Litigotiation?

When I was in high school, I told my mother that I had learned everything there is to know after my junior year and I didn’t need to attend my senior year full-time. She loves to tell people that story.

Now that I’ve turned 50, I realize that the millennials really do have a market share on values and mores and will influence brands and products. Thank goodness it was well before my 50th birthday that I realized that I didn’t know anything about anything.

And, now, as a lawyer licensed for almost 18 years, I turn inward and outward for the answers to everything. Through my work with West Florida Collaborative Divorce and the Florida Academy of Collaborative Professionals, I have been introduced to a fine group of folks who introduced me to this great new book : The New Lawyer : How Clients Are Transforming the Practice of Law. The author discusses how 97% of cases settle, but that every attorney postures a case for litigation. How each step, from intake to discovery and even settlement negotiation is designed to take a case to trial, even though there is a miniscule chance it will actually go to trial, which makes all the effort (and money!) wasted.

If you’re a client going through a divorce think about that: how much time – and money – do you want to spend paying a lawyer to work up your case for “trial?” Would you really want to go to trial anyway? Would you really want to put your life (and your kids’ lives) in the hands of a judge who doesn’t know you personally, or do you want to step into a case with settlement in mind which allows you to maintain some control over your life? Speaking from my own experience, litigation is NOT the right way to resolve family matters. It’s just not. It wasn’t until the very end of a four-day trial that I knew how timesharing with my child would be assigned… it was agonizing, every second of it was nothing short of agonizing. Spare yourself the agony and ask for this product by name.

If you’re contemplating divorce, or any legal family issue, ask if Collaborative Divorce is right for your situation. Until YOU demand a different product, lawyers will not be forced to supply it.

We will be here when you need us.

Copyright Christine Sue Cook, LLC 2019