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Melissa Denton

Don’t believe everything you hear.  Don’t believe everything you read.

One of the major advantages that Advantage Denton lawyer finders bring to folks looking for a lawyer is that we don’t take everything we come across at face value.  In finding a lawyer as well as in other important decisions, much of the data you come across can not be considered reliable by itself.  I am not saying that lawyers lie.  It is just the nature of advertising for lawyers to only say what the audience wants to hear.  If you are trying to sell something, it is foolish not to pick and choose which morsels of information to put before the person who stumbles over your advertisement.  Most lawyers are not foolish and their ads do say things to get you to buy.

When looking for information, the easiest thing to find is the advertisements that someone is paying for you to find. You can learn a lot from a lawyer’s ad if you know how to evaluate the information they serve up and compare it to other lawyer advertisements.  What someone chooses to say about herself or not to say about himself is very telling when you compare.  How desperate for business is the lawyer who has the biggest ad?  This is influenced greatly by which area of law the ad is for.  Even better to evaluate is extensive writing from the lawyer, say in a blog like this.  It is quite difficult to hide your personality and motivation if you write extensively on a variety of topics.

Other sources of information can tell you:

Has the lawyer been sanctioned by a bar association?  What kind of reviews are out there about them? Extremely important – how did they react to negative reviews?  Who are they associated with?  What outside of work activities do they engage in?  If you know how to evaluate the quality of their writing, review of briefs submitted to court or other legal work can be very helpful.

I have talked about this issue of gullibility and not believing what you read/hear within the context of finding the right lawyer for you, a topic near and dear to my heart.  These concepts do apply more broadly.  It is wise to always consider the source of information and the motivation of the source in providing that information.  Making decisions about important things when you are emotional about the subject and you have limited information at hand and limited tools to evaluate that information is not the best way to go.  Comparing information from different sources is a really good idea if you want reliable information.  If you want to influence what others think about you, you need to see what is out there about you and do what you can to make different sources say what you want them to say.  Be aware that a malicious person can do a lot of harm by reverse engineering this advice.  A negative review doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about the attorney but how the attorney responds tells you volumes.

No, lawyer ads are not just lies.  They are, however, very misleading (like all ads) unless you know how to evaluate them.

Melissa Denton

The term noblesse oblige brings to mind the wonderful middle ages history class I had in college.  We learned about how persons born into the nobility were trained from an early age that they were expected to behave in accordance with their status in life.  With the blessings of being wealthy and powerful came the responsibility to be just and generous, to give back and care for those who have fewer blessings.

I started thinking about this concept again because I recently went to a mainstream movie where the major movie stars glorified the smoking of marijuana.  Perhaps it makes me sound like a prude and it probably makes me sound weird, but I never tried the stuff.  It is illegal, it stinks and it is bad for your body.  I also dislike the notion of altering my perception.  Maybe this bizarre status of mine is why it struck me so forcefully how very irresponsible it was for major movie stars to portray an episode of smoking pot as totally delightful and without any negative consequences.  Yes, these middle aged folk clearly indicated that they did not smoke pot when they had little children and it was clear that they knew it was illegal.  Yet, the delight with which they indulged and the line “Having fun is not overrated” glorified pot with no reservations.  If I were more impressionable, I might have been persuaded that smoking marijuana is well worth doing.

This bothers me quite a bit.  I think that the individuals involved in making that movie were wrong to do this.  Back in the day, movie stars were used to promote cigarette the glamor of smoking with great success.  Now they are allowing themselves to be used to promote an illegal type of smoking that is also very harmful to one’s health.  That isn’t right.

Perhaps the movie stars and the producers/director/promoters will all say “we have artistic license” just as a few privileged and blessed athletic stars have said that they don’t believe that they have any responsibility to behave with decorum.  Most of us are not born with silver spoons in our mouths, but it is my opinion that those who have power and influence have a duty to use it well.  Yes, many of us who are successful worked hard to achieve success.  I can assure you, though, that no one “makes it” on her or his own.  People don’t really pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  We are all standing on the shoulders of those who came before and who provided positive opportunity in our lives.  We all have the duty of noblesse oblige and those who live up to that responsibility are far more worthy of respect than those who do not.

It is such a shame that the movie contained such a terrible flaw because it was otherwise a true delight.   I hope that no impressionable viewers of that film will decide to embrace smoking marijuana just because it looked fun and glamorous when the movie stars did it.  That absolutely did happen when smoking cigarettes was glamorized in movies and TV.  Be careful what you say, someone might be listening.

This is a time of year that adds a lot of stress to our lives. We have many opportunities for fun and we have lots of commitments and expectations. Mischief abounds. At this time am I: mom, a lawyer, a wife, a colleague, a social friend, a daughter/sister/aunt or just someone who gets tired sometimes?

When litigation in your own life gets piled onto this set of roles and you feel like you are under scrutiny for how you conduct the rest of your life from an outside, judging perspective, the stress multiplies. At times like that, we all just want to huddle back inside our turtle shells.  How in the world are you supposed to reconcile the different kinds of you that are demanded at every different turn?

The only way I know to keep it together when too many stresses come from too many directions is to create a consistent you that can make decisions in any of your roles with integrity to who you are at the core. You have to forgive yourself if you fail to be perfect at this, but continue to get up, dust yourself off, and try again to keep true to values you can believe in. When the mom role conflicts with the lawyer or daughter role, I have to prioritize how I am going to be me and how I can most gracefully keep myself and others happy with my choices. If I am not consistent with my core values, it does not matter if others are happy. I’m not.

People who come to Advantage Denton to have us find the right lawyer for them are, by definition, those who have more stress than normal in life. Even if your reason for needing a lawyer is to close a big and wonderful deal, that is stress-inducing. I propose that a time when litigation or major transactions are looming is the very time when you need to hold on to who you are and what you value. Don’t let controversy or temptation make you sorry later for a decision that stems from abnormal circumstances and failure to be true to your core.

Who are you, really? If you don’t have that figured out before you enter a time of extra stress, please take the time to evaluate and make consistent the different roles and responsibilities. I don’t mean that you should do the best you can. I mean that you should have absolute lines you do not cross and that you correct any mistakes you make immediately. That is how you figure out and maintain who you really are.

This post is actually related more to my practice as a family law attorney than it is related to lawyer finding, but I think it is interesting stuff for most people. On last Friday, I finished up earning my mandatory continuing legal education, reaffirmed my status as a pro-tem court commissioner and learned important stuff at a class on “advanced parenting plans”.

The people who work in the field of family law are just about all really caring individuals who genuinely want to do a good job and don’t have any intention of hurting families. Like undertakers, we help people through a really traumatic time which is also often an expensive time with many built-in changes. We are very glad when we find something that looks like a good answer for the tough questions we help people through.

I think that answers that look too good to be true are usually too good to be true. One size does not fit all families. The “science” behind telling us what parenting plans will have a good impact on children is not a reliable science at all. While the folks who research the subject of how divorce impacts children are probably giving us good food for thought, we absolutely must not breathe a big sigh of relief and apply their findings to each family we see. The studies which give us conclusions we are encouraged to rely upon have many methodological flaws (necessarily) which do not account for biology or the micro-climate social environment of each person and each family.

While I intend to take the time to read the materials which were provided at my seminar and I intend to read the underlying source data, I already know that the discussions of developmental psychology, attachment theory and reciprocal connectedness are extremely dependent upon the culture of the individuals studied. I know that many of the studies rely upon persons answering questions well after the occurrence of events they are questioned about. They are asked about things which were and are traumatic and complex in their lives. Many studies use exclusively the ubiquitous college students who are not and can not be a representative sample of the world or even American population. A college student’s answers about what they would have wanted when they were a child of divorcing parents is not good data to rely on. Children are supposed to be protected from significant parts of the information that is used to decide what is best for them. How can their (necessarily ignorant) hindsight be ultimate truth now?

Seeing lawyers and judges hurry to write down that 70% of children of divorce have this or that after effect in this or that circumstance reminds me of the fact that 94% of statistics are misleading. (I just made up the 94% number.)

Each family is a unique set of culture and biology that needs individual listening from any judge who makes decisions. It is very tough to be in the job of decision maker and it would be so easy to turn to the latest guru or proponent of “truth” about what is best for all children. The alternative dispute resolution methods that parents can use to decide for their own families are to be prized and encouraged. When people can’t agree, I sure hope that courts will view each case individually and not assume that any particular cookie cutter is the best simple answer. Blaming both parents when agreement is not reached is not particularly helpful, either. While it may make the judge look more neutral and possibly could make the person who does not win marginally more willing to comply with court orders, it often tears down the parent who was doing their best all along and who has withstood a torrent of harsh behavior and efforts from the other side.

Trends and fads come and go in family law. I hope that we can recognize that those who too forcefully pronounce that the one ultimate truth is now available should not be our sole source of wisdom.

I was recently confronted by the death of a person I did not know very well. This person was a relative in my parents’ generation, but I did not know her. I don’t know what work she did. I don’t remember her ever wishing me happy birthday or saying a kind word to me. We may have exchanged some banal neutral phrases at a family get-together from time to time. Though I have struggled to do so, I can’t remember one piece if information about her ever doing anything for anyone.

This shocks me a bit.

I’m pretty sure that we all use the occasion of another person’s death to contemplate our own mortality. When I attend services for people I know who have died, it is always my practice to recall my interactions with them. It is also an occasion, strange as that is, to get to know the deceased better. Almost always, I learn something more of the person I already knew. It is very comforting to me to review that person’s role in my life and in the community and feel connected to them and to other people.

My relative’s death leaves me with a weird void. I see it as a cautionary tale. She was a grownup when I was a child and never made any effort to connect with me or my siblings. No occasion ever arose where that situation was remedied after I became an adult. I feel pretty sure that if she had ever tried or done anything of note, I would have heard about it. (She might be the one who caused the breaking of a bunch of China by bumping the ironing board upon which it had unwisely been placed, but I am not sure.)

Perhaps the best thing that this relative has given me is the gift of awareness that I don’t want anyone who knew me to feel this way when I pass on. Connecting with people and making a difference to them is the most important thing we can accomplish. It is my hope that my work as a lawyer and my work with Advantage Denton as a lawyer finding company will make many lives better and that I truly connect with all of my family members with whom I come into regular contact. I thank her for this truly valuable gift.

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.

“Judge not lest ye be judged” is one of my favorite quotes from the Judeo-Christian Bible.  At first it sounds like this is a silly thing to say to someone who has a job being a judge in a courtroom.  When you stop and think about it, though, this saying has profound meaning for judicial officers.

In my very humble opinion (as a sometimes judicial officer myself) it is extremely important for people acting as judges to keep at the front of their minds the fact that “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

When I act as a lawyer, I am able to delve into the facts of a client’s life in detail (time and budget permitting).  I know that I am only skimming the surface of what is really going on.  The judicial officer only hears a sliver of each side of any case before being required to make a decision about how to resolve the worst of the worst cases.  The easier cases rarely make it to court because they are resolved by agreement.

I don’t believe that it is right for judges to “sit in judgment” on how good or bad other people are.  It is a judge’s job to decide what the judge believes the facts to be based upon the evidence and to apply the law to the facts consistent with good public policy.  The comments the judge makes should be solely for the purpose of carrying out their duty to decide cases and uphold the integrity of our legal system.

Hopefully, you will never be in the position to have a judge having to make decisions about your life.  If you have advice and representation by the right lawyer, the uncertainty of court can be avoided the vast majority of the time.  The “preventative medicine” of seeking timely advice from the right lawyer can help you avoid many costly and painful experiences later.  At Advantage Denton, we research and find the right lawyer for you.  Have us find the right lawyer for you and avoid the risk of unnecessary court.

(Disclaimer: The judges and court commissioners that I work with are wonderful people and highly professional.  Though all of us can be reminded from time to time of these high-minded principles, this is not a slam against any of them.)

I am an admitted technophile.  Yes, it is true that I will chase after the next free service that Google or some other reputable software giant offers.  Just as you trade your privacy and purchasing habits in to a store for their “frequent shopper” discounts, using these services often means that you are providing personal data and access to yourself for the provider of  “free” stuff to sell.

In lawyer finding, free is a lot less free than it is in software.  Spending your time searching for a lawyer is just that – spending.  You can look at “free” sources of information about lawyers and not see much unless you know what to look for.  It takes time and education to learn how to distinguish which lawyer is right for your needs.  How to avoid the lawyers that you should avoid is extremely difficult to learn, especially when you are under the stress of needing a lawyer’s advice in the first place. Some lawyers are good at self promotion and not at lawyering.

Some of the “free” sources of information about lawyers give you difficult to decipher information with a fire hose delivery.  Some of them will filter the information, all right.  At best, they give you the next name off of a paid list so that you can pay a $25-$50 fee to meet with that lawyer.  (Then the lawyer will usually have to send a percentage of money you pay to the lawyer back to the service that sent you.)  Many of the best lawyers do not need to pay like this for clients  – they are not next on the list or even on the list.  Other companies who limit which lawyers they send you to are even worse for you.  For “free” they send you to the lawyer who paid them the most money to buy access to you and your information.  Is that the right lawyer for you?  Often not.

Free is not free.  When major issues in your life or significant money is involved, you should be seeking the right lawyer in the right location with the right expertise and philosophical orientation.  Advantage Denton is the only company that researches the right lawyer for you.

We find the right lawyer for you.  We are not “free”, but “free” services cost you dearly.  The lawyers found by Advantage Denton, who give a half hour free appointment to you with no further commitment, are spending their time on you because we sought them out as the right lawyer for you and you are a legitimate client because you paid $99 to be connected to the right lawyer.  It is a worthwhile investment of the attorney’s time and it is a very worthwhile investment on your part.

“Free” makes me a little angry, because it often leads to people being connected to the wrong lawyer, which costs a whole lot more than $99.  If you have time to drink from a fire hose, know where all the places to look are, and have the knowledge to evaluate all the information you find there, maybe you should look for your own lawyer.  Hearing about a good lawyer from someone else is often a good way to get connected, but I will never forget my horror at learning who my former next door neighbor’s divorce lawyer was.  He was about the worst person (now disbarred) she could have had – but she did not know enough to tell that, even after using his services.  I hope she did not give a “free” referral to anyone else to use that lawyer….

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.

Just do it.  This extremely good advice, annoyingly co-opted by a sales campaign, is not to be ignored.  I can find one hundred reasons not to get going on something that needs doing.  It is much faster to decide whether the task needs doing and, if so, just do it.  Things may not turn out perfect.  I may be sorry later.  So what.  If I use up all my time worrying about whether or how to do something, won’t I later mourn the lost opportunities and time spent messing around?

Most lawyers are pretty good at getting things done, or at least they were when they became lawyers.  You can’t get through a college education and law school and the bar examination without some modicum of organization and follow through.  Figuring out priorities for what to study and what not to waste time on is essential to passing through the gauntlet required to become an attorney.  If you practice law, you have to stay pretty responsible about “just do it” with respect to client tasks – or you fail as an attorney.  But even us lawyers can be very wasteful of our lives and our opportunities.

How is it that some folks accomplish so much and the rest of us just sit in awe, jaws dropping with admiration (or resentment)?  I am guessing that the ones who accomplish spend their time doing rather than navel gazing or comparing to others.   Instead of respecting and envying Benjamin Franklin and his ilk, we can choose to dither.  The few individuals who accomplish many great things are not waiting around to get started.  They are acting.

It does make sense that there are many types of people and ways of being.  Not everyone wants to accomplish much with their life.  Those folks stopped reading at the first sentence.  The meek may inherit the earth, but I want to make it an earth worth inheriting.

I advocate taking matters into your own hands and moving forward with whatever it is that needs doing.  Focus on what you are good at and what you care about.  Have other people do the things in your life that they are good at so you use your time on what matters to you.  Just jump in and do the things you know you should and correct your course as often as you need to.  What is stopping you?

Only you are stopping you.  Find a way and just do it.