Who Needs A Lawyer in Court Anyway? Part 7: Not Buying Into Your Story

Final Question:

• If a client wants to do something you know doesn't make sense, legally or otherwise, how do you respond?

Long ago, a very kind, wise person gave me some of the best advice of my career.  He said, "Ms. Bowie, you must learn not to take on the mantra of your clients."  Truthfully, I'm still working on that.  And in family law, it is one of the hardest things to learn.  But my clients need me to do it, so it is a priority goal for me, every day.  

Many lawyers hate divorce and custody law because it is, "so emotional."  And it really is! We lawyers go to law school and we learn to be advocates and our clients need that.  But the most skilled family law attorneys are daily students in setting aside their own feelings about a particular case, and working to learn objectivity.

If we are honest, few of us do this perfectly or well.  What you are looking for is someone who: (1) understands that the concept exists (many lawyers, no matter how skilled and with many years of experience don't); (2) understands the importance of the balancing act between being a strong advocate and calling you on your unreasonable ideas or beliefs; and (3) can explain how he or she has and is learning to be more objective now, as compared to last year, or the year before.

Almost every client or potential client I've talked to in the past nearly twelve years includes some reference to "my rights,"  in his or her initial discussions with me.  In divorce and custody cases, the real winners are the ones who understand that justice is not about rights, it is about a sensible balance of the rights of everyone in the family.

Who Needs A Lawyer In Court Anyway? Part 6: Courtesy and Civility

Question Set 4:

• What do you think of <FILL IN THIS BLANK WITH THE NAMES OF THREE OTHER DIVORCE OR CUSTODY LAWYERS IN YOUR COMMUNITY> 
• How are you different?

Why these questions matter:  First, call your local bar association.  Ask them for the names of the "three best, most aggressive divorce lawyers," who practice in your jurisdiction.  When you go shopping, look for the following in the response you get:

• Does the lawyer say ugly or rude things about these people?
• Is the lawyer honest, but courteous, even when he or she doesn't appear to particularly like the person you suggested?
• Does the lawyer include anything positive about the names you suggest?
• Be sure that when the lawyer explains how he or she is different from the names you suggest, his or her explanation is both honest and balanced.

In most parts of Maryland, local attorneys are unbelievably generous and courteous with one another.  You need that!  Especially if you are lucky enough to live in one of Maryland's less populated counties.  Where there are fewer lawyers to go around, the likelihood of them having to work with each other often results in less animosity and more civility.  Even if you don't live in one of these locations, try to find a "small-town" attitude of courtesy and respect for other lawyers from the person you interview.

On the other hand, you need to know how the divorce or custody lawyer you are interviewing reacts when he or she deals with a person that may be less than an ideal opponent.  Honesty is as important as civility.  The person you interview may tell you more in what they don't say than in what they do say.  Lawyers that are both honest and courteous follow the old childhood rule: If you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.

Who Needs A Lawyer in Court Anyway? Part 5: Legal Knowledge and Willingness to Learn

Question Set 3:

• Explain what the law in Maryland is about my issue (custody?  spousal support?  grounds for divorce?)

• If you come up against a legal issue you really don't understand, what do you do?

Why these questions matter:  Divorce and custody law is complicated, especially in Maryland.  You want a lawyer who knows the substance (the answers to the specific questions about legal issues in your case) as well as the way the issues are applied by the court most often (the procedures the court in your jurisdiction has for dealing with these issues).  More important, you want a divorce or custody attorney who has some degree of humility and willingness to be a student.  Really!  Be much more wary of the lawyer who seems to know everything about everything.  Here's a clue:  the best legal minds in the world, in any area of law, have maintained a beginner's mind.  They are willing not to know the answer and to work like crazy to learn it.

Who Needs A Lawyer in Court Anyway? Part 4: Organization and Work Ethic

Question Set 2:

When you handle a divorce or custody case, do you have a plan (strategy) from the beginning of the case?

• If so, what do you do if something happens and the original plan isn't working?
• When you make a plan for a case, do you set your own deadlines, or do you rely on what the court calendar tells you is about to happen?

Why these questions matter: The best way to manage a divorce or custody case is to develop a "theme" or strategy early in the case.  Another important skill is flexibility.  It is the very rare divorce or custody case that follows a set pattern and has little or no bumps in the road.  This is one reason why divorce and custody attorneys with plenty of specific experience in family law are worth the money you pay them.  The best are flexible.  They have a plan, but they know how to keep an eye on developments, identify a looming problem before it becomes mission critical, and adjust the plan accordingly.

As for work skills, these are crucial to the reasonable resolution of your case.  How many times has the lawyer you interview missed any kind of deadline set by the court in the past six months, or year?  Has the lawyer you interview ever missed a court date?  Why?  When?  If the answer to this question sounds sketchy, move on to the next lawyer.

Who Needs A Lawyer in Court Anyway? Part 3: Feeling Your Pain

Here are some questions you may want to ask a divorce or custody lawyer when you go shopping.  The reason for this first set of questions is to find out just how compassionate, flexible and wise your potential lawyer may be.

• Why do you practice family law?
• Is there some event in your own life that inspired you to do this kind of work?
• If so, what have you learned from that event? 

These questions matter because, like some psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers, far too many divorce and family lawyers do the work as a reaction to some event in their own lives that wasn't resolved very well.  What you are looking for isn't the event, but how the event shaped this particular lawyer's life.

• Did it turn him or her into a crusader?  
• If so, after years of practice, has he or she come down off the soapbox, or is he or she still up there tilting at windmills?
• Does he or she recognize his or her own limitations?
• Can he or she admit it when he or she makes a mistake?
• If so, does he or she do everything possible to learn from, and correct the mistake?  
• Is this person one who dares greatly?

Sometimes the very best family lawyers are the ones who have had difficult experiences in their own lives with a divorce or custody case, but they are also the ones who have been able to learn from their own pain and become more balanced and compassionate.

Who Needs A Lawyer In Court Anyway? Part 2: Going Shopping

One of the most important things you can do in choosing a lawyer is to go shopping.  Be willing to spend money on an initial office conference.  You wouldn't expect to go to a really great doctor and not pay for the office visit.

• While lawyers don't save your life physically, the best can save, or at least help you deal with, the emotional trauma specific to the process of litigation or a dispute with your spouse or the other parent of your child.  They may not provide emotional support but they can help you find it, and the best of them will insist you get it if you need it.  In short, he or she will be honest enough to tell you the truth about how you are handling your problems.
• Lawyers may not transplant a heart or help you walk again, but a really good one will provide you with the information, balance and objectivity you need to make the hard choices in a divorce or custody case.

So pay them what they ask.  Beware of lawyers who offer a "free" initial office conference.  Some are fine, but many are just trying to hook you into plunking down a chunk of change.  Be sure they have the experience and skill to handle your case and don't be fooled by the old bait and switch.

Who Needs A Lawyer in Court Anyway? Part 1: Choices and Objectivity

At the risk of sounding self-serving, I am writing a series of blog posts to try to answer some of the questions I hear so often from folks trying to navigate their way alone through Maryland's family courts.

The single most important reason for you to have a lawyer helping you is that you need an objective third person to help you make informed choices about what to ask for, how to ask for it, and why.  Here is a little-known fact: even divorce and custody attorneys find themselves in court because they can't agree with their spouse or the parent of their kids.  When that happens, the best divorce lawyers don't represent themselves.  Why?  Because they know they can't be objective and they know there's no telling how the other person is going to act during their dispute.

If you are in a divorce or custody case in Maryland because you or the other person is asking the court for help because the two of you can't work out some family issue by agreement, you are already behind the eight-ball.  You need a divorce or custody lawyer to provide some balance and perspective as much as, or more than, you need the very best legal mind among divorce and custody attorneys.

Co-Parenting and Child Custody Cases

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."  My great-grandmother used to quote this old Irish saying all the time.  I think of it whenever an activist judge structures a custody order that ignores the underlying power struggle between litigating parents in a child custody dispute, ignoring the evidence of their struggle in attempting to be "fair" to both parents.

The job of the judge in a custody case is to listen to all of the evidence, and decide what is best for the kids. This doesn't always happen.   Family judges seem to fall on one of two ends of the spectrum.  Either they despise family law and would rather not hear anything other than the bare minimum or they think their job is to make everybody happy, and in doing so, fail to hold the parents accountable for their bad actions as parents.

The bottom line is this:  if there wasn't something wrong with one or both parents in the way they deal with their kids, they wouldn't be in court at trial!  So . . . what happens?  Too often, a judge decides to give these difficult parents the opportunity to continue their bad behavior by ordering that they "co-parent."

There are all kinds of fancy, trendy "services" out there that make plenty of buck from this kind of court order.  Parent coordinators.  Reunification counselors.  Custody evaluators.  The list is endless.  And the problem is not that these services exist, it is that these folks too often suffer from the same myth the judges do, that after the litigation is over, with a little (or a lot) of help, the parents will magically be transformed into kind (or at least functional) parents.

Down where I come from, we have a word for that, but like Auntie Em in the Wizard of Oz said, "I can't repeat 'em because I'm a good woman."

One answer that actually works is when courts acknowledge the fact of the dysfunction.  It's happening in courts all over the country, specifically (of course) in Southern California, where the courts require what they call "recidivist" cases (meaning the ones that keep coming back) into high-conflict parenting classes.  These courses specifically do not expect couples to try to just get along, they teach parents what is known as "parallel parenting."  The theory goes that if one parent is reasonably sane (and this is often the case) that person can learn not to engage with the other parent, but to parent on a parallel track that doesn't give the less capable parent the chance to use the kids (and the legal system) to champion their personal cause.

For more information, here is a link to some of the best education out there on how to make this work:  Deena Stacer, Ph.D. - Part 1 of Online Course

Justice, Rights and Balance

A lot of folks call me about their divorce (or worse) custody case and the first thing they say is something like this:

"I want to protect my rights."

The problem is, they confuse justice and their rights with balance and fairness.  Especially in family court, unlike say, criminal court, most courts are not so much interested in lining up the rights of each party in the case as they are concerned with doing what is fair for the family unit.  And when children are involved, what matters (or should) is what will be best for the kids.

The other problem is that when a family case --- whether a divorce, custody, guardianship or will dispute matter --- ends up being a court contest, one or both of the parties is unable to untangle his or her rights with those of the entire family.  When the other party is confronted with this situation, the only recourse is to meet that person with strong but balanced advocacy.

That's why the motto of Maryland Family Law Firm, L.L.C. is, "Balancing Rights With Care."  Call us today if you want a strong and balanced divorce or custody attorney.

On Grandparents, Families and Children

Almost four years ago, I became a grandmother.  It was terrific!  I love that kid more than I ever thought possible.  I don't get to see my grandchild as much as I'd like, but I've learned a few things about how passionately I can love a child.

And it isn't only family members who often feel they have a stake in the life of a child.  Many stepparents, same sex parents who haven't adopted a child, and sometimes other community members, feel strong bonds with children who aren't related to them by blood.

From the perspective of a child, there can never be too many loving adults in his or her life.  The problem is, when the state undertakes to regulate the legal relationship of those adults to the child, everything gets a lot more complicated.

Some states have laws that recognize these third parties.  They call them de facto parents.  That means adults who have such a strong history of relationship with a child that, whatever their bloodline, to the child, these grownups are a parent.

Other states try to draw a clear line between third parties and natural (or adoptive) parents.  But many of these states have either statutes or case law that carves out exceptions allowing some limited circumstances when a third-party can obtain visitation or custody of a child.

Maryland law has exceptions to the hard and fast rule that it does not recognize de facto parents. If a third-party can prove what the law calls "exceptional circumstances" or that the natural parent is unfit to parent, then that person can get custody.  Other states have laws that say, for example, if a child has lived for a continuous year with a third party who has provided a certain amount of support, the third party can try to get custody.

As a grandparent, I have deep personal feelings about laws that undertake to give grandparents (and other third parties like aunts, uncles, siblings and the like) the "right" to a relationship with the children who come into the family.  From a personal perspective, I like those laws.  But as a lawyer, I'm think there's a lot of wisdom in making it hard for a grandparent or uncle, or aunt or stepparent to get custody or even visitation.

Most families have some amount of dysfunction going on, even the best of them.  Sadly, whether the family history includes divorce or not, the dysfunction gets passed down from generation to generation.  Having seen the havoc that is wrought on a child when two natural parents fight over custody and visitation, I can't imagine how much worse it could be if the law allowed more people with a relationship with a child to join the fray.  Or how much damage could be done in a family that is determined to "gang up" on an individual family member whose only fault is to live a life other than the life sanctioned by the family.

It pains me to admit it, as a grandmother, but I have to say, from where I sit, the laws limiting custody to natural parents except in very unusual circumstances are there for a very good reason.

Maryland Law and Military Parents

More and more parents serve in the military.  That means that if the relationship between the parents is already troubled, there are far more opportunities to gain leverage in a custody and/or visitation dispute.  My colleague, Judianne Cochran recently published a two-part article with excellent suggestions as a guest of the Ohio Family Law Blog.  You can read her piece here: Suggestions for Military Parents.

Maryland  has gone a step further than some states and has a statute that governs custody and visitation orders for military parents.  You can find it at Md. Fam. Law, Art. sec. 9-108.

The law defines what "deployment" means and what it does not mean.

• It requires specific reference of a parent's deployment.

• It requires specific reference to when a parent's deployment is set to end; and

• It requires a prompt hearing when that occurs.

• It also requires the parent not in the military to "reasonably accommodate" the leave schedule of the military parent.

• To facilitate opportunities for telephone and electronic contact between the military parent and child(ren); and 

• Requires the military to provide timely information about his or her leave schedule to the non-military parent.

If you are in the military and need help with a custody or visitation matter, contact me today to schedule an appointment.  I'd love to serve you.

Top Five Pre-Divorce Mistakes

Number 1 Mistake - Doing Nothing.

Your spouse has admitted to having an affair but he/she promises never to do it again.   Go to marriage counseling, but don't stop there.  Exercise some prudence and start planning.  Contact a lawyer and get immediate advice on whether and how to document the affair.

Your spouse has moved out and tells you he/she needs space.  There are no deadlines, no promises, just the vague hope that it might work out in the future.  Go to marriage counseling if you need to, but don't stop there.   Contact a lawyer right away to find out what you need to know about household finances and other issues that won't wait for your spouse to make up his or her mind.

Number 2  Mistake - Trying to Get An Internet Law Degree for Your Divorce.  

There's a reason it takes three years of intense study, thousands of dollars, and the ability to pass a really hard test to become a lawyer.  Don't make the mistake of thinking you can do it yourself.  Even if you have to get started on your own, using a form, take the time and spend the money to consult with an experienced family law attorney about what you put into the form, whether it's correct procedurally, and what you will need to do to get started on your own.

Number 3 Mistake - Confusing Bargain-hunting With Shopping.  

You may find the right lawyer on the first try, but if you are uncomfortable, be sure to try a couple of others.  But don't confuse bargain-hunting with shopping.  You are looking for a lawyer with plenty of experience specifically in divorce and/or custody law or, if your state allows it, who has a specialty in Family Law or Domestic Relations.   Quality service costs money.  Have your resources in order so that you can get quality at a reasonable price.

Number 4 Mistake - Failing to Educate Yourself

Become a collector of facts and leave the law to the lawyers. Quietly begin to make copies of every paper you can find.  Account statements, loan documents, real property documents, and the like.  Keep the copies you make in a location not in your home or where your spouse can access them.  If you do have to get a divorce, these simple actions can be a lifesaver.

 Know everything you can about your finances and those of your spouse --- this means bank account numbers, where important papers are kept and what is kept there, what kind of assets you and your spouse own and what kind of assets he or she owns.  If your spouse has voluntarily given you passwords to important online accounts, keep them in a safe place.  Be sure your banks, lenders and other important contacts know who you are if you have joint accounts with your spouse.

Number 5 Mistake - Always Trust Your Gut

When a marriage ends, usually one person knows long before the other.  For the person being left, the awareness of what is happening can sometimes come only slowly and gradually.  Or some random comment or event will suddenly strike as odd or out of place.  One way or the other, though, don't dismiss your intuition that something could be wrong.  If it's too hard to figure out on your own, get help from a professional counselor with experience in couples counseling.  Most professionals provide a service known as "exit counseling" to help people thinking about, or just becoming aware of the fact that a divorce is looming.