For several years, I have used my own layman definition of psychological trauma. Here it is:
“Psychological trauma occurs when reality differs from the story we tell ourselves about ourselves (our psychological identity).”
I have seen this mechanic play out more times than I can remember. Someone who tells themselves “I am in control of my behaviors” realizes that his gambling addiction has cost him more than $100,000. Someone who tells themselves “I am a good parent” realizes that they have irreparably caused harm to their children. Someone who says “I would never hurt anyone” lays hands on their wife or child in a drunken rage.
These intersections where the stories fall apart (psychological trauma) lead to all sorts of fallout. Some people go deeper into denial. They do incredible mental gymnastics to make it so the story is still “true.” Some people numb themselves with drugs or alcohol until the contradiction doesn’t seem to matter anymore. The list goes on and on.
You may be asking yourself – what does this have to do with a family law blog?
When you pay attention to these things long enough, you start to get very picky about the stories you tell yourself about yourself. You pay attention to the stories other people tell themselves (whether they realize it or not). Unrealistic stories area recipe for disaster – because reality is going to come in destroy them every time. I cannot tell you how often I have seen lawyers tell unrealistic stories to themselves and suffer terrible consequences – dragging their clients right along with them.
Hopefully identifying some of the common “disaster stories” here will both remind lawyers to avoid these unhealthy narratives and equip clients on how to identify (and avoid) lawyers that are clearly under the influence of these narratives.
Below are three of the most common and most destructive ones I see on a regular basis.
Story One: “I always have the answers.” This is a common one for younger lawyers (although sometimes even older ones still fall prey to it). When we get out of law school, many of us are conditioned to believe that we have all the training needed to practice law. This could not be farther from the truth. Knowing the theory about something and knowing it in practice are two very different animals. Just because you understand the rules of evidence and the applicable statutes for family law, it doesn’t mean you are going to have any clue as to what you should do when a long-term domestic violence victim comes into your office and you are tasked with getting her and her three children out of harm’s way.
Knowing how to handle these messy situations with dozens of variables takes a thoughtful approach and experience. Lawyers who have bought into this poisonous story will promptly have the answers to everything, and will defend those snap judgments no matter what.
Lawyers who have liberated themselves from this story will tend to say things like, “I need to think about that” or “let me ask so-and-so” or “let me look that up.” One of the critical journeys in becoming a good family law lawyer is understanding on a deep and profound level the limits of your understanding.
Unhealthy family law lawyers think that because of their training or experience (or even just their “price tag”) that they should have all the answers. People that have been doing this for a while know better – we know where to look for answers and how to find them.
Story Two: “I always win.” Let’s begin our look at this lawyer fantasy by looking at a common client fantasy. The client fantasy goes like this: “I hired this lawyer. This lawyer is top dollar. They have all the best reviews online. If I hire this lawyer, I’m going to win my case no matter what.” As you might imagine, this story is a recipe for disaster. It is made even worse when lawyers buy into the “I always win” story as part of their identity or (even worse) use it in their marketing.
Practice long enough, and you figure out that you do not win cases. Facts and evidence win cases. Your job is to find them and make sure everyone knows about them. I had the opportunity to watch hundreds of trials as a young public defender. What I saw, again and again, is that the most refined master could get flattened by a rank novice if the latter had compelling facts on his side.
If your lawyer believes there is something about him/her that is going to make victory inevitable… run.
From the lawyer perspective, I usually ask people infected with this poison a loaded question:
What is winning?
Sound simple, right?
Wrong.
In a football game, winning is easy because everyone measures points and that is the only measurement. In divorces, it is more difficult. Let’s say your advocacy got your client a lot of money in a property settlement and custody of the children. If you caused irreparable harm to both parents and the children in the process and set them up for decades of bitterness and conflict… did you really “win”?
Winning and losing are binary. Family law is not.
A mark of a healthy lawyer is discussions of goals and priorities, and determining if they are reasonable in light of the evidence and the law. In those cases, victory becomes a question of how much you were able to educate clients and advance healthy and realistic goals?
Story Three: “My performance is always consistent.” A huge pitfall for a lot of lawyers is the belief that their work product will remain consistent through their whole career. This belief is another recipe for disaster.
Not surprisingly, lawyers are human beings just like everyone else. We have episodes of depression, go through divorces, have deaths in our families, experience financial crunches… you name it. A very common piece of arrogance I see in lawyers is buying into this story, that their performance will stay the same no matter what.
As you have likely realized by this point, this work is complex and demanding. The examples mentioned above are all things that are going to impact your ability to do the work well. On top of all these things are other inevitable things—like age and health issues. Even you found the one lawyer that never had any sort of personal crisis, eventually time and health are going to diminish any lawyer’s performance.
A mark of healthy lawyers is a sense of realism. When their life circumstances impact their abilities, they respond and adjust accordingly. If they are working part-time, they reduce their case count. If they are going through difficult emotional issues, they might avoid cases that hit “too close to home” or limit certain types of cases until they can work through the issues in therapy. Healthy lawyers have the ability to admit to themselves and their clients when they are no able to do the job the client deserves.
In terms of what to look for, keep an eye out for lawyers that will do things like meaningfully communicate about their schedule and capacity. They will be picky about time frames and how much work certain projects will require. They will also be very comfortable acknowledging their human limitations and working around them.
Example: instead of “I’ll get to this next week” you hear things like “my wife is having surgery this week, so let’s talk about this next week so I can give the matter my full attention.”
On a very basic level, you need a lawyer that is deeply in touch with their own humanity. There is an old adage that a willow will bend in the went where the oak tree snaps. This is profoundly true with the practice of law. An attorney “bending” in light of work loads and personal circumstances isn’t weak—they are resilient. Be concerned if your lawyer is working hard to present an image of being invincible. At the wrong moment in that lawyer’s life, that toxic story will harm you both.
Conclusion: As lawyers, we carry important aspects of our clients’ lives in our hands. Our ability to maintain our health is part of our duty to clients. We have to be constantly vigilant to make sure that the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are healthy ones.
If you are a client, hopefully these stories will help you know what to look for in picking someone that is going to work with you on reshaping your life.
As always ,I hope this helps.
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