Tonight’s post about the virtues of patience in family law matters was written by our Lawrenceville Divorce Attorney, Brandy Alexander
We live in an age where we have access to just about anything we want in a matter of minutes. The advent of the internet, social media, cell phones and online shopping has pretty much left us devoid of a need to ever wait longer than a matter of minutes or at very longest a full twenty four hours for that which we desire. It’s no wonder why we have become an impatient people.
But patience is still a necessity because while we can have a new pair of shoes sent to us overnight express and we can order dinner for the family while driving in the car on our way home from work, there are still things that simply do not happen as quickly.
Divorce, custody modifications, child support modifications and alimony modifications just to name a few, all require a modicum of patience. Many times in the practice of law, I have found myself saying, “the laws have not yet caught up to the time” or “the laws have not caught up to technology.” It is often a frustrating truth.
Truer still is as often as I find myself saying those things, I find myself remembering that patience truly is a virtue. Sometimes it seems like in the court system we do a lot of waiting because well, we do.
In family law, we wait for the sheriff to serve the divorce papers, we wait for the opposing party to turn over discovery, we wait for a court date. We wait, we wait and we wait. And it seems like the process is moving at a snails pace but really, it’s moving at the standard pace of court proceedings. Our 21st Century brains just tell us that we should have completely resolved the case in a month or within the hour like they do on the tv legal dramas.
A little patience can get you a long way. As a mother, a daughter and an attorney, I learn that lesson over and over again. Remember that the race is not given to the swift but to the one who endures.
Here’s to your endurance!
Brandy Alexander