Surviving Family Law: A Thinking Lawyer's Guide to Tranquility, Fearlessness, and Freedom

• Author: Steven N. Peskind
• Position: Steven N. Peskind, of the Peskind Law Firm P.C. in St. Charles, Illinois, writes frequently on family law topics. He most recently authored the USA?Illinois chapter for Family Law 2020, A Practical Cross-Border Insight into Family Law (Int'l Comparative Legal Guides 2020).
• Pages: 119-142

119

Surviving Family Law: A Thinking

Lawyer’s Guide to Tranquility,

Fearlessness, and Freedom

STEVEN N. PESKIND*

Introduction

Trial lawyers operate in a world of turmoil. By design, the adversarial

process is a competition between parties with divergent interests. While

mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) look

     

       

mild to scorched-earth, litigants’ interests are rarely in perfect alignment.

         

         

personalities and their expectations can take a toll on a lawyer’s health

and well-being.

In family law, the emotions accompanying the rearrangement of

a family are often intense. The mirror of great love is not typically

         

disappointment. Litigants in family court shared their bed, fears, tears,

and dreams—intimacy rarely known by other court adversaries. Managing

family law clients’ emotions requires a steadying hand by a lawyer. Urging

temperance and common sense to people in crises will drain the resources

of even the most stout-hearted practitioner.

* Steven N. Peskind, of the Peskind Law Firm P.C. in St. Charles, Illinois, writes frequently

on family law topics. He most recently authored the USA–Illinois chapter for FAMILY LAW 2020,

A PRACTICAL CROSS-BORDER INSIGHT INTO FAMILY LAW (Int’l Comparative Legal Guides 2020).

Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 53, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2019. © 2020 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion

thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.

120 Family Law Quarterly, Volume 53, Number 2, Summer 2019

This Article will examine the emotional challenges confronting family

law lawyers in their day-to-day practices. Working amid toxic emotions

can become debilitating and discouraging. Metaphorically, family lawyers

stand very close to people wrestling in a mud puddle and rarely avoid

getting splattered. Relying on ancient wisdom, the author will recommend

strategies on how to avoid the mental pitfalls that confront family lawyers

daily. The Article will offer, as a palliative, the use of Stoic and Eastern

philosophy to both survive and thrive in a modern family law practice.

I. The Trials of the Modern Legal Advocate

Lawyers serve multiple roles: advisor, counselor, negotiator, and court

advocate. Solving clients’ legal problems is at the core of their professional

responsibilities. Often family law issues can be resolved amicably and

painlessly; other times not. While many clients are grateful for lawyers’

efforts regardless of a particular outcome, other times clients are unhappy



clients generally accept unsatisfactory results if the overall professional

experience was satisfactory.1 But cultural and technological developments



provides people answers to unlimited questions instantaneously, and clients

have been acculturated to expect their lawyers to do so as well. And with

the ubiquity of text messaging and other forms of instant communication,

the notion of immediate contact is the rule rather than the exception. The

     

contact adds a layer of pressure to an already-challenging occupation.

The author commenced practicing law in 1985. After a court appearance,

a letter would be dictated, typed, proofed, and mailed to the client describing

the outcome and next actions. The client would receive this information

approximately one week after the event. As time and technology evolved,

an email describing the outcome within a day or two became the usual

protocol. Now, clients have come to expect immediate information by

text message, often before the lawyer leaves the courthouse. This is not a



of a professional dynamic all lawyers must contend with.

          

impossible for all but the most disciplined. Lawyers, probably more

than most, need leisure and recreation to recharge depleted emotional

1. Clark D. Cunningham, What Do Clients Want from Their Lawyers, 2013 J. DISP. RESOL.

143 (2013).

Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 53, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2019. © 2020 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion

thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.