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I recently had it brought home to me in vivid color that not every lawyer gives some essential advice to new clients who are going through a break-up of their relationship. Suzie (not real name) has already spent six months of divorce proceedings as the client of another lawyer who had done some business transaction work for family members. Suzie has been very frustrated. She feels that her attorney allowed the other lawyer to waste a lot of time and money writing nasty letters to her attorney that hurt her feelings and accomplished nothing.

Suzie told me about the income that she and her husband have, about the property they have accumulated, and about the debts. It was surprising to me when she said that her husband had run up the debt a lot more on their credit cards after she left the home and family business.

As I told Suzie, when you have a marriage or partnership (personal or business) and that relationship is ending, it is time IMMEDIATELY to calmly and kindly arrange your business affairs so that the two former partners are no longer able to incur additional debt for which the other person will be liable. The relationships with external creditors which were formed when you were together are not suddenly or automatically altered because partners/spouses separated or filed legal papers to dissolve their relationship.

Sometimes, circumstances exist where it is appropriate to keep a credit card or line of credit open and available to the other person, but most of the time it is a very smart and appropriate idea to inform creditors – by certified mail, keep a copy – that the account must be split out into two names or closed as to all future extensions of credit. This goes for household bills, credit cards, cell phone bills, lines of credit and any other way that two former partners had authority to incur debt in the other person’s name. The former partner should always be informed in a timely way so that they can make arrangements to get credit or service in their name to avoid interruptions in service or embarrassment upon rejection of a credit card. This notification does not remove responsibility for past debt, but should halt future unauthorized debt being incurred.

In our state, divorce law will make Suzie’s husband responsible for the debt he ran up after separation. Suzie, however, is at risk of these creditors coming after her if he fails to pay. Her credit will be harmed if he pays late. It would have been much better if he had not had her name on the debts he has been incurring while divorce has been going on.

A couple of other things to be aware of when going through a separation are: 1. It is important to get the right lawyer for your needs. Advantage Denton searches for and finds the right lawyer for you. Have us find the right lawyer for you. and 2. Be sure that you change passwords to voice mail, email, and other bank/business/internet accounts so that each of the former partners has their privacy. If there are ill feelings and concerns about possible mischief, it does not hurt anything to put passwords on utility accounts and the like so that no one cuts off your electricity.

Most disgracefully, I have failed to update this blog for almost two months. This is insufferable, intolerable, terrible, unforgivable and altogether inconceivable. How could any person commit an act so heinous, so vile, so beyond contempt? Well, it wasn’t easy.

The reason I have used such strong language is so that I can illustrate a point about self abnegation. This phenomenon of negating the self is something I see far too often. People involved in controversy find it hard to keep a balanced perspective. Much of their energy is spent on blaming themselves or, even less productively, on blaming others for the current set of circumstances.

While it is fun and funny to me to come up with a lot of words that I don’t mean about my blogging lapse, it is not funny to me when clients or other lawyers play the blame game and wound with words. Attorneys have a special duty to bring perspective to problems. We need to help clients move away from pain inducing practices. In my humble opinion, the lawyer who makes the client feel worse about him or her self is failing in the primary goal of litigation: coming out the other side with as much positive and as little damage as is possible.

Why did I fail to write in my blog for so long? Part of my reason is exotic — I was in China, Malaysia and Singapore for some weeks. I also bought and moved into new offices and found myself using my new iPad instead of the laptop I was used to blogging on. Now, the iPad has a blogging application and my excuses are over. I will write about China soon, but in the meantime I am going to continue to contemplate mean language and how to decrease the demeaning types of activities I see going on around me.

Destiny, on a dull, dark and dreary day, is performing her magical act of pretending to be an everyday cow.  Look at how she simply says “moo” and chews cud with the best of them.  An innocent onlooker (unlike you and me) will simply think Destiny is a rather cute, but boring, cow.

Due to our closer scrutiny, we have our breath taken away by Destiny’s daring as she springs forth to once again save the day.  The oil rig explosion has distracted everyone in the area and only we are aware that Destiny has made a sprightly dash into her cape and sparkle blue tights as she bounds into action.

The picture is ugly indeed as Destiny arrives.  Basile Blogbust is muttering very nasty words as he menacingly strides toward Cherrie Chenoweth, wielding the biggest wrench known to man.  Not only is Basile dangerous, but the explosion has turned into a roaring fire.  It looks like Cherrie’s goose is cooked.

Sparing not one thought for her own safety, Destiny boulders politely into Basile with many apologies for her “clumsiness”.  Basile, so astonished to hear English spoken by a polite cow in blue tights, drops the wrench right into the inferno, squelching the fire by miraculous means.  Cherrie’s relief is palpable and extreme, since the explosion she caused in Basile Blogbust’s oil well is no longer afire.

Not content with merely saving lives and preventing prison sentences for murder, Destiny delivers her truly amazing performance of the day by finding six lawyers, all at once.  Basile is grateful to start up his lawsuits against his psychotherapist who had told him many times that he was crazy for imagining cows.  He is also very enthusiastic about suing the wrench manufacturer about the melted wrench blob that now clogs up his oil well.  Cherrie is not left behind in the lawsuit Olympics, oh no.  She needs (and gets) four lawyers to help her sue Basile for breach of promise to marry her and give her black gold in beaucoup buckets.  Everyone is happy, thanks to Destiny.

It seems that folks are always trying to make a quick buck by claiming that they are announcing some amazing piece of news that is the best or worst or most worrisome thing you have to know about right now.  If you pay attention to this particular information (and purchase some product advertised therewith) all kinds of positive things will flow.  Don’t pay attention to me right now at your own peril!

When Charles Dickens wrote his first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities, he provided us with some of the best perspective ever written in the English language -

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Perhaps Dickens was not particularly intending a lawyer in 2009 to enjoy this sentence so much or find it so apropos.   It nails human nature so very well, though.  As a historian and as an ongoing student of human behavior, I really think that this ironic encapsulation of the hubris of every day and age is spot on.  Those of us alive right now are experiencing an economic downturn of quite some severity together.  We just saw President Obama’s efforts to get the Olympics into Chicago soundly defeated.  We just had the surprise of President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize for the changed, hopeful, environment he has wrought on the world’s stage.   While all of these things are interesting to us, it always makes sense to recognize that human nature has not fundamentally changed.  These things will come and go and still we have the daily work of making a good life for ourselves and our loved ones.

Life is an ongoing struggle and if it were not, we would not have reason to know we are alive.  I find it really important to keep perspective and to remember those who came before.  Being aware of people who will inherit this culture and planet from us also gives valuable perspective.  When making a decision about what to do when you are embroiled in a controversy – do try to step back and find perspective so that you can be guided by wisdom beyond that of your immediate circumstances.

If you consult with others, particularly with experts about the controversy (hint: this means lawyers), you can gain some knowledge about what your options are and how your circumstances have been handled by others over time as encapsulated in our laws.  We are not alone and most of the issues we face have answers that others have already thought of.  Getting the right expert advice from the right lawyer can make all the difference in making wise decisions.

Advantage Denton would be happy to help you find the right lawyer to get this wisdom and perspective from.  We search from all available lawyers to select the attorney who will be right for you – the same one we would choose for a friend or family member who had the same need and circumstances as you.  This is far better than using a “free” company to steer you to whichever lawyers paid the most money to be on a list to get clients.  The best lawyers don’t need to pay money to get clients, so those “free” services cost you dearly when you get advice from the wrong lawyer.

I am not sure that it fits here, but Confucius said something like “I walk with two men and learn equally from both, the most wise and honorable man on one side and the most foolish and irresponsible on the other.”  From one, Confucius learns how to be, from the other he learns how not to be.  Don’t mistake one for the other, though.  Help getting the right lawyer can help you avoid that misery.  Have us find the right lawyer for you.

What really matters in lawyering is pretty much the same as what really matters in other life, only more so. It is crucial to maintain your integrity no matter what provocations or distractions are thrown your way. It is wise to keep a sense of humor and crucial to be compassionate about the travails and foibles of other mortals.  If other persons are deciding what actions a lawyer takes in contravention to the lawyer’s sense of honor, sharp warning bells should go off.

Today I was at court with an opposing counsel who described his ideal leisure time as hunting in the woods. When another lawyer mentioned relaxing at the beach, he said that maybe being at the beach would be OK if one was hunting for clams or something. This lawyer most enjoys being an aggressor, in and out of court. That is how he is true to himself. If he were asked to give an unearned advantage to another, he would feel out of his element.

My preferred style is to negotiate a reasonable settlement of each case based on what will cause the least harm to the whole family. I encourage my clients to give to the other party rather than spending more money on legal fees for uncertain gain and more animosity in relationships. Sometimes adversary proceedings are the only option, but most times kindness goes a long way. If I were asked to vigorously pursue a goal that I believed detrimental to the family or to the child, it would be antithetical to my way of being a lawyer.

It seems to me that there is room in the world for both types of attorneys and multitudes of other styles. Each of us has the responsibility to remain true to our personal philosophy and to not work for folks who can not accept the values we uphold. Lawyers have great responsibility to clients and to our system of justice.  If we can not be relied upon to remain true to our values, whatever they are, we fail to uphold the oath we swore to when we became attorneys.

We lawyers live in a conspiracy of silence.  Most wise people are quite hesitant to say anything negative about other professionals in their community.  Saying something bad about another person makes the listener wonder about your integrity first.  When the person whom you have maligned comes to hear some exaggerated version of what you said, there can be other negative repercussions.

When doctors follow this same code of conduct, patients can have bad consequences for their health.  When lawyers don’t help clients avoid poor quality lawyers, people lose their rights, money and time. This came to my mind when I saw in my state bar journal that a lawyer I had a case with about 15 years ago just got disbarred.  It was a shock that it this person had been allowed to practice all these years because the quality of work I saw was so very poor.

I am just as reluctant as the next lawyer is to say bad things about other attorneys.  It sure is a blessing to work in the field of lawyer finding because we help people avoid the attorneys who would not serve them well.  Without saying one bad word about the lawyers we avoid, we can ethically help clients connect with the right lawyer for them.

Lawyer finders know how to find a lot of information about a lawyer.  We know how to read between the lines to evaluate the quality of attorneys.  Without saying one word about the problems we see in the attorneys we avoid, we have the distinct pleasure of sending clients to the right lawyer for them.  When a lawyer’s office turns away a client not right for their practice or gives a referral on request, it is the ethical choice to send the client to a good quality lawyer for their needs or to send the client to Advantage Denton for lawyer finding services.  Sending prospective clients out to the yellow pages or to the internet or to a service that gives the next name off of a list is not nearly as good a choice.

If you know someone who needs the services of a lawyer, have them call 877-LAW-CALM to have us find the right lawyer for them.  That way the negative things we don’t want to say about other lawyers don’t need to be said and the client is not left stumbling around in the dark to find the wrong lawyer by accident.

The advice to be careful what you say in writing  is so fundamentally sound, how on Earth is it that so many people ignore this wisdom? Here are some reasons that I can think of:

1.  Some people just don’t think before they speak or before they write. They just blurt out whatever comes into their mind in whatever form it comes to them and they don’t see any reason to go back and edit before sending that writing out into the world so that they can be evaluated by what they wrote.

2. Many times, people say or write something that others think is perfectly awful and inappropriate and the writer is saying “What?… What?…” People live within their own perspective and frequently have little to no understanding of how others will perceive what they are communicating. You could call this honesty or you could call it foolishness and insensitivity.

3. Some folks take pleasure in getting others riled up. The man I am furious at for holding the huge picture of an aborted fetus on the street corner where I passed taking my little boy to his camp this morning is likely that way. Fortunately, I saw the problem ahead of time and managed to distract my boy before he saw it, but that picture would have given him nightmares. This man knows that he is hurting other people and he chooses to continue. His political or other justifications are meaningless and lost because of his evil method of communicating.

4. I am guessing that some people are self-destructive. They know that placing negative information about themselves on the Internet or in a writing can be used against them. Perhaps they get some thrill from risking it or they derive satisfaction from sinking their own boats?

What do you think? Are there other reasons that you can think of why people write things and even publish them when those writings will likely make them look bad? You are most welcome to comment on this blog. This is a puzzling conundrum, don’t you think?

Destiny’s calm cow chewing cud cover is almost blown when Utah Jack, a sneaky reporter is looking her way. Destiny is called to spring into action by a heart rending thud, two counties over. Fortunately, Utah Jack’s hat is blown off at the crucial moment (divine intervention?) and when he again peers Destiny’s way, she has already donned her spangled tights and flowing cape and galloped to the rescue.

Yes, the thud was serious. Mabel BassEater and Chevry Tellecompter have finally reached the boiling point in their relationship. While true and everlasting love brought them together, it seems that unseemly fights over money and kids will rend them apart. Billowing from Mabel’s skirts, even as Destiny arrives, is the smoke from the flame thrower she has decided to use upon her dearly beloved. Stashed in the skirt after it backfired, the device of evil is starting a smolder that will soon become a conflagration. Except it doesn’t. Thanks to Destiny’s quick thinking and the remainder of that undercover cud in Destiny’s mouth, the spew saved the skirt. At least it saved the wearer of the skirt.

Stunned by the near disaster, Mabel and Chevry are shaking and crying together. Suddenly, Mabel does not think it a good idea to fry Chevry up and he realizes that she has been right about the money and the kids. True love is once again allowed to blossom. Now, I hear you thinking that Destiny’s work is done. No, No, No.

Even though Destiny’s presumed destiny as a divorce lawyer finder is not to be, she is still vital to the future of this beloved family as she tracks down the right lawyer to sue the flamethrower manufacturer for the backfiring demon of a contraption which failed at that crucial moment. The marriage counselor who enticed Chevry to ditch his wife and run off into a new and passionate relationship of “counselor love” also has a thing or two to learn as soon as Destiny finds the right lawyer. Finally, the seller of the flame prone and not stain resistant skirt will have to retool the misleading sales brochure which enticed Mabel to use the skirt unsuitably in the first place. Destiny finds this lawyer lickety split.

Destiny then moves out from cover behind some trees and Utah Jack, intrepid reporter, is none the wiser as Destiny utters a calm moo.

The public perception of lawyers is that we are good for one thing:

fighting in court.

Perry Mason and most TV lawyers since him have bolstered this impression. Ghandi and other great peacemaking lawyers are often not even recognized as lawyers. While it is true that attorneys hold a monopoly on appearing on another’s behalf in a courtroom (in the USA), we do not hold a monopoly on other ways of preventing and resolving problems. While I am not about to argue that we lawyers have a monopoly on solving problems, we are the primary reason that a lot of litigation is avoided. We do not exist only to litigate in court.

Some attorneys do see themselves as solely responsible for carrying on fights in courts as surrogates for clients. The vast majority of us, however, are far more clever and have many more tools at our disposal. When we provide services to clients with a different, non fighting model, we break the negative adversarial cycle. We explore peaceful and creative ways to prevent and resolve expensive and unpleasant fights. Finding the productive and safe path through the minefield of damaged relationships or high stakes negotiations is the most fulfilling type of lawyering, in my humble opinion.

One challenge that attorneys have is the initial education of the client about the options available for purchasing the lawyer’s services.  See Many Cost Effective Ways to Hire a Lawyer for descriptions of nine different types of lawyer services.

If each client calling me had to learn about even three or four of these lawyering choices before I let them hire me, they would run howling from the room. Just as I don’t educate a client about every possible issue of law that might tangentially relate to their case, I speak about only which options for hiring me are relevant to this relationship with this client. It would be nice if clients knew about all of the options, though. Then they could inquire about services that might work best for them instead of relying only on my educated guesses.

Just as I choose which subject areas of law and geographic areas I am willing to practice in, it is up to me to let clients know which methods of practicing law I prefer. If I really liked going to court and creating/filing lots of adversarial documents, I would advertise differently.  Since I prefer negotiation and cooperation, my ads have words like “Fighting is not your only option”. If a client says that their primary goal is to make sure the other side suffers, I direct them elsewhere.

In a sense, I suppose I am saying that we attorneys are “one trick ponies” because we often have a clear preference for the way we prefer to lawyer. We are, however, far more versitile and clever than just the public perception of the litigator model would indicate. If called upon to do so, most lawyers are willing and capable of using courts and litigation for our clients, but most of us use the far more powerful tools of interest based negotiation and planning ahead to avoid the need for wasteful adversarial means of resolving disputes.

I am glad to be a lawyer and a problem preventer and solver. It is very fullfilling work. It is also great to work with the great lawyer finders who also enjoy the legal community and helping connect clients to the right lawyer for their needs. Lawyers are not one trick ponies because we are capable of many creative and tailored solutions for opportunities and problems. Have us find the right lawyer for you.

My legal assistant brought up a very interesting idea today. How are manners evolving in this day of so many modes of communicating? She has a friend who is annoyed with someone who returns voice messages by sending an email or by texting. These young folks think that it is rude not to reply by the same mode in which the contact was first made. In other words, return a phone call with a phone call. Text to a text. Reply email to an email. Technology manners. Who decides what they are and how does the decision about them get communicated to others?

David Pogue, technology columnist for the New York Times, wrote an article describing many pointers he received from other individuals using Twitter. Essentially, the rules about whether a particular tweet is or is not good manners are in the air. Generally, it is considered not good to lie or steal but the more refined set of rules is being played out on the Twitter field in real time, all the time.

This lesson in the “new manners” makes me think of the number of ways we receive direct communications these days. I receive communications by email to one of the nine email addresses I constantly monitor (consolidated into four gmail accounts). I receive voice mail on my office telephone system, on Vonage.com, on Skype.com, on three different cell phones, on RingCentral.com, or on my home answering machine which is connected to a cell by XLINK Cellular Bluetooth Gateway. I can also receive phone calls on seven different telephone numbers plus through Skype.com. I receive faxes on my fax phone number as forwarded to a faxaway.com phone number and emailed to me. My blackberry does not work to receive texts, so I don’t text. I receive communications through Facebook.com and through Twitter.com – each by multiple methods. I share documents on Google Docs. I use Skype.com for chats and video conferencing.  I receive comments on this blog. Of course, this list of twenty-one electronic modes which I currently use to receive communications does not include the mass media I come into contact with. The list doesn’t include in-person communication.   Google and other chat programs are just waiting for a first time use so they can be added to the list.

How many ways can you be contacted? It makes one wonder how life could have gotten so complicated. I think it is interesting and fun, but it is clear to me that not everyone can keep up with this many ways to be reached. The simplicity movement might have a heyday with this concept, even though many of these communication modes are free and use few natural resources. If life is so complicated, it is a good idea to simplify the parts you can, like being wise enough to hire Advantage Denton when you need to have us find the right lawyer for you.