Sometimes working in the Family Law court can be frustrating. Sometimes? Maybe I'm getting old and mellow. I suppose when Family Law isn't frustrating, it's irksome and crazed.
Some of the participants have learned to game the system. They know how things work--how slowly the world turns--and they use that to their advantage.
The woman who files the Order to Show Cause (OSC) when the father is out of state, asking for sole custody of the kids and no visitation for him, when he can't respond; the father who makes unfounded allegations of violence against his ex-wife's new husband, seeking to take a little girl from her mother out of vindictiveness; the mother who sends her child to live with grandma out of state while she stalls and delays and shows up intermittantly so that the father can't see the young child at all for months.
I like to believe that eventually it all gets straightened out. As a lawyer, I fight hard and long and complain bitterly when my clients are deprived of their parental rights for months at a time due to the slow process of the courts. I can clearly see what the other side is doing: Trying to sever the bonds between child and parent so that they can terminate the rights. I think it's monstrous--the child needs to know both of his or her parents, not merely the one who knows how to play the stalling game in the courts.
I counsel patience to my clients because sometimes patience is the only weapon we can weild. Eventually, the court discovers that the drug addict mother who promised she wouldn't take the kids out of town has absconded to another state, and a warrant is issued. Eventually, a hearing is held and a court hears that a father's struggle with alcohol means that he probably shouldn't have much more than supervised visitation. Eventually, a judge hears the slanders and lies of a father trying to elminate a loving mother from the equation, and appoints a lawyer to represent the child.
I like to think that, though the system can be gamed, it can also be turned toward justice. I like to believe that once you put the facts in front of a judge, he or she can see their way to the truth and make a decent, just, and honest decision which benefits the child.
More often than not, I'm right and the judge can see the truth. But waiting for that day can be excruciating. For the lawyer as much as for the client.
I guess I care too deeply about my family law clients. A therapist would likely tell me I have my own issues in that regard--nothing to talk about here on the blog, but something I try to keep in mind.
I don't know which is worse, however. Caring too deeply or not caring enough. I guess that I'll keep charging in, making noise, and doing my best to expedite the day of justice for child and parent alike.
