Family Law

The Challenge Of Being A Sympathetic Divorce Lawyer

Distributing memories is far more emotional than distributing bank accounts.

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When I entered private practice as a family law attorney, I was a happy newlywed, married barely a year and excited to start these new chapters in my personal and professional lives. Helping people get divorced while I was happily and newly married was hard to reconcile though, and I distinctly remember feeling uncomfortable in client meetings back then — flipping my engagement ring around or putting my rings on the other hand so that my clients would not know I was married. After all, I wanted to appear on the outside as a relatable advocate.

I spent hours walking client after client through the process of dividing assets, understanding how their budget may need to change post-divorce, and trying to help them grapple with the challenges of co-parenting with a person they had initially hoped to build the rest of their lives with. I like to think that most people do not get married and have children with people they think they will end up divorcing.

Four years later, I became a mom. Following my maternity leave, I joined the ranks of many who call themselves “working moms.” These women balance the most rewarding and challenging role of mom while trying to maintain or flourish in their careers.

I find the term “working mom” very irritating, as it seems to me to emphasize the “working” instead of the “mom.” I am a mom — a mom who happens to work outside the home. Breaking this down and understanding it firsthand has made all of the difference in how I approach the difficult process of divorce with my clients.

With that mindset shift and a deeper understanding, my perspective changed and my empathy dramatically increased for my mom clients. Before having my own child, I would look at the moms in my office and think (silently, to myself) how spending alternating weekends with their children gave them the time to binge watch the newest show on Netflix, get to that spin class that they used to religiously attend, or runaway for the night with their girlfriends when their kids were with their ex. Then, I came to realize that many of these women did not necessarily look forward to this down time. When they signed up to be moms, they applied for the full-time position. Now, by virtue of their divorce, their hours were cut, sometimes having to parent remotely in a new flex-time position they didn’t even like.

I do subscribe to the philosophy that all parents need time to themselves in order to recharge and be at their best for their children. But what I now understand is why the moms I met with wanted to be able to attend the soccer tournament on their “off weekends,” standing on the sidelines in the freezing cold hoping to see their child score the winning goal, or being there for a hug in case their child missed the final shot and lost the game. Being there, in person, was what those moms signed up for. They did not necessarily want to just hear about the winning play (or console a sad child) via FaceTime from their former spouse’s minivan. They wanted to be there for it.

In addition to wanting to be there for the day-to-day experiences of your kids, I know that once you become a parent, holidays take on new meaning as you now celebrate these special moments through the eyes of your children. There are only so many ways to divide up the hours of a real holiday before one parent is left celebrating at another time. Now, when I craft parenting time plans, I view my role as not only divvying up holidays between former spouses, but helping my clients reinvent their holiday celebrations so they can make equally meaningful memories, though they may look different than the ones in the photos they had to painfully divide with their former spouse, or duplicate thanks to Shutterfly technology.  Distributing memories is far more emotional than distributing bank accounts.

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The task of the compassionate divorce lawyer is not easy: it requires balancing sympathy and acknowledgment of the emotional turmoil occurring in my clients’ lives while at the same time ensuring that they understand the boundaries of the law. I work even harder now to make sure that when these moms leave my office, they know that divorce is not the end of their lives. Instead, I help them finish one chapter and immediately turn the page to begin a new chapter which though different, could be even better than the one before.

Please do not call these clients of mine “divorced moms.” They are not to be defined first by the breakdown of their marriage. They are moms — who also happen to be divorced.

Nicole Kobis is a Partner in the Divorce and Family Law group of Lindabury McCormick Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. in Westfield, New Jersey. She is an accredited family and divorce mediator and is a collaboratively trained attorney. She also serves as Co-Chair of Lindabury’s Women’s Business Initiative Program and as Co-Chair of Union County Bar Association’s Family Law Committee. She can be reached by email at nkobis@lindabury.com.

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