Let me start with a warning. This is not a cheerful article. It is written from a place of frustration, grief and even anger.
Having said that, I am grateful I have never been a party in a divorce. I am also mindful that having never experienced the break-up of a marriage first-hand, I may well lack the ability to understand the choices some of my clients make.
Here’s one example: A woman in her early 60’s retains me to file a divorce on her behalf. It takes some convincing on my part (because “my husband is a really good guy who would never do anything to hurt me”), but she reluctantly agrees to allow me to present an ex parte restraining order on marital assets with the filing of the complaint. I explain to her that the order will be mutual and will prevent either party from making unauthorized withdrawals from retirement accounts or otherwise hiding or wasting marital assets before a settlement is reached. I obtain the order, and she promises to turn a copy over to her broker. Unbeknownst to me, she decides it’s really not necessary. Two weeks later, she’s on the phone with me, crying that her husband emptied out a brokerage account of thousands of dollars. What should she do? Well, here’s one idea: listen to your lawyer. Maybe I’ve never been divorced, but I’ve spent 28 years helping other people get divorced and I have learned a thing or two about the things that can go wrong.
Unfortunately, some people have to learn by making their own mistakes, and no matter how frustrating it is, we attorneys have to live with the consequences. Sometimes, all we can do is try to minimize the fallout from a client’s unwillingness to follow our advice – advice that our clients are presumably paying us serious money for, by the way. Sometimes the consequences are too severe, and there is nothing we can do to fix the choices the client makes.
When a client comes to me wanting to wage a custody battle, I make any and every effort to help the client explore alternatives to litigation. Custody battles bankrupt people, and shred what often is the remnant of a once-loving relationship with the other parent. Most experienced family law attorneys will tell you that the cost to the children cannot be quantified when the parents attempt to destroy each other in a courtroom for the ultimate price of “winning” the children.
I have had many clients rationalize their commitment to fight for custody on the grounds that, no matter what the cost, they want their children to know that they fought “for them.” I’ve had a number of clients tell me they will get custody or die trying.
Well, one of my clients just did. He died trying. I am convinced that his custody battle killed him. This is one case where there is nothing I can do to fix the mess.
Over the course of almost two years, we prepared for and engaged in an 11-day custody trial at the end of which the judge “split the baby” as we lawyers like to say when there is no clear winner and no clear loser. But, my client saw anything short of his custody goal as a loss, and so off we went to the appellate court, despite efforts by family members to get him to accept the court’s ruling and get on with his life, despite my attempts to have him explore alternatives to continuing the legal battle. His unwillingness to get on with his life cost him his life.
During the long months I worked with him on his case, he burned through his substantial retirement account to finance the litigation, lost 25 pounds, compromised his health, suffered from depression, lost a job, lost a girlfriend, fell behind on his mortgage, and took on debt that eventually drove him to a bankruptcy lawyer – all to win a custody battle. Then, he paid the ultimate price – he lost his life. It is plain that the stress killed him.
Now, this 42-year old father is forever absent, leaving behind two beautiful young children who I pray will never know that there father literally died trying. I would hope that his children are never burdened with the knowledge that his obsession with winning – and to be fair, their mother’s obsession with winning – claimed their father’s life. Now, he not only does not have custody, but his children have been deprived of their father forever. Frankly, they are so young it is doubtful they will even remember him by the time they are adults. It makes me feel so sad, for the children, and for my client.
And I am left to ponder, what was it all for anyway? Didn’t I try to do everything to promote a settlement? Did I do enough? Can I convince my next custody client that compromise for the sake of the children, for the sake of the client’s health and well-being, is a better choice?