Lawlady's Divorce Blog

Sorority Gal at a Southern Firm in the 80's

Below is an article I wrote for the blog, Ms. JD.   It's personal and serious, so if you prefer more legally-neutral content, you can skip this blog entry. 

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I just discovered your site. It's great. Maybe someday I could be one of your featured bloggers. 

I've been practicing for 18 years now. Early in my career,I worked at a medium sized firm where we got drunk at Friday night happy hours, hot-tubbed with partners at the annual firm retreat, and were put into a "co-ed singles condo" when attending mandatory out-of-town CLEs. My section's head partner informed me the firm would likely fire an unwed pregnant lawyer because of the negative impact on the firm's reputation. I was given a GI Joe as a birthday gift by one of my two direct-report partners.

They told me I didn't have a long term future with the firm at my three-year mark with the firm, unless I showed real effort and brought my 2200-hour pace up to 2300. I was barely making the minimum required hours and not showing that extra "oomph." This speech was given to me by my other direct-report partner. The one who also commented to me, "I trust you so much more, now that I know you are a real woman," as I laid in his arms cuddled up at the aforementioned "co-ed singles condo" at the mandatory CLE. Evidently, kissing him again (he forgot our kisses that summer I clerked for the firm) showed him something important about my character he wasn't noticing from my work performance during the week.

Did I mention the 21-buff-guy photos cut out and taped in hidden places around my office for me to find, a variation of the Easter-egg hunt? Was it a full man, or just the penis, attached to the mouth part of my phone? The truth is I genuinely laughed that day. I thought it was funny. Only now do I realize I would have been better served by having those men -in their 30s and 40s- model appropriate treatment of woman. I came from a background with questionable lessons about correct male/female interactions and would have benefited from being around sexually-neutral men. Was I laughed at, not with, those first years of my career?

I didn't sue them. In fact, I was young and thought most of the sexy, naughty stuff at the firm was fun. I was fresh out of the sorority, so drinking and getting loose seemed natural and grown up. But it continued with other woman as well. There was my associate friend who had her knees bitten under the table by the managing partner as he pretended to be a dog at the Mexican restaurant. She kicked him. I guess the margaritas got to him.

This occurred in the south. When I moved back to Seattle, I found the environment more tame, or perhaps I just worked at a staid firm. I've heard it existed here as well.

Things are different now with my work. I have an all woman firm (by accident, not by intention). The energy feels clean, healthy and supportive. But I will admit that the sex-stuff crops up. One employee brought a "sex-strology" book to work to share. Periodically I find myself saying, "hostile work environment-stop the discussion" as someone launches into a raunchy story about the weekend. Sexuality is part of human nature. The trick is to cordon off that energy from the work place. It's a slippery incline. Where does talking about wedding plans deviate into inappropriate talk about the honey-moon?

I've tried to tell this story about the early harrassment once before- to a classroom of law students- when I was invited to speak at solo-career day. Curiously, I was not asked back to speak. Maybe I was considered "off topic."

Thank you for listening. It's hard to want to speak, and then not find the right audience who can appreciate the humor and poignancy of the story. I hope to convey it wasn't 100% awful and that's the irony of it all.

Where the Big Legal Gossip is Posted

OK-- If you want to read behind the scenes news and gossip about the world of law, check out Above the Law .  It covers "the profession’s most colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments."

Woman and the Law

Here is a seminar I would like to speak at next year:  Legally Female:  What Does it Mean to Be Ms. JD? , hosted by Yale law school and the blog Ms. JD , at the end of March 2007.  The speakers addressed what it is like to be a woman practicing law, and an investigation as to whether the legal profession is essentially a male profession.  Be sure to check out the MS. JD blog. It's got a line-up of guest authors that include several judges. It's newsy and rich with content. 

ADR Blog

Law students and bloggers interested in mediation and other forms of dispute resolution should visit ADR Blogs. This site is trying to be the jump site for ADR on the web.

Picking a Divorce Attorney (or mortgage lender)

This is a long blog entry.  Prepare yourself. 

I love talking shop with my buddy the mortgage broker (Chris Coggeshall-- Homestone Mortgage. Give him a call, 206-713-9580, the finest divorce mortgage specialist in the Puget Sound.  He's never not closed a loan on time, except my loan.  I can be a pissy, annoying customer.  I hate customers like me.  But he processed my "emotions" about  feeling vulnerable and exposed during the mortgage process, and turned me into a stark, raving fan.  If you need a mortgage, don't call anyone else or you are crazy, or know one hell of a good lender.  But I digress). 

So as I was saying.  I love talking shop with Chris.  Tonight after work we were talking about ... oh dear, I forgot what I was saying...  Oh yes,...  before the mini-commercial for Chris Coggeshall and Homestone, I was talking about divorce law artistry. 

As Chris said, "clients don't buy a legal result. They buy an attorney's service. They get a whole package and sometimes the work isn't perfect but it's a ballet in motion with many variables.  They buy the entire package of legal knowledge, gut instinct, passion for paperwork, sensitivity in a client session, good practical advice, business acumen, ethics and price.  The recipe varies with each professional.  It's wrong for a client to pick one aspect of your legal work and use that to evaluate your entire performance.  It's the entire event that you must be judged upon, not one aspect."  To put our conversation into perspective, we were talking about clients who are unhappy.  Typically they are forgetting the 9 other things you did that made them happy to focus on just one thing that didn't go so well. 

I like his  idea. I so often find fault with my own performance (I'm a ruthless critic of myself), forgetting all the things I did extraordinarily right. Take today for example. 

I was sitting in the final four-way where we settled the whole case.  I had a hunch we would settle so I had my paralegal start drafting the final papers so that we would be able to sign them before the meeting was over. I had her do a separation agreement with exhibits in the back, a very efficient way to type up the settlement.   Most of the language is boiler plate with a few places to fill in the blank. 

Here I was giving the client efficiency and a reduced legal bill by streamlining the process.  Then the other lawyer says, "A whole separation agreement?  Why not just  some exhibits attached to the back of a Decree?"  This is the way the elite family lawyers are handling non-maintenance settlements these days.  I like doing it the other way for a variety of reasons, but my way isn't wrong, it's just not the "cool" way to draft up the settlement at the moment in our industry. 

Then I felt flustered or annoyed inside.  I wasn't doing the paperwork like the elite family lawyers.  For a brief moment I was self-critical and embarrassed.   But why?!

Why would I wipe out all my good feelings about my performance during the morning (which was good)...and forget all the right moves I had made, to focus instead on this one less-than-superb choice? 

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This blog is not about my self esteem or the quality of my work product.   The important point here is that with lawyers, you are getting a collection of qualities. What is important as a person looking to hire a lawyer  is that you know what you are getting.  What qualities?  What bundle of perks, benefits and price?

If you select me, or Lawlady Inc., you will get a bundle of skills, talents and proclivities that look something like this.

• Old fashioned customer service.   
• Stylish flair-- we like to wear black in winter, white in summer.   
• 100% focused psychic and emotional support if you need it.   
• 75% wisdom, unless I'm having a bad day, in which case, you get to share yours with me.
• An extremely fast pace, unless it's a day for meandering wisdom.
• An irreverent attitude about what the courts will do.   
• Fast paperwork if we choose to help you with a more litigated-oriented case.   
• Good humor.   
• Heavy reliance on email.
• Heavy customer-participation in your case to keep costs down, unless it's a flat fee.
• A very mindful eye on not overworking the case, in fact we may underwork it just a hair.
• A fabulous flat fee option with a nice treat for you at the end of your  case.
• Divorce ritual advice if you ask for it.
• Collaborative law services that have been honed over 7 years of training, arguably longe than most collaborative attorneys. 
• A heavier reliance on mediated and collaborative resolutions.
• A tendency to talk clients off the litigation ledge.
• Heavy involvement of allied professionals, but not litigation-oriented professionals.
• An extremely large database of excellent referrals and contacts that I share with you.
• Opinions that draw  from psychology, spirituality, marketing, organizational         development,  ritual and office efficiency principles.
• A profound optimism that hard times in life lead to good times in life.
• Family law practiced from an outsider's viewpoint looking in, although my years at the start of       my career at two large law firms give me a heightened since of how to provide good legal work.      
• A cavalier attitude to court rules. I'm one to try new strategies and take a novel approach.
• Beautiful court paperwork at times when we choose to rise to the occaision. 

Another lawyer's legal dance might look differently and it may be no better than mine. The question is all about fit.  What are you looking for?

If you want to know what a particular judge will do in a particular case, there are more educated minds than mine to answer that question.  I like the psychological drama and the subtlety of finding the win/win position more.  My legal practice is a more sophisticated practice of peace-making.  I'm not into the blunt practice of law.  There are  plenty of old-style litigation attorneys out there doing that.  We  serve legal divorce services with a philosophical flair and an attention to the underlying process at play.  I'm/we are modern, yet rooted in a very traditional legal upbringing.  My dad was a hard-core litigator and I grew up being forced to play Hearts against him for fun.  He NEVER let me win.  I ALWAYS hated to lose.

What you really want to know is how we dance as lawyers?  What do we do better and differently than any other lawyer?  Every lawyer has a special way.  Just like you as a client are unique and special. 

Just like Chris and mortgages.  You won't see him passing out the most business cards at a networking event.  He'd rather study the nuances of the deep clauses in the bottom of your mortgage contact so the deal always closes. My kind of  mortgage guy.   

It's all a dance.  Who do you want for your dance partner?  Pick the right one and the outcome is artistry.  Legal work done right is pure mind, body, spirit in motion.  Movement for your best interest. 

The Law School Experience

If you are contemplating law school, do yourself a favor and stop by the blog Three Years in Hell (be become the devil).  A Columbia law student blogged through out the three years. You can read the whole episode.  Graduation has occurred.  Funny. 

Seattle Attorney Blogs

Michael Atkins of Graham and Dunn, a trademark attorney, has done an admirable job listing the local attorney blogs.   You can visit his  blog for links to them.  Look to the right for a list of Seattle attorney blogs. 

Thank You Michael.

What a Lawyer Sees, Hears and Notices

Following up on the morning's theme that visitors like to get the blogger's particular view of the world, I'll fill you in a little about the differences between being a self-employed attorney verses a big firm one. 

At big firms, you have a job and are expected to perform.  Keep your head down in the project. ABSOLULTEY make your numbers.  Get better with practice. Never make the same mistake twice.  Fit in with the company culture. Don't make waves.  Be better than everyone else if you expect to get the nice bonuses and raises, and not get booted out of the firm mid-career.  DON'T drink too much at the company Christmas party.  You'll regret it later.

About small or solo  firms.  You have a lifestyle.  Maybe not the best money.  Keep your head up and keep scanning the horizon. You have many jobs to fill. Don't get so absorbed in client work you forget to do the bookeeping right.  Make lots of mistakes. This means you are growing and developing.  Establish a nice culture, or one that makes you, the clients and the employees happy.  Occaissionally get a little silly.  No one is more unpleasant than a dried out, overly serious lawyer.  Have that cocktail every now and then. 

Hatred

    I've got several clients dealing with extreme hatred over their spouse or the other party in their dispute.  Raging, hateful anger.  With each action, each side begins to hate the other side worse.  There isn't movement occurring to reconciliation.  In each case, I actually see that one side is acting with more dignity and taking reasonable positions.  The other side is acting like a jerk actually.  That's from an objective side-line view. 

    What I gather is that there are people functioning in survival mode who fail to look inward and see the reasonableness of the other side's position.  They fail to look at themselves and see where they have contributed or how they could modify their position to leave the other side with something.  Going after "everything" for me  rarely leaves room to explore the position where both people benefit. 

    Resolving conflicts where there is one winner and one loser is attracting bad karma in my book.  Sometimes things don't even out in the present moment but that accumulation of poor behavior adds up.  It eventually begins to compromise the quality of life that the other person experiences.

    Unfortunately, we don't always live in a world that operates on principles of fairness.   Our President has supported statutes that eliminate a person's right to defend himself in situations where he has been accused of terrorism.  He agrees to torture.  Chief executives rob employee pensions and don't get very stiff sentences.  A clueless substitute teacher faces 6 years of prison because she didn't know how to block the porno sites popping up on the computer screen the day she was substituting. 

    Sometimes the world doesn't run on rules of fairness.  Criminals in Texas get a $3,000 defense if they can't afford a lawyer and high numbers of accused persons on death row are proven to be innocent via modern DNA testing not available before. 

    I assume there is some greater evening-out of the score.  But does that really happen?  Do the bad actors really suffer their choices somewhere along in life?  I believe these principles very deeply.  But have you seen it?

     Do the bad guys and bullys really win?  I like to think that they suffer within the tortured prison of their own soul and personality.  Portable prisons, so to speak.   

I Didn't Write This, It Came in My In-box

The United Way realized that it had never received a donation from the city's most successful lawyer. So a United Way volunteer paid the lawyer a visit in his lavish office.

The volunteer opened the meeting by saying, "Our research shows that even though your annual income is over two million dollars, you don't give a penny to charity. Wouldn't you like to give something back to your community through the United Way?"

The lawyer thinks for a minute and says, "First, did your research also show you that my mother is dying after a long, painful illness and she has huge medical bills that are far beyond her ability to pay?"

Embarrassed, the United Way rep mumbles, "Uh... no, I didn't know that."

"Secondly," says the lawyer, "my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair and is unable to support his wife and six children."

The stricken United Way rep begins to stammer an apology, but is cut off again.

"Thirdly, did your research also show you that my sister's husband died in dreadful car accident, leaving her penniless with a mortgage and three children, one of whom is disabled and another that has learning disabilities requiring a huge array of private tutors?"

The humiliated United Way rep, completely beaten, says, "I'm so sorry, I had no idea."

And the lawyer says, "So...if I didn't give any money to them, what makes you think I'd give any to you.