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Family Law: The Adults in the Room

On Behalf of | Oct 15, 2015 | Family Law

Last night I did some serious complaining about hateful people, identifying a significant problem that we have in family law.  Tonight, I’d like to follow the sage advice of advocating for a solution to the problem.

When patients go to the doctor with their ailments, the doctor rarely throws his hands in the air and histrionically decries some great injustice that requires he, the vanquisher of injustice, to fight against the evil powers.  Instead, I expect that the patient hears rational diagnoses, viable alternatives and realistic outcomes. No drama, just the facts.

There are a number of attorneys in family law, perhaps even a slight majority, who shoot straight, who see their role as not only their client’s advocate but as the professional problem solver, the adult in the room, given their client’s disadvantaged position.

Let’s presume that a client comes in with vitriol and blame and aspersion.  The adult in the room attorney can hear this angst for what it is and where it comes from.  It is very normal. It is usually quite temporary. It is almost always a bad strategy to a case.

The adult in the room attorney can help the client understand a long term approach to the issues and a strategy that does not break the client’s bank account nor cause them to annihilate their integrity or reduce their soul to microscopic proportions.

The adult in the room attorney can communicate with the opposing counsel, the other adult in the room, to discuss, objectively, the common core facts and evaluate differences in interpretation of fact and policy.

This approach reduces acrimony.  This approach reduces cost.  This approach reduces the time it takes to resolve the case so that the parties can move on with their lives. 

This approach is followed, adopted, espoused by a slight majority of the family law bar. It is the superior approach.

And anyone who practices otherwise has a suspect agenda.

There, that’s my soap box tonight. Not that I have an opinion on this.

But I do.

Michael Manely

Michael Manely and all the attorneys of The Manely Firm strive to always be the adult in the room whether they practice from Marietta, Atlanta, Lawrenceville, Gainesville, Canton or Savannah.

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