In the The Good Karma Divorce, Judge Michele Lowrance, a domestic relations judge in the Circuit Court of Illinois, wrote "The court system was not built to house emotions, and attorneys are not trained to reduce emotional suffering. Divorcing people expect relief far beyond what the legal realm can provide from their attorneys and the courts, and they often end up feeling like members of a powerless, unprotected class."
I fully agree with Judge Lowrance. Divorce attorneys are trained to solve problems for their clients. That is all well and fine except for the fact that their client is not the only person affected by the divorce.
Divorce is the dismantling of a family. Mother, father and children and that dismantling process is extremely painful and stressful. In such a situation it only makes sense that the focus should be on resolving conflict in a way that doesn't inflict more pain. Divorce attorneys are notorious for creating conflict in order to "win" the case for their client.
What ends up happening is, the client, the ex and the children all suffer more deeply and emotionally and the divorce attorney benefits financially.
Therapists are trained to solve problems in a way that is in the best interest of all involved. An understanding of the psychological aspects of divorce could go a long way in resolving not only the legal but the emotional aspects of divorce.
Law schools focus on the legal aspects of divorce alone. And don't seem interested in encouraging students to show empathy or even a small amount of concern for the entire family maybe the ABA should consider the benefits of having divorce attorneys and therapists build practices together.
Or, better yet, instead of waiting around for the ABA to become proactive in making the divorce process less emotionally painful you could choose to go the route of a Collaborative Divorce.
I think divorce attorneys should have in-house therapists, or at least therapists they refer clients to. It’s crazy to expect people to make major decisions when they’re temparily crazy due to divorce.
It won’t change until the law is changed. The law gets changed when legistlative personnel enacts laws. The current legistlative make-up of our American legal system is disproportionately lawyers. Guess how long it’ll take before you see a change?
I had a collaborative lawyer. She was really mean to me when I was emotional when I had appointments with her as well as said negative things about me to his attorney. I put out over 60K to this attorney that treated me so badly that it was horrifying. I had been married for 30 years and this lawyer expected me to be emotionless. I had a friend here at work and she did the same thing to her. This lawyer did not respect my wishes on how to handle the case. She literally told me what I was going to do and because I didn;t she emotionally and mentally abused me. She slandered me to the other attorney and the arbitrator as well. She did not believe me when I had all the facts on documents. What do you do about someone like this?
Divorcing people are exposed to emotional problems and suffering and “often end up feeling like members of a powerless, unprotected class”. I believe this can happen to me. What is said about how attorneys function within the court system is persuasive and underlines importance of the role a therapist can play in divorce procedures.
Does anybody know what ABA stands for? I am not a lawyer, but only a participant in the course facing divorce.