If the truth be told, I'd rather be coaching. While there is absolutely no doubt that as a Rhode Island lawyer divorce coaching certainly isn't very profitable and I'd make considerably more money representing people in court, , I'd still rather be coaching.
Why?
First, it isn't all about money. Coaching is about helping people. I wanted to do something with my life that truly made a difference. I didn't want to make a difference just once or twice or even 5 out of 10 times. I wanted to make a positive difference virtually every time I tried to help someone in my divorce law practice. The fact is, most attorneys who regularly practice divorce in the State of Rhode Island don't have happy clients in divorces when they "represent" them. It's a sad reality but it's one that I've come to realize and accept rather than ignore.
Ultimately, unless you are just an angry spiteful person determined to hurt your spouse or deprive your spouse of what he or she may reasonably be entitled to in your marriage and you have tons of money to pay a lawyer to exact your revenge and your attorney does it for you, your attorney doesn't make a real difference even if they win the lion's share of the marital assets for you. If I did that for a client I'd simply be a legal hitman for hire or what I've referred to in the past colloquially as a "legal whore" simply doing whatever the client wants as long as it isn't illegal or violate a Rhode Island Attorney's Professional Code of Ethical Conduct.
Someone once said, "Do what makes you happy and the money will come!" Well, if simply making money is your driving force then you could be very happy being a scrupulous divorce lawyer. The mindset I've heard lawyers have is simply to view each client as a paycheck. In other words you must be disassociated from the people you represent. I suppose one can't be much more disassociated from a client than that.
If money is your motivator. It wouldn't matter whether you do your very best and your client still loses his or her proverbial shirt in the divorce or not as long as you got paid. After all, you may have made a bunch of money and you did your job to the best of your ability.
For my part, though it's a tough economy and while I could use money like anyone else, Money is simply not a motivator that makes me happy. From my teen years until well into my adult years I've had plenty of jobs. I've hated just about all of them. When we spend so much of our lifetime trading our time for money working in one job or another that we may dislike, it isn't good for anyone's mindset to do something you hate day in and day out.
That's precisely why I created divorce coaching. Lawyers, in my humble opinion, should not thrive financially by encouraging or creating unnecessary conflict in divorce and family situations, especially when they could just as easily resolve the conflict.
So I saw the need for a solution, not for my own financial benefit but because people and families need help moving on, especially in divorce situations.
People need help. Sometimes that help comes from a licensed therapist. Sometimes it may come from low-cost legal services supplemented by the state. Sometimes people need that help to come from lawyers who practice divorce because spouses place so much trust in the lawyers that they seek counsel from.
Coaches in baseball want to win the game but they want to do so fairly and within the rules. Yet ultimately no one truly wins in family court when the players are at odds and they are willing to cheat the rules. Divorce can be very emotional, it can be very costly, it involves separation, it involves a change in life and divisions of assets and debts so both parties can move forward in life.
Yet coaches want the players to do their best and be levelheaded. That's what I wanted to bring to the divorce process. My goal was to do what is possible to extract the hostile emotions from the divorce and coach people that there best interests and the best results in family court rely upon parties who reach compromise.
After all, what makes the most sense? Does it make sense to have conflict, expensive attorney's fees and intense emotions OR would it make more sense to reach a resolution both parties can live with, avoid unnecessary lawyer fees and reduce the stress of intense emotions so that they are manageable and you can move on with your life without all the controversy tearing at your life, your heart and your bank account? It would seen the answer is obvious.
Yet most attorneys don't like my Coaching because it doesn't make them $4,000 or more per client. The coaching concept doesn't allow an attorney to leave the client in the dark about the law and legal concepts. Instead, the Coaching Approach to Divorce works because it is educational by it's very nature. No longer are you clueless about your divorce. You are no longer handing over your case to a person you barely know because it is too complicated for you to handle and an experienced professional needs to handle all the complicated legal stuff and you are left to trusting that person. HOGWASH!
People aren't stupid! Most people can be educated about their legal rights and in my professional opinion this is something that is sorely lacking in our dealings as lawyers with the members of our state and those who will come before the family court. We should all have the right to at least try to understand our rights. Without information, how can we even hope to make the right decisions for ourselves. Divorces are too crucial to simply trust that someone we are paying is going to protect us 100%. The best person to protect you is YOU!
In the end, with a little coaching you can understand most aspects of the law and your rights in a divorce situation. After all, divorce is all about your life, right? Who knows your life better than you? No one! So with just a little help and a lot less in attorney's fees do you think you could make the best decision for your the resolution of your divorce? ABSOLUTELY!
Don't become a victim of the system, lawyers, injustice, conflict, hatred, large attorneys fees, and ultimately ignorance. Find out what you are getting yourself into and how you can truly win in the family court by taking control of your own life and your own divorce by even a single coaching session.
If 1-one hour Coaching Session for $135.00 could save you $1,000, $2,500 or $5,000 would it have been worth it? If your answer is Yes, then by all means call me at 401-632-6976 and find out what virtually every other attorney practicing Divorce in the State of Rhode Island doesn't want you to know about.
This program has been designed over 5 1/2 years and it has been offered for three and one-half years (3 1/2). To date it has recorded a whopping 100% Success Rate. Set up your $135 session and discover why I've received more thank you cards and testimonials in the last 3 years than in my entire 23 year history working in the legal field.
My phone line is open. You'll be greeted with Understanding, A Smile, Respect, No Sales Pitch and No Hidden Catches! I invite you to call me at (401) 632-6976. As a matter of practice legal questions are not answered over the telephone unless a paid advice session is arranged via a one-hour paid telephone conference.
Rhode Island Divorce Coaching Tip - Divorce in RI Could Go As Far as Criminal Acts!
Whether you like it or not Rhode Island Divorces with bitter spouses are no longer simple anymore. They have risen to the level of cyber terrorism yet the law has yet to catch up with it in the area of Rhode Island Family Law. Only criminal law seems to have reached the area of computer crime and infiltration of private information. Here is only one example of what computer hackers are capable of.
IMF becomes latest known target of major cyber attack
WASHINGTON/BOSTON | Sun Jun 12, 2011 1:25am EDT
(Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund, the intergovernmental group that oversees the global financial system and brings together 187 member nations, has become the latest known target of a significant cyber attack.
A cybersecurity expert who has worked for both the Washington-headquartered IMF and the World Bank, its sister institution, said the intruders' goal had been to install software that would give a nation-state a "digital insider presence" on the IMF network.
Such a presence could yield a trove of non-public economic data used by the Fund to promote exchange rate stability, support balanced international trade and provide resources to remedy members' balance-of-payments crises.
"It was a targeted attack," said Tom Kellerman, who has worked for both international financial institutions and who serves on the board of a group known as the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance.
The code used in the IMF incident was developed specifically for the attack on the institution, said Kellerman, formerly responsible for cyber-intelligence within the World Bank's treasury team and now chief technology officer at AirPatrol, a cyber consultancy.
The attack on the IMF was the latest to become known in a rash of cyber break-ins that have targeted high-profile companies and institutions, often to steal secrets with potentially far-reaching economic implications. The list of victims includes Lockheed Martin Corp, Sony Corp and Citigroup Inc.
IMF spokesman David Hawley said Saturday the Fund was "fully functional," despite the attack.
"I can confirm that we are investigating an incident," he said, adding that he was not in a position to elaborate on the extent of it. He declined to respond to requests for comment on Kellerman's conclusion about the intruders' goal.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is helping to investigate the attack on the IMF, according to a U.S. Defense Department spokeswoman.
DIFFICULT TO PROVE
A World Bank official said the Bank had cut its network connection with the IMF out of "caution" even though the information shared on that link was "non sensitive."
Rich Mills, a Bank spokesman, said "the World Bank Group, like any other large organization, is increasingly aware of potential threats to the security of our information system and we are constantly working to improve our defenses."
Jeff Moss, a self-described computer hacker and member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Committee, said he believed the attack was conducted on behalf of a nation-state looking to either steal sensitive information about key IMF strategies or embarrass the organization to undermine its clout.
He said it could inspire attacks on other large institutions. "If they can't catch them, I'm afraid it might embolden others to try," said Moss, who is chief security officer for ICANN.
But cyber security experts cautioned it might be difficult for investigators to prove which nation was behind the attack.
"Even developing nations are able to leverage the Internet in order to change their standing and ability to influence," said Jeffrey Carr, author of the book, "Inside Cyber Warfare."
"It's something they never could have done before without gold or without military might," Carr said.
Experts say cyber threats are increasing worldwide. CIA Director Leon Panetta told the U.S. Congress this week the United States faced the "real possibility" of a crippling cyber attack.
"The next Pearl Harbor that we confront," he said, could be a cyber attack that "cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems."
"This is a real possibility in today's world," Panetta told a June 9 confirmation hearing in his bid to become the next U.S. defense secretary.
'SUSPICIOUS FILE TRANSFERS'
Bloomberg News reported the attack occurred before the May 14 arrest of former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual assault charges. It resulted in the loss of e-mails and other documents, Bloomberg said.
The New York Times cited computer experts as saying the IMF's board of directors was told of the attack on Wednesday, though the assault had lasted several months.
An Internal IMF memo issued on Wednesday warned employees to be on their guard.
"Last week we detected some suspicious file transfers, and the subsequent investigation established that a Fund desktop computer had been compromised and used to access some Fund systems," said a June 8 email to employees from Chief Information Officer Jonathan Palmer.
Details of the email were first reported by Bloomberg. Reuters' sources confirmed the wording of the email.
"At this point, we have no reason to believe that any personal information was sought for fraud purposes," the message to employees said.
Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales and the biggest information technology provider to the U.S. government, disclosed two weeks ago that it had thwarted a "significant" cyber attack. It said it had become a "frequent target of adversaries around the world."
Also hit recently have been Citigroup Inc, Sony Corp and Google Inc.
The IMF is seeking a new head following the resignation of Strauss-Kahn after he was charged with the sexual assault of a New York hotel maid.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Jim Finkle, Jim Wolf, Jim Vicini; Editing by Peter Cooney, Todd Eastham and Paul Simao)
COMMENTARY by THE RHODE ISLAND DIVORCE COACH
Privacy is no longer something to be considered sacred anymore and some parties in a divorce have taken matters to new heights, going so far as infecting computers with hidden software programs that go virtually unnoticed by the user while the spouse is constantly fed your private information.
Imagine being in a Rhode Island divorce proceeding only to have your private emails and banking records thrown at your own attorney in the courtroom hallway.
Imagine having your account at BANK RI drained of funds by a transfer you never authorized.
Imagine having fraudulent information published on your Facebook page to be used against you in your divorce when they were planted by your spouse who has stooped to a new low in guerilla divorce tactics.
These are only a few of the actions that spouses have taken or could take to cripple you in a divorce proceeding whether they contain accurate information or fraudulent information.
Denial is usually the first level a spouse will arrive at if these things are even mentioned, yet the reality of the things are that people who can do these things are readily available through the internet or through internet contacts. Sadly there are even companies that sell little known programs that will do some very damaging and intrusive things to you in your RI Divorce proceeding without having the slightest amount of computer knowledge at all.
In the end, depending upon how the person engaged by your spouse approaches the situation, or which spouse performs the actions, or which spouse even "owns" the computer, the spouse taking these denigrating acts of violation or hires a person to do so may have committed a state or federal computer crime punishable by fines or jail time. Yet many spouses, especially those with children, bank on the very fact that the spouse begin victimized by these computer invasions of privacy would never cause the mother or the father of their children to be labeled as a criminal.
Ultimately, if you have a computer, especially one connected to the internet by a cable or DSL internet service your level of awareness during a divorce should be increased as should that of your divorce lawyer.
Yes, Rhode Island divorces could (and frankly have) become subject to criminal acts out of everything from emotion, to vengeance to extreme acts of protection which may be, in fact, criminal.
Watch your back! Watch your front! Watch your kids! But be ever vigilant that your computer may be used to watch YOU!
Posted by Attorney Christopher A. Pearsall on October 29, 2011 at 10:24 AM in Affordable Legal Advice, Commentaries, Computer Crimes in RI Divorces, Coping with Divorce, Divorce & Fathers, Divorce & Men, Divorce & Mothers, Divorce and Coercion, Divorce and Computers, Divorce and Emotional Instability, Divorce and Forensic Evidence, Divorce and Mental Health, How Attorneys Can Protect Divorce Clients, Laypeople Acting PRO SE, RI Divorce and Perspectives, The Rhode Island Divorce Coach, Tricky Divorce Issues | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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