Today, I am a Rhode Island lawyer focusing my practice on divorce and divorce coaching. Looking back decades ago I remember another lawyer who had been practicing in another state for some 40+ years who said something that perplexed me.
The lawyer was about as true, honorable, and generous a gentleman as I have ever met. He had all the qualities I envisioned a good lawyer would have. He truly cared about each of his clients. He fought for each one within the bounds of the law, within his professional code of ethics, and with a high degree of morality. The lawyer knew that I greatly admired him as both a person and as a lawyer.
One extremely hot summer afternoon this lawyer returned to his office after losing a district court hearing. He plopped himself down in the chair at the opposite end of the short conference room table I was sitting at in his office law library. His secretary nervously brought him a lemonade and napkin then quickly skirted out of the room. There was an endless silence.
Finally, I spoke,
Chris: "I'm considering becoming a lawyer."
The lawyer lifted his head, wiped his brow with a napkin, grabbed a nearby law book and flung it across his law library breaking the law book's spine.
It was one of the first times I had ever seen this man so upset.
I was quiet until the lawyer spoke.
This time the pause was endless yet I was just too puzzled not to speak.Lawyer: I HATE LAWYERS!
Chris: "I don't understand!?! You ARE a lawyer."
The lawyer was quiet again, so I asked it as a question.
Chris: "How can you hate lawyers when you ARE one?
The lawyer waited quite awhile before speaking.
Lawyer: Chris, if you're anything like me, you'll understand when you get there.
The conversation ended.
I've been working in the legal field now for more than 20 years since that conversation.
As a Rhode Island lawyer, I am bound by a Professional Code of Ethical Conduct among other things. There are things that I shouldn't say or do and there are things that I can't say or do despite the right to Free Speech guaranteed to all of us by the United States Constitution. The layperson would be amazed.
* * * A Message for Roger * * *
For a point of reference only, the lawyer's name was Roger.
Hopefully he's still alive and hopefully he is in tune enough with today's "internet" that he reads this article.
First, to this great lawyer.
Roger, I was like you. I understand!
Now, to my readers I offer this.
You may not understand this statement until you meet with me.
If you like lawyers, you probably won't like me.
With that said, I can tell you that as a Rhode Island Lawyer who has focused my practice exclusively in the area of divorce and family law, I cannot make your problems go away. No lawyer can! Yet some lawyers may tell you they can to get you as a client.
Lawyers can't make your problems go away because fundamentally they are your problems. Only you can take responsibility for those challenges in your life. Only you truly have the power to resolve those challenges by your decisions.
However, I can tell you that I can help you understand and get through your Rhode Island divorce or family law challenges by working with you either as your Coach or as your Representative.
* * * Your Divorce Coaching Program * * *
Roger's words were invaluable. Today, they are the powerful force motivating the continued growth of your Family Law Coaching program.
I call it Your Program because it is designed specifically for you. It is designed to teach you, train you, advise you, inform you, and save you time and money in the areas of divorce and family law.
As Your Coaching Program continues to evolve, it will continue to work faster for you, become more economical for you, and become more helpful for you.
Whatever you choose to believe, there is one thing you can know with certainty. I am one lawyer trying to make a difference for YOU with a new and innovative way of practice designed by hard work, my belief that you can do more than you believe you can at this moment, and your willingness to be open to something new that works.
What can Your Coaching Program help you with? Here is a brief list . . .
Rhode Island Divorces & Legal Separations, Rhode Island Child Support Establishment, Modifications, Collections and Terminations, Rhode Island Child Custody Matters and Child Custody Modifications, Rhode Island Petitions to Enforced Marital Settlement Agreements and Property Settlement Agreements, Preparing Pre-Nuptual Agreements and Ante-Nuptual Agreements in Rhode Island, RI Petitions to Move Out of State with Minor Children, Petitions to Establish Paternity in Rhode Island, Rhode Island Motions to Adjudge In Contempt and Defense of those Contempt Motions, Protection from Abuse Petitions and Defense Against Such Petitions, Rhode Island Motions and Petitions to Establish, Modify or Terminate Visitation, RI Common Law Divorces and their Defense, Rhode Island Legal Rights, Rhode Island Family Court Procedures, 2nd Opinions about your Attorney on Rhode Island Divorce Cases, Pro Se Representation (i.e. Representing Yourself Appropriately in Family Court), and many more . . .
Look for the Testimonials Section about Your Coaching Program which is coming soon. Feel Free to Call Me for a low-cost Coaching Session!
Attorney Christopher A. Pearsall - Phone: (401) 632-6976
The True Divorce Victims - An Easter Wakeup Call from Bob Kerr and one Child's Story!
Bob Kerr: Here’s a girl who needs the adults to listen to her
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, April 24, 2011
She is pretty and smart and wants to be a veterinarian. But she thinks about being a photographer, too, or an artist. And sometimes she wonders if she could combine all her interests into one very full future.
But she is only 11, and on Wednesday she had to negotiate with her father to spend two more days with her mother. She is a child of divorce, and she finds her choices, the really important ones, are seldom hers to make.
She is the person least heard and yet most affected by the endless court battles, the petty skirmishes, the failure or refusal of Family Court to say “enough.”
A few months ago, she put it all down in a letter to the court. It’s a “Dear Judge” letter, and the first line gives you an idea of how some kids in Rhode Island have their childhoods messed up by a system that doesn’t work.
“Dear Judge: When the police came to escort me into my dad’s car, I was talking to the policeman and he said he wanted me to write you a letter so here it is.”
She’s 11 years old and she’s getting advice from a cop, a cop caught in that strange territory where no cop wants to go. This time, it was a visit with one parent that went longer than the custody agreement allowed. So the police were called. It really does get that dumb, petty and hurtful. She ran around to the back of her mother’s house to try to avoid the unavoidable.
Once, she and her sister were in a Stop & Shop and saw their mother and weren’t allowed to run over and give her a hug.
And consider this from a District Court judge who has seen and heard a lot about this girl and her sister:
“I am satisfied that these children have been subjected to inquiries so many times that what they say can no longer be accepted at face value. They have been interrogated by teachers. They have been interrogated by parents, by a stepparent, by DCYF workers, by police people. It’s just dreadful what’s happened to them.”
They are casualties. They have lost so much to the mad competition of divorce and the endless grind of Family Court. They are not the kids they might have been. Being carefree is not easy when the adults keep slamming away and the police show up.
And it continues, as Family Court cases do. This girl has lived with divorce for 9 of her 11 years. It’s really all she’s ever known. Being driven to a police station parking lot in South County so she can be transferred from one parent to the other is just part of growing up
“It’s tough to plan stuff, to know where I’m going to be,” she says.
“I want to go with my mom, but I don’t really have a choice.”
We talked at Brewed Awakenings in South County Commons. She had orange juice. She told me she really, really likes Justin Bieber. She has shirts, posters. Asthma keeps her from playing soccer as she’d like to, but she plays tag with friends. She likes to dance. She isn’t too crazy about video games.
When her grandmother died, she created a website for mourning the loss.
She’s good to talk to. At 11, she seems to understand too well that she’s caught in the middle and that parents, judges, social workers, therapists and the occasional police officer will have far too much to say about where she goes and who she sees.
Divorce runs widely among the kids she knows. They compare notes.
“A lot of my friends have parents who are divorced,” she says. “Some of them get along. The stepparents are nice. They kind of get to choose.”
Her sister stays with her father and stepmother. She moves back and forth, although she says she wants to stay with her mother. That might give her some small sense of stability, but stability does not seem part of the plan. In her “Dear Judge” letter, she says she doesn’t think it’s fair that she can’t go to the place where life makes the most sense.
I have talked to kids before who have endured this unfair, unreasonable, cruel assault on their childhoods. And it is impossible to assess the full damage or know how severely parents have poisoned the family well.
But this girl knows. She can talk about it. And everybody involved — couples in divorce and all the people who work in that gold mine of billable hours called Family Court — should listen to her. They should hear from the most important person in the whole crazy mess. They should learn of the harm they cause by not resolving things, by letting cases go on and on while kids accept more and more mad, crazy stuff into their lives.
Come on, no 11-year-old should have to be escorted by a police officer because her parents can’t agree on the exact minute to move her from one version of home to the other.
That’s nuts. And it’s one more bad sign that young lives will continue to get screwed up by a process that can’t seem to settle much of anything.
bkerr@projo.com
"From The Providence Journal on Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011"
Comment by Attorney Christopher A. Pearsall
Thank you Bob for a wakeup call to those in the legal process who are not looking out for these young victims of divorce.
For those of my brethren who disregard children as collateral damage in the legal system, I hope this article causes you to "think twice" about the consequences of your actions to the children each time you take an action (billable or not) in a divorce involving children.
There is no doubt that we need to do more. One child lost in a divorce who might have been saved . . . is simply one child too many.
Posted by Attorney Christopher A. Pearsall on April 24, 2011 at 08:23 AM in Attorney Ethics, Attorney Morality & Integrity, Commentaries, Coping with Divorce, Divorce & Children, Divorce & Children's Rights, Divorce Lawyers, Divorce Lawyers & Practice Philosophies, In the Public Eye, Judicial Abuse, Public Opinion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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