In high-conflict divorce cases, the conflict was there long before you entered the picture. Your client may take the attitude that he is trying to win, which means leaving his ex-wife with no alimony and as little marital property as possible. In rare instances, a divorce case might seem simple at first, but the conflict may escalate when the parties reach an issue on which neither is willing to compromise or when a secret is revealed in the middle of the divorce proceedings. In either case, your role as a divorce lawyer is both to manage conflict and to help your client get a satisfactory outcome. You must serve the best interests of your client, but only within the limits of the law and within the bounds of justice. Representing clients in high-conflict divorce and co-parenting situations is one of the most challenging situations that family law attorneys can face, but with enough wisdom and professionalism, you can do it successfully.
How to Communicate With Clients in High-Conflict Divorce Cases
You Can Communicate the Content of Your Client’s Message Without the Intense Emotions
One of the best things that spouses going through a high-conflict divorce can do is to let their lawyers do the talking. If your ex’s client sends an angry, abusive text message full of lies and broken promises, tell your client to take a screen shot and send it to you instead of responding. By waiting to talk to a lawyer before you respond, there is a built-in layer of de-escalation. Your response can convey your client’s point, but it will come across as sounding professional instead of belligerent or petty. This enables your client to take the moral high road; it also enables you both to think about what to say in the response.
Some of the most conflict-proof divorce cases are collaborative divorces. There may be plenty of contentious issues where the parties disagree, but they may be so committed to conflict management that they agree not to enter a courtroom until they have worked out their disagreements. Collaborative divorce works best when the spouses stay quiet except when talking privately with their lawyers; the negotiations take place between two lawyers rather than between two angry exes.
The Role of Co-Parenting Apps in High Conflict Divorces
The instructions for your client not to engage with her ex might even come from the judge. It is easy for couples who do not have children together to communicate through their lawyers, but co-parenting, no matter how adversarial the parents’ relationship with each other, requires at least some parent-to-parent communication. Therefore, judges may order parents to use co-parenting apps like Our Family Wizard or Talking Parents. With these apps, parents communicate by text message instead of in person or on voice calls, and the app automatically archives the messages. The app produces auto generated messages related to a variety of co-parenting situations, which parents may modify or send verbatim, as well as composing their own messages. With an archive of text messages, you reduce the risk of ex-spouses contradicting each other about what each of them said or did.
When Your Client Will Not Listen to Reason
Representing a client in a high-conflict divorce case is hard enough when your client’s ex is clearly in the wrong or when the situation is naturally complicated despite both parties’ efforts to manage their conflicts appropriately. It is even harder when it is obvious to you, and probably to everyone else, that your client is being unreasonable. Family law attorneys have the right to withdraw from the attorney-client relationship if the client is too difficult to work with. These are some reasons why family lawyers terminate their relationships with clients before the case is resolved:
- The client lies to the lawyer or refuses to provide information that the lawyer needs
- The client behaves abusively toward the lawyer after the lawyer made a good-faith effort to persuade the court to rule in favor of the client
- The lawyer is unable to persuade the client that his or her expectations about the outcome of the case are unreasonably (no, I cannot get the court to award you permanent alimony because Florida no longer recognizes permanent alimony, and you are only 40 years old and were only married for three years)
- The client asks the lawyer to engage in unethical or illegal activities, such as falsifying records, sending threatening emails to witnesses, making false accusations against the client’s ex
In other words, if you are uncomfortable with your client’s behavior in a divorce case, you have the right not to represent that client, and the client has the right to hire a different lawyer.
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