This story deals with litigation when dealing with a hard-line litigation attorney who doesn’t put her client first.

8. Marriage of Karen and Tom

Karen and Tom have three sons.  Their oldest  James has physical disabilities.  Karen has been taking him to places and getting rehabilitation support and treatments.  James goes to school and depends on Access transportation for the disabled or from Karen.  James also works part time for minimum wage .

Karen came to me for legal representation.  Tom has filed to reduce support payments.  Tom’s attorney Debra was very litigious.   I told Debra that I was just hired and requested that she agree to continue the hearing.  I also filed a request for support of their disabled adult son James.   I asked Debra if we could have time to discuss and perhaps resolve the case without going to court. 

Debra tried to get me to agree to no support in the meantime.  After being appalled and then getting over myself,  I disagreed and requested a stipulation to continue the hearing.  She finally agreed.

I invited Debra to lunch and talked to her about the possibility of supporting the parties reach their own agreement.  Debra, at best agreed to a 4 way settlement conference.

I coached my client to be very appreciative in the meeting and however express her needs.  At least in the meeting the parties started communicating and understanding each other despite Debra’s repeated interjection.  Every time Debra interjected,  I validated her point and went back to the parties and focused on their teamwork.

The parties were close to reaching an agreement; however Debra placed a hard line and we did not settle.

Later that week we went to court for the hearing.  The judge denied Tom’s request and increased the support order and ordered them to pay for all my attorney fees. 

From then on Tom and Karen worked out their legal issues because now Tom realized that Karen is better to deal with than the courts.