A Soft Attorney

Often divorce sounds unexceptional. Colleagues, friends and family divorce with such regularity it seems that when we hear another couple is divorcing the fact that there marriage is ending seems commonplace. However, as I blog I am one of the lucky ones. My husband is under my roof, I do not have to pack our child’s things up every few days for a visit with his father, the impending holidays mean too much food, presents that will be opened with both of us watching and no empty house. I do not say this often but motherhood has softened me as an attorney. Not softened the manner in which I conduct myself in the courtroom or the approach I take to analyzing cases but softened me to my clients and the pain divorce brings. While mistaking your divorce attorney for a counselor is a mistake and often financially costly, I find my heart hurting when I see clients struggle with how to separate the life they built with another person. It is all the more gut wrenching when I know that my clients are struggling with separation from their children. I see and hear all kinds of crazy stories during an average workday – things that believe me, cannot be made up or repeated, but the tears down a parent’s face when they talk about the pain of not putting their child to bed makes my stomach physically hurt.