Most prospective clients arrive with the idea that they want a “BULLDOG lawyer” to protect their interests/hurt their former partner. Attorneys that don’t respond appropriately to that overly emotional attitude will likely lose clients.

In our firm we acknowledge the genuine hurt the client feels. We then attempt to focus on the fact that divorce isn’t warfare, and, that the enemy isn’t nameless and faceless. Relationships with former loves, and especially with offspring, are going to continue long after your divorce, albeit in a changed form.

Best to work for a solution that attempts to keep everyone intact insofar as is possible. Often divorce mediation or collaborative law is a better solution than angry contention.

Divorce lawyers get their marching orders from their clients. Now, many lawyers start off at 10 on a 10 scale, figuring they can ratchet it back if need be. But the case belongs to the client, and if the client says clearly to the attorney that they don’t want a scorched earth campaign, it’s up to the lawyer to comply. Better yet, when you interview lawyers, pick one who is disinclined to go nuclear without clear instructions to the contrary from the client.

Hal Davis
http://www.Civilized-Divorce.com

My father divorced 10 years ago from his second ex wife who lives in another state.
When she found out he was dying she got on a plane and found some unethical lawyers to drag me into a court room during my fathers last days. When we were in court my lawyer asked why are we here when he is being cared for very well. Her attorneys said we are not here for his body, just the money. A court appointed attorney was also sent to my Dad’s house and he was asked who do you want to leave your money to your ex wife or your son. He said in his exact words I want to leave everything to my boy. I made a Will. We were charged $1,200 for the court to send someone univited into my fathers home. This was a horrible way for my father to end his life. Her attorneys now have had me in Court now for almost a year. She worked out a deal with her attorneys that if they can win anything, they can have %50. She pays her attorneys nothing while I have spent my money on my own attorneys. She has brought to the court a divorce decree that has one sentence stuck into it that says when my father dies he must make a new will leaving everything to his ex. Obviously this lacks all common sense and I have been told by every Lawyer that I have talked to in this country that they have never heard of such a thing and it is illegal to force anyone in a divorce decree to make a will out of the decree.

I have only met this woman once, she is ten years older than I am and her own family wants nothing to do with her or her son. She is healthy and can take care of herself. Nobody has anything good to say about her. My father was good to her son and he stole from my father and others. He was eventually put in prison for robbery.

I have been fighting a disease which was fatal and now is chronic for 21 years now. I was a VP for a company for 15 plus years. Now I try to do volunteer work when I feel well but this nightmare has been very stressful. I cannot believe the kind of country we live in today when a father cannot leave his son his estate. There are truly some evil people out there.