist. While most family law lawyers
do not have the training or education needed for counseling
or therapy, they often find themselves in a situation with
a client who does need such help. A good family law lawyer
should never try to provide counseling or therapy directly
to you. When such help is needed, your lawyer should recognize
this and try to encourage you to take the needed counseling
or therapy from a qualified professional. He or she should
be able to provide several names of therapists in different
types of counseling work who can provide this help for you
or, alternatively, suggest you contact your family doctor
for referrals in this area.
This type of assistance from your lawyer really is nothing
more than good listening - understanding your particular
need and trying to provide assistance for you. The lawyer
should encourage you to overcome your natural reluctance
to "go into counseling" - none of us likes to
admit we need this kind of help from time to time, but we
can all use it, especially when we are facing a tragedy
such as marriage breakdown.
Good listening means more than simply caring and understanding,
however - it means trying to gain a full understanding of
your specific needs underlying your concerns as expressed
in the interviews you have with your family law lawyer.
It then means encouraging you to give informed instructions
to the lawyer in order to translate into reality the actual
needs that you have that are to your benefit to pursue and
obtain. This can only be achieved over time, with the length
of time varying from client to client.
One example that illustrates the type of help a lawyer
can give a client by being a good and understanding listener
is in dealing with the need of the client for "revenge".
The client often, very understandably, wants the lawyer
to assist him or her in punishing the other spouse for the
terrible wrong inflicted by the separation. However, the
good family law lawyer will recognize this need for just
what it is - a momentary and understandable need to vent,
to have someone listen and understand the depth of your
anger; to empathize with you and truly let you get this
anger outside of you where it can be let go or, at least,
controlled.
The good family law lawyer will not get caught up in this
anger of yours nor in any way try to assist you in exacting
revenge. While this may be what you think you want, the
good lawyer will understand that this is, in reality, very
much contrary to your best interests. Especially where there
are children involved, your need to vent, if allowed to
transform into court or legal action, will only damage you
and your children emotionally and rack up horrendous legal
and financial costs in doing so.
The bitterness and anger generated by divorce is very human
and very understandably prevalent in most cases of marriage
breakup. But anger and bitterness have to be allowed to
dissipate so that all parties, especially the children,
can move on and, eventually, "get over" the tragedy
of their family breakup. The good family law lawyer can
assist this, often by simply recognizing with you, the client,
this natural and normal part of tragedy and by pointing
out to you that your lawyer needs to be objective, needs
to act toward the final goal which should always be to obtain
for you a reasonable (never perfect) settlement based on
the particular legal principals involved in your case.
Another example may further illustrate what we mean by
the nature of the lawyer client relationship that is needed
in this area of the law.
Often you, as client, want something that is, ultimately,
not attainable. You want things back the way they were,
no marriage breakdown at all, just a normal life with your
spouse in your home. For any lawyer, these are the most
difficult situations to listen to and deal with. The lawyer
is caught in the unhappy situation of having to bring the
client to the realization that the marriage is dead, that
there is no hope. Ethically, a lawyer is to promote reconciliation
at all times and most lawyers do. But legally, one spouse
can decide that the marriage is over and then assert his
or her legal rights, ultimately through the court if need
be, even though the other spouse wants no part of the separation
and just wants, from the bottom of their being, a full and
complete reconciliation. Again, this type of situation needs
to be recognized. The client needs to be given time to accept
the tragedy that has befallen him or her. The lawyer needs
to have a good "bedside manner" and excellent
listening skills to truly assist this client. Often this
type of situation can only be assisted with therapy and
some long term counseling by a qualified professional.
Ultimately, the good family law lawyer needs to understand
that marriage breakdown is a type of human tragedy - no
one plans it, no one really wants it. On the wedding day,
everyone thinks it will never happen to their marriage or
their lives, that their marriage will last forever. Then,
suddenly, one spouse finds him/herself in a situation that
they can no longer tolerate for whatever reason, and the
breakup begins. Like any tragedy, no one ever fully recovers
from marriage breakup. It leaves lasting emotional scars.
The healing process often is never fully complete and often
takes years just to get to the point where you can handle
your affairs with some small degree of self confidence again.
Your lawyer needs to understand where you are at in the
healing process and should be there for you to help you
make objective decisions regarding your legal rights in
your particular situation. Understand that this means that
you and your lawyer may often disagree on the course of
the conduct of your case. You may want him or her to become
aggressive, to fight for you - to thoroughly trounce the
other side so that you can feel like you have exacted some
measure of revenge for the hurt you feel. But the good lawyer
needs to resist this, fight it in fact. The good lawyer
will point out to you and estimate for you in some detail
the financial cost of this type of action (and the emotional
cost this is also likely to have on you when it is over.
The experienced family lawyer should be able to give you
a very clear understanding of your legal rights and the
costs involved in asserting those rights. He or she should
leave up to you the final decision as to whether you want
to pursue those rights given the costs involved. It is always
the client's decision as to whether to finance a particular
course of action, but you need to be fully informed, and
in a frame of mind to accept rational advice. Often, without
even knowing it, you are not in a frame of mind to make
important decisions. A good lawyer knows this and assists
you in gaining the frame of mind necessary to make these
very important, often irreversible decisions that affect
your future after the divorce is finally over.
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The above is not intended to constitute
legal advice. Please contact a lawyer to clarify your
legal rights.
