Criminal defense attorneys are known for saying – tongue-in-cheek – that they only represent clients who are not guilty. The obvious truth is that criminal defense lawyers take their clients as they find them – without regarding to guilt or innocence. The defense attorney understands his/her responsibilities – to defend the client’s right to a fair judicial process and sentence (should a client turn out to be guilty after all).
Family law attorneys would do well to take a lesson from the criminal defense bar. We need to make peace with the types of clients we represent. I am as guilty as any of my colleagues of entering a case believing my client is the guiltless spouse and the opposing side is the devil incarnate. I remember when I had my “come to Jesus” moment and realized that, just possibly, I represent clients who also bear some responsibility in the break-down of the marriage, or the level of hostility in the divorce process.
It happened about 15 years ago. I had represented a wife in an extremely acrimonious divorce. The spouses were so angry with each other that I was convinced it was true hatred. Custody and parenting time were hotly contested. A recurring theme in my conversations with my client was her frustration over her husband trash-talking her in front of and to their two young children. She repeatedly insisted that she never said anything negative about the children’s father within their hearing. She waxed eloquent on how wrong it was to put down a parent in front of the children. She constantly implored me to do something about the bad things she believed he was saying to the children about her.
Against all odds, the case settled without going to trial. However, the animosity between these two people was so great that while we waited for the administrative bookkeeping to be put in place for the payment of child support to be made through the Friend of the Court system, the attorneys agreed to act as liaisons to transmit father’s monthly support check to mother. The ex-husband would write the child support check, drop it off to his attorney, who would then mail it to me. My client would then come to the office to pick it up.
It was on one of those pick-ups that I had the epiphany that brought me down a notch and made me re-consider the possibility that my clients are not always perfect. One day, the mother came in to pick up her child support check and I came out with the check to the lobby where she was waiting with her eight and ten year old children. I handed her the check and she thanked me, saying “I’m so grateful that you are willing to do this for me. I know that if the attorneys weren’t involved, Joe [not his real name] would never pay me. He doesn’t care if his children starve!” She said this terrible thing about the children’s father right there, in front of and in clear hearing of her two children. I was stunned.
Even I was not so naïve as to believe this was the first time Mom had trash-talked Dad in front of the kids. I even allowed for the possibility that she had no insight into her behavior and did not realize she was acting in the same way as the father had been – something she had complained about bitterly throughout the divorce. It really made no difference from the point of view of the children, though.
There are some take-aways from this story. Some are for the family law bar. We attorneys need to remember that it really does take two to tango. We need to remain mindful that, with some notable exceptions, a divorce is little more than two decent people who have not been able to make it together and now wish to part company. Rarely is one side the angel and the other the devil. Also, it is not necessary to believe our clients are blameless or their behavior exemplary to provide zealous legal representation. I assume that going through a divorce will invariably bring out the worst in my clients. They are human, and they are still entitled to have a good lawyer, even when they behave badly. But, we attorneys are also counselors and in order to provide counsel we need to recognize our clients’ strengths – and their weaknesses.
There are also lessons to learn for you parents out there who are still reading. Sometimes our anger spills over in ways that our children witness, even when we don’t realize it. Be mindful of everything you say and do concerning your ex or estranged spouse in front of the children. Children come from two parents. Consider what the child is learning about him/herself if he hears one parent say the other parent is a bad person. The child is learning that s/he is bad, too, because s/he is a product of that bad person. Putting down a parent in front of his/her children is never in a child’s best interests.