Missouri Family Law Blog

Hear this: A lawyer is not a mental health professional. I had a discussion recently with a psychiatrist about divorce and that is the one thing we both agreed had to be remembered. A lawyer has limits, just like everyone — he or she cannot listen to your emotional problems, brainstorm about how to adjust to being suddenly single, or give you ideas about how to handle your grief. Now, that said, lawyers are compassionate, most of them, and they will spend some time letting you vent. But they are not trained to help you cope with your separation and divorce, or with the fact that your child’s other parent does not want you in the child’s life or does not want to be in the child’s life.

I have a friend who calls himself a “love’s aftermath” lawyer, and he refers people to Kubler-Ross’ “On Death and Dying”. That is a good book to read. I often recommend “How to Survive the Loss of a Love”, which you can find on Amazon.com. You might seek and use a referral to a mental health professional, and your lawyer can assist you with that.

Divorce is hard; adoption is exciting but challenging; paternity cases are sometimes very gut-wrenching. But know your lawyer’s limits: If you need a professional to assist you in the personal adjustments that this life change is visiting upon you, get one, and keep that effort separate from your lawyer’s handling of the legal aspect of your litigation. You will ultimately be better served and come through this time of change with a better outcome and a healthier outlook.

Years ago, when Alan [White, my legal assistant and trusted friend] and I first started the Corley Law Firm, we had a client who was arguing with his soon-to-be-ex-wife over her wedding ring, which she had left behind one evening when she went out about town posing as a single person. He did not want to return it; she wanted it back. After several phone calls between lawyers, I said to him, “Give me the damn ring.” I looked at it: A slender gold band with no stone. I asked where he had gotten it and how much he had paid for it. “Fifty dollars, at Service merchandise,” came the reply. I told him he had a choice: He could return the ring to her and I would take $50 off his bill; or I would resign and he could do whatever he chose to do with the damn ring. He took the former.

Thus was born the benchmark by which Alan and I judge our prospective clients. Do we suspect they will be “damn ring” clients? If so, we do not take the case. We do not have time or energy to waste over $50 rings. We understand the sentiment: People associate the feelings they have for the person with an object. But divorcing people need to let go of the objects, and probably need to let go of the feelings, too. We aren’t therapists — we can’t show them the way — but we can and do tell them that we don’t want to spend any of our time fighting over things that don’t amount to much of anything in the grand scheme of things.

I’ll caution you — don’t let your life get wrapped up in small, insignificant things, and certainly, don’t let your divorce go down that path. You don’t need the damn ring. Give it back.

At a recent Case Management docket in Jackson County, I watched a judge dealing with pro se [self represented] persons to a divorce involving children and property. The wife had prepared a settlement agreement and parenting plan. In a short, ten minute session, the judge asked the husband if he agreed. With respect to the judge, I observe here that each time the husband indicated he did not agree, the judge indicated that if he did not agree, the process would be delayed so the husband could get an attorney. “You can disagree, but if you want to agree, I can do this here and now”, was the clear if not precisely articulated message. In the end, the couple got their divorce, but there is no way of telling if the husband really agreed with the terms or just did not want the delay promised if he refused to go along.

I am sure this particular judge meant well, and I hope it all turns out all right for that family. But I shudder to think of the problems that can arise if a divorcing couple doesn’t know how to divide pensions, 401Ks or complicated school schedules of their children. There is a constant friction between the citizen’s right to be their own advocate or their lack of funds to hire an advocate, and the unmistakable reality of how complex our lives are, so that the unjoining of a couple can lead to genuine, complex problems if not properly accomplished.

Many of us try to do our part by low-cost representation — “quality divorce lawyer at a reasonable price” — but we have overheads to pay and families to support. I myself am not wealthy — I do not charge high enough rates to be — but even so, I have to get some pay, and I do my share, and more, of formal pro bono (”free”) work. It is hard to sit on my hands and watch people “get divorced” in the style I have just narrated. I know the pitfalls that exist in the law. I don’t know if we can change the laws governing property and parenting to make them less complicated, and I don’t see any way to get people representation any cheaper than it is already available. This is the age-old quandry in the law that is particularly evident in divorce court, since this is somethng that people need and want, rather than a civil claim that they are pursuing for the potential of redress that might not always be necessary in order for the claimant to be made whole. A divorce, when unavoidable, must be obtained despite the cost, and if the parties cannot afford an attorney, they are opening themselves up to future problems because their judgments might well fail to address, or improperly address, critical issues.

No answers, here, just thoughts. Divorce, Missouri-style, in 2008, is friendlier to the unrepresented litigant, but, I think, deceptively so. Our court has seen fit to put guidelines for the self-represented on its website, but no amount of warning can truly prepare someone for self-representation, because plainly and simply put, the non-lawyer can never foresee all that needs to be done and all the ways in which they need to do each task.

I’m not sure what the moral of the story is. I will keep trying to provide representation at a reasonable cost, and hope that everyone finds someone to do likewise when they are in need of a family law practitioner, whether for divorce, legal separation, adoption, or any of the other actions peculiar to the family law practice. That’s the best I can do. I might not be able to take on everyone who needs me, but I do what I can.