Keeping costs down

OK, I promised this in part of a previous post, so here goes:

First thing to keep costs down is to get the lawyer before you are in over your head.  Lawyers make a ton of money fixing problems that you created by handling your litigation in wrong ways.  If you thought that you’re good at paperwork so you’ll just handle all that and bring in a lawyer at the last minute, understand that by the time you look for a lawyer, most of us will not take on your case because we know the problems that are about to befall you and we don’t want you to blame us for it.  The alternative is for us to take on the case, do triple the amount of work to get things up to speed and hope the judge does not sanction us or you for gaps in the paperwork.  That triple the amount of work is going to cost you, because it takes our time, and our time costs you money.

Second, prioritize your issues and consult with your lawyer about whether the value of an issue is worth the price it will cost to present it.  Discussing it with your lawyer can help you decide whether or not it can be used to support your position in a different issue and therefore has more value than simply the price of winning the item, or whether the likelihood of winning makes it not worth the time taken to present it.  We understand that when you’re thinking about your issues, every one of them seeks equally important, but 20 years ago, people spent thousands fighting over large console TV sets, record collections or VCR tape collections, and today these people would rather have fought over the retirement savings, because their old electronics are obsolete today.

Third, schedule your consultations with your lawyer ahead of time and send a list of questions or agenda items.  You get a clearer answer and waste less time in the phone call (and being charged by the 10^th of an hour, you don’t want to waste that lawyer’s time), if the lawyer has an idea of what the call will be about and is able to prepare, accordingly.  Don’t expect your lawyer to have definitive answers to most of your questions off the top of their head without review of the file or a little legal research.  Don’t expect them to have definitive answers, ever, to some things, but you’ll have a better idea of whether this is a question that has a clear answer or not, if you give your lawyer a chance to look it up rather than try to answer off the top of their head.

Fourth:  be the best possible client available.  Do not pay your bills late.  Do not show up to meetings or court late.  When the lawyer says they want your past credit card statements, ask “how many”, and when the lawyer says “5 years worth”, don’t fuss and try to cut it down, don’t fiddle around and delay getting them because you have not been a good record keeper (most people lose or toss their records quickly).  Simply get on the phone and call your credit card company, ask what it will take to get a copy of all those statements, and if they say that you need to write a notarized letter and pay $.50 a page for the statements, do it and pay it.  It will cost a ton more money if you have your lawyer do it and if your lawyer has to pay for it.  Heck, even just getting the additional paperwork from you to prove to the credit card company that the lawyer is authorized to get a copy of your credit card statements is going to cost you.  If you do it yourself, you keep costs down.  And when you get the statements, if you have an idea of what the lawyer is looking for, then organize the statements.  Don’t just dump them on th lawyer’s desk in a pile unless you want to pay for the time the lawyer has to take to shuffle through them and arrange them.  For every hour you spend doing this, you’re probably saving at least 2-3 hours worth of legal fees, because you have a better idea what you’re looking for and what you’re looking at.  After all, these are records of your life, not your lawyers’.  You are the best expert in finding them and explaining them to your lawyer, so do it, as big of a pain in the neck as it is, simply do it.  Or understand that you will be paying that $200-500 an hour for your lawyer to do it for you!  Oh, and please don't write on things, put sticky notes on them, put little easily removeable tabbies to help find them, but this stuff might become evidence, it might be disclosed to the other side, and we don't want your private notes on them. 

Finally, Fifth:  ASK.  Don’t direct us on what to do without asking first.  A client who comes in and says, “I want alimony, that’s the most important thing,” will get their lawyer fighting for alimony.  Some lawyers will advise, “I think you’ve got a better shot in your case if we look to get a bigger property settlement”, but if you don’t listen, or if they simply follow your directions and don’t review all of your other options with you, then you may lose your case and lose opportunities you didn’t even know you had. 

The client who wins is the one who says, “I’ve got a problem”, explains it, and then asks the lawyer what the options are, and spends the lawyers time making sure they understand the alternatives before making the decision.  And if the lawyer does not explore the option the client was hoping for, the client asks about it.  That client wins.  The client who walks in and says, “Please write this letter on your letterhead for me,” will get a letter, but may lose opportunities to solve their real problems because have walked into the lawyer’s office with a specific task for the lawyer, without intending to get the lawyer’s expertise about which is the best option.  And paying $200-500 an hour for someone to put your words on their letterhead without at least asking for their expert advice, is foolish. 

Rule interpretation

I recently heard from a potential client who thought we could make a ton of money.  He heard that Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), any time a debt collector violates any provision of it, the debtor could sue and get $1,000 plus attorney’s fees.  He figured his doctor’s office violates this act frequently, and we could make a killing! 

                Here’s my answer:   It’s not as easy as it sounds.  And in this situation, it’s not going to work.  The (FDCPA) does not penalize original creditors, it penalizes third party debt collectors who were hired for the purposes of debt collection or who purchased the debt from the creditor.  If the people calling are the original creditors, we won’t get the penalty.  My potential client’s theory was that the billing manager at his doctor’s office who is making the calls, so he considered that to be a third party debt collector.  Unfortunately, he was wrong.  The definition of a third party debt collector is clear in a different section of the statute, and it specifically excludes employees of the original creditor. 

                This is the danger of reading a piece of a statute, and thinking you know how to proceed.  It takes someone who has worked closely with statutes and regulations to understand them.   In this case, it was not so difficult.  Lawyers hear this one all the time.   It’s a definition that many people get hung up on the first time they hear about the FDCPA, and there are lots of non-lawyers out there putting their ideas into blogs and forums.  It’s kind of exciting, as a consumer, to hear that debt collectors aren’t allowed to do this and that, and they can get fined $1,000 per time for violating the FDCPA… people talking about the FDCPA and thinking, “I’ve got an idea”… and telling each other all about it… Lawyers hear this all the time, this particular idea, and it’s the same answer every time. 

                No one should feel bad about getting sucked into believing something like this.  It’s an easy mistake.  That’s why you consult a lawyer before taking action.  This problem is easy to resolve by reviewing definitions.  Most attorneys, even those who do not usually work with this statute, should know to review the definitions section of the statute before proceeding.  However, not all statutory questions are easily resolved by reviewing a “definitions” section.  Most statutes and regulations are drafted in a way that requires the reader to flip the pages back & forth to find the proper process.  It’s not as easy as reading a procedure from item one to item ten, and finding a ten step process that’s easy to follow.  It often requires reading through to item 10, then flipping to item 15 then back to item 4B, then 3D(15)a. iii.  After a while, you wonder if you’re missing something.  You’ve got a thousand little flags on the pages of your book.  So you have to go through it 3 or 4 times before you can be sure. 

                And once you’re sure, you talk to someone else who asks whether you took at look at the section before the one you’re looking at, because they think it applies and you’ve been chasing down a procedure meant for a different circumstance.  So you’re back to square 1. 

                I remember getting a copy of the Internal Revenue Code in law school, and being certain that I’d never find my way around it.  It consisted of several thick paperback volumes in small print on very thin paper, practically tissue paper, so that it could be small enough to fit on a single shelf of a bookshelf.  A large backpack was barely big enough to use to tote the stupid thing around.  I hated it.  After working with it for a while, though, all of us students in the class developed two things… an appreciation for the complexity of the concepts, and an appreciation for the roadmap needed to negotiate around the code.  After a while, you may not have all the answers, but at least you know where to look to find them.

                After three years of similar experiences, law students go out into the world and make a living by following an interpreting statutes and regulations, and we spend our lives looking for new clauses and exceptions and negotiating our way around them.  It’s our idea of fun (an odd idea, but after you’ve lugged around the Internal Revenue Code for a semester, anything that does not require carrying it on your back as you walk back & forth to class, sounds like fun).  If we litigate for a living, you’ll find us arguing over it.  If we draft contracts for a living, you’ll find us putting little tabs in our books over it, and if we legislate for a living, LOOK OUT, you’ll find us CHANGING the rules and looking for even more complex ways of doing it.

                This is why the smart layperson seeks the help of a lawyer whenever a statute is involved in something they want to do.  If the thing is worth doing, then it’s worth paying for an attorney to do a little research to find out if it’s viable under the statute.  I did not charge for the consultation on this one.  The issue was too easy and I’d dealt with it too often.  I told my potential client to keep thinking, though.  I don’t mind potential clients who have ideas and come to me for a review and analysis of their idea about whether a statute can help them, as long as they don’t mind paying for my time in reviewing it.  Next time he comes for help, I suggested he bring me something challenging enough to interest me… the FAR, for example, now THERE is a fun and challenging set of rules to navigate around. 

That Tiger Mother

Dear Gretchen  I’ve just read that Tiger Mother article and I’m so angry I could spit.  Before I go off the deep end, please give me your take on it.

Answer:  For those who don’t know what we’re talking about, Amy Chua has a recent book out, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother , which is a memoir of her life as a mother with a specific ethinc background.  It is not a myth that children of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. are more successful academically, and she explores possible reasons for this with her memoir.   Then the Wall Street Journal took the most explosive passages from the book and reprinted it for review.  And boy, has it been reviewed!

Take a deep breath and do not think of this book as a challenge to your own parenting style.  There is nothing that you need to defend.  If you have happy, healthy children, you’ve done a good job.  Every parent has some self doubt, wondering if they could have done better, and the Tiger Mom book has really triggered that feeling of self doubt along with a feeling that people need to defend themselves and their parenting style… there is no need for that.  Let’s take this book for what it is:  It’s Amy Chua’s exploration of her own self doubt, and conclusion that her own parenting style is, like yours, not evil. 

And her style was on the extremely strict side of the strict-permissive scale, so it is worth examining, particularly since there are documented differences in the scholastic outcome.  And I have to say that every parent hopes their own way is best, and every parent has experienced a moment where their child blames them for all the problems and disappointments of the world.  You cannot help but wonder, at these moments, whether you made mistakes.  Don’t worry about it, you did make mistakes.  Everyone does.  Perfection in parenting is not possible.  Even Jesus parents lost track of him and let him wander around, teaching.  Imagine a family today who were on a journey and took different routes, forgetting their teen for long enough that it was noticeable?  It would probably start a firestorm of controversy over how old a kid should be before you let them travel alone.  CPS would be called, and someone would have to decide whether to prosecute the parents for leaving the child alone. 

EVERYONE makes mistakes.  Amy Chua examines her mistakes and comes to the realization that her parenting style, taken as a whole, gave her daughters the kind of leg up in life that she wanted them to have, so she is satisfied at the results.  For other parents, the highest priority goal might not be academic achievement, and for them, a different parenting style is appropriate. 

Chua also explores her mistakes from the point of view of understanding and defending them.  I suspect this is where she offended most people, because defense of her methods ends up in some instances as a criticism of other methods, and if you have already chosen a different path, one of the other methods, it feels bad to hear this.  You have an emotional commitment to your choices, and to hear someone else criticize your choices creates anger (and sometimes, self-doubt).  So for a minute please put away the anger and self doubt and let’s look at a few main concepts.  It’s hard to do, because it feels like listening to this is an admission that your own style was not good and perhaps that your own children are not perfect.  Let me reassure you, your children are no less perfect now than they were before this book was published.  But for those moments when you worry that you maybe made a mistake, it would not hurt to open your mind to consider incorporating some of these methods into their repertoire, while not necessarily changing your entire lifestyle to fit the Tiger Mom style, and while not changing your goals to the Tiger Mom goals. 

Ms. Chua says the Chinese child-rearing method is autocratic, more concerned about pushing the kids to achievement with the goal that accomplishment would be its own reward and self-esteem was not necessarily something to teach, as it would follow from accomplishment.  She demonstrates her belief that this is a harder path to follow, as a parent, as it requires hyper-attention to the child, and requires the parent to stand in the background, pushing and demanding more work.  This is not a parent who could come home from work and ask, “honey, did you finish your homework”, and simply believe the child’s report.  This parent will have checked with the teacher about what homework was in the lineup, and will review the child’s work after school to make sure it was done.  And if this child has successfully completed today’s assignments, this parent will insist that the child work ahead, or do extra credit.  And if there is idle time after this is done, there are other self-improvement and learning activities to attend to.  No television, texting, or excessive phone time allowed for these children, which means the parents, likewise, have no free time to sit & watch Top Chef.  I do not know that I would want to be this intense, intrusive of a parent in my child’s life. 

Tiger Moms are less interested in the social development of their children than in the academic development, and less interested in supporting self esteem for the sake of self esteem, than they are in demonstrating that satisfaction in one’s self is a natural response to achievement of a difficult goal.  This strikes a chord with me.  For years, I’ve been concerned that our western society has been promoting pride without accomplishment, “attitude” without justification.  Being a “diva” is something to take pride in.  Self-love is more important than achievement, and “I deserve it”, means that “because I am a human being, I deserve it”, rather than “I earned it by working hard at something that would justify it” (whatever, “it” is.)

Chua’s report of Western parenting suggested that we permitted failure and would not punish it for fear of damaging a child’s fragile psyche and self esteem.  She speculates that perhaps the difference is that Chinese mothers believe their children to have high talent and inner strength and simply need to be pushed to achieve, while American parents start from the premise that children are fragile and must be coddled and enticed to achievement. American parents whose children do not achieve, express doubt in the children’s basic abilities, and rather than push the child to improve their performance, will accept that this is as good as the child can do and divert the child to some other activity.

Our education system has encouraged this doubt in our children’s abilities.  Somewhere along the line, we started rigging classrooms so that there were no more failing grades and students could get passed along to eventually get their diplomas, whether or not they had learned anything.  There are occasional scandals where someone who has been passed up the ladder at school without ever learning basic math or reading skills, where children made it to and through high school with severe learning disabilities that could have been resolved if recognized and addressed.  But for the most part, these things go on every day without causing a scandal.  The parents are abdicating their responsibility to raise the kids to the schools, and the schools are assuming that if the kids were capable, they’d be performing, and the schools will not become Tiger Mom to their students.  The parents will not push.    The teachers will not push.  And the kids miss getting the work ethic that made our country so successful. 

I think the lessons from Tiger Moms might be that we need to pay more attention to the academics, trust that the kids are capable of performing and not allow failure.  We might not want to re-define failure as anything less than an A+, because that kind of attitude results in grade inflation.  Not everyone can get an A, some people will get a C, and we need to stop considering average performance to be defined as a “failure”, but I agree with her idea that maybe American parents are focused on the wrong things. 

Self esteem is so much truer when it comes through real accomplishment, than when it comes from Mom telling the school that she’s going to sue them if they don’t pass the child along despite failing grades.  Perhaps it would be good for us to return the focus to achievement and to spend a little less time supporting feelings of self worth that are not backed by achievement.    

Do I need a lawyer?

Dear Gretchen:  How do I tell if I need a lawyer for my divorce?

Answer:   Start with being really honest with yourself. 

Do you have the time to devote to your case, including learning the law.  If your lawyer would spend 40 hours of time on your case from start to finish, expect that you’ll spend at least 10 times that, just to find the things and understand the things that the lawyer already knows and has at their fingertips.   And don’t expect to be able to learn enough to handle the contested issues.  If you find yourself unable to agree upon everything with your ex, and end up having to get a judge to make the decisions, expect that you’ll only be able to present the most basic of information and hope that you’ve done enough to get the judge to decide in your favor.   Just because “it’s fair” is not usually enough for you to win.  And understand that when you pay a lawyer, you’re paying for all the stuff that they can say to back up the general principle that “it’s fair”.  This is the difference between putting a band aid on a cut and putting in stitches.  If you do not have the training to put stitches in, you probably won’t try to do it.  

Have there been any accusations of violence on either side?  Or any other improper behavior?  If so, then you are in a very precarious position to try to resolve things on your own.  You are not credible when making new or counter-accusations if someone thinks it involves gaining an advantage in the divorce, and to say it on your own sometimes puts you in a bad position for other legal proceedings.  You have the right to remain silent, which means that someone else needs to do the talking for you.  That someone must be licensed to practice law, and you want them to be, because there are too many mistakes available that could get you into deep trouble.  This is the case whether you’re the alleged perpetrator or the alleged victim.  You could easily put your foot in your mouth.  Many areas of the country have options for victims to get a free attorney if you cannot afford one… this would be through a charitable organization, as the government generally does not provide the lawyers for private divorces, but the alleged perpetrator needs a lawyer also and does not get a free lawyer.  If there is an accusation of violence, both parties need a lawyer and at least one of them will be paying for the lawyer.  If you cannot find, borrow, or raise the money for one, you are highly likely to lose more than just the divorce if you try to proceed without a lawyer.   To try to handle this without a lawyer would be like the difference between putting a bandaid on a cut on your own arm, and putting stitches in.  Remember, if you do not have the training to put stitches in your arm in the first place, that’s just one hurtle, this time, even if you had the training, you’re missing the use of a hand to help get the stitches in.  You can’t work with both hands, you’re even more hampered in getting those stitches in.  You’re more likely to end up with bigger injuries if you try it yourself.  Same with trying to be your own lawyer if there have been allegations of violence.

Are you the world’s best organizer?  If you need a lawyer, being disorganized can cause the rates to raise (as the lawyer will have to do some of those things for you at their own hourly rate), but if you do not have a lawyer, being disorganized can lose your entire case for you.  I know people who were reasonably organized and cooperating with each other, but in the end the judge would not finalize the divorce because they did not see one of the steps in the self service center and missed it.  They were not divorced and had to come to me for help in getting it done.  As it was, we had to start over from the beginning because the step they missed was one of the first steps in the process.  And they found themselves paying not only for my services, but also a second set of filing fees.  They would have been better off bringing their settlement to me in the first place and letting it get properly documented and filed, doing it only once and getting it over with, rather than having to start a new waiting period from start to finish.  I often get calls from people who did not follow up the way they should, and ended up losing their retirement savings, the house, and/or huge ongoing alimony payments.  These problems are always much more expensive if you have to hire a lawyer to fix them after you’ve messed them up.  IF they can be fixed, which often they cannot be fixed once you’ve messed it up.  Being organized does not solves your problems if the law is not on your side, but even when you think you’ve got a slam dunk case on the legal issues, you can lose everything if you do not follow through properly, procedurally.   This would be like thinking you’ve done enough research to know how to stitch up a wound on your own, getting it done, and then finding out that the thread you used, because you were inexperienced at doing it, is going to cause a deeper infection.  Maybe the wound was in your own arm and the only person to suffer an infection is yourself.  But what if this person is going to be your children? 

Do you have difficult issues to negotiate that even a cooperative person would have difficulty with?  Child custody and visitation issues can be easy or they can be hard, it depends upon whether you already agree on how to raise the kids.  If you fundamentally disagree with what your ex wants to do with the kids, (i.e., they are too lenient and you believe the kids need more discipline), then it’s going to take some professional help to resolve these issues.  A lawyer can help you get into a position where you can force your ex into cooperating with a professional.  Very difficult issues can involve non-custody situations as well, such as questions about alimony or division of debts or a family –run business.   How about how to separate when the house payments take both salaries to live on?  These issues sometimes require the help of a lawyer or mediator (many lawyers also mediate, as do I), to resolve them.   To try to handle the difficult issues on your own is not like trying to simply stitch a wound on yourself… it’s more like trying to do complex surgery on yourself.  Even an experienced surgeon wouldn’t try it.  And most lawyers do not handle their own complex divorces.  It’s not because they’re so rich that they don’t mind throwing money away on an unnecessary expense while their lives are being ripped in half… and it’s not because their buddies are giving them a great discount (lawyers won’t discount the complex cases even for their good friends),  it’s because they know better.  They go to court often enough to know the damage that can be caused by someone trying to handle their own complex divorce.  If the best way to learn how to handle your own divorce is to look at what lawyers do in complex divorces, take the example of what a lawyer will do in THEIR OWN complex divorce.  They will hire another lawyer to do it for them. 

One last question:  Are you and your ex both emotionally capable of cooperating to come up with a disposition to the issues?  If not, then are you willing to lose on those issues?  About 10% of the population has some psychological problem that makes it impossible for them to negotiate or handle things in a cooperative way.  Of course this means that it makes living with them difficult, so they’ll often find themselves getting divorced unless they were lucky enough to marry an unusually obedient/acquiescent person.  And when they get divorced, there’s usually drama, unfairness, and excess pain associated with it.  If you are married to one of those people, prepare for things to get worse before they get better, but it’s worth going through to get out before they get worse at home anyways.  In situations where you or your ex are unwilling to negotiate, a divorce lawyer is needed to avoid losing everything.  Even if you and your ex don’t normally have psychological problems that prevent amicable settlement, sometimes the circumstances of a divorce can push one or the other of you over the edge.   Think of trying to perform surgery on someone who is squirming around and refusing to settle down… or every time they do settle, they screech and yank away the minute you’ve got the needle halfway through.  But worse, to keep my medical analogy going, think of this as if you’re letting your ex perform surgery on you.  They’re angry, not happy, not able to cooperate, and you’ve left yourself unprotected by trusting them to do it rather than hiring a professional.  Not a smart move when you think it through.

I know some people are worried about the anger that seems to show up whenever a lawyer is in the picture, or the money that they might have to spend on a lawyer.  As for the anger, just tell your lawyer that you want to be amicable.  If it's possible to keep it amicable, your lawyer will be able to do it, but your lawyer will also be able to protect you if your ex becomes unreasonable.  As for the money, there are ways to keep costs down, but this is a necessary expense… just as necessary as a doctor is if you develop appendicitis, and your insurance says they won’t cover it based upon some technicality.  If you do not spend the money on a lawyer, you may end up without a roof over your head.  

We’ll talk about how to keep costs down in another post. 

Dating after divorce

Dear Gretchen:  I am ready to get back to the dating scene but afraid of making another mistake.  Do you have some quick tips to help me avoid mistakes?

Answer:  Quickly after becoming a divorce lawyer, my list of dating tips became anything but “quick”, but I’ll try.   There is an advantage to dating after divorce, and that’s that you and your dating partner are older now, you’ve got a few years worth of adulthood added to what you had the last time you were doing this, and both you and your potential romantic partners have track records in life.  An experienced adult is no longer just a kid full of possibilities and dreams and whose history includes one little mistake of shoplifting or having an ill-advised past relationship… as experienced adults, they’ve either proven to be hard workers or they’ve succumbed to addictions.  They’ve been job hoppers or business owners, and if they’re owner of a start up business, at least they have a record of whether or not they’ve been successful in previous ventures.  They may have 3 failed marriages or one long term relationship that failed without drama.  Look for someone’s track record to show you whether or not they’re going to be compatible with you.  On to the specifics:

First:  Figure out what caused your divorce in the first place.  Did you pick someone who was not compatible or were you not ready for a relationship at the time you started the last one?  Are you picking jerks or spendthrifts or job hoppers?  Is the thing that excites you (power or enthusiasm, for example), correlated with something that will be a deal breaker for a long term relationship (sometimes a person who is abusive seems powerful at first… and sometimes enthusiasm is a symptom of manic-depressive disorder).  If you can dissect what caused the previous relationship to fail, and be honest with yourself about the part you played in the failure of the relationship, then you have a better chance at making the next one work.

Second:  Think through what you want in a mate.  Have a short list of absolutes and deal breakers and a long list of “it would be nice if”s.  Do a little soul searching here.  Look at the list and check… are you being superficial?  Are you paying attention to character and long-term traits, or are you looking for things that will disappear as you mature?  Try to make your absolute “must-haves” list to have more important characteristics than superficial issues.  Include things about education, financial choice making, family making goals.   Invariably, if a person who wants a “generous” mate marries someone who wants a “financially responsible” mate, they’ll end up with trouble.  The one who seeks generosity will seem like a spendthrift to the financially responsible one.  The one who wants a financially responsible mate will seem like a stingy miser to the generous one.  It rarely works.  Don’t look for someone whose characteristics solve your problems, but look for someone whose characteristics are compatible with yours.

Third:  Clean house.  Literally and figuratively.  Prepare your home and your presence for a visitor who might be your next mate.  Do you want them seeing how you live in the midst of your initial post-divorce slump?  If Mr. Right were at the grocery store this weekend when you are shopping, will he be interested or is your manner saying “stay away”, with the ugly “laundry day” clothes and no make-up?  Become the person you envision your future mate falling in love with, or get a start on the process of becoming that person.

Fourth:  Don’t reject people for not being right for you.  Look at it as an opportunity to practice flirting.  Let them know that you’re not interested in taking it further, because leading someone on is bad karma, it is a wrong approach to take with others and you never want anyone to take it with you… but if they’re willing to hang out and talk and flirt and keep each other company, this is your opportunity to practice.

Fifth:  Once you have a candidate, look at how they treat their parents, because that is how they’ll treat you when you’re old or sick.  Pay attention to how they treat waitresses, because that’s how they’ll treat you when you’re waiting on them.  And pay attention to how they’ll treat their exes, because that’s how they’ll treat you when they’re angry at you.  Choose someone who treats people well even when they don’t need to impress the person.  It’s not enough that they treat girlfriends and friends and bosses and co-workers well.  If they treat people well when they don’t have to do so, they’re a good bet.

And finally, Sixth:  Anything that’s important to you, check it out.  If you have talked about retirement plans, look at the most recent IRA and 401K statements for each other.  If they say the ex was abusive and the truthfulness of this statement is important to you, get proof.  Before you take the next step and make a commitment, you should have met their family and friends, you should have seen their house and seen them at work.  You should have spent time in each other’s homes.  Your friends should like them and their friends should like you.  Failure to do this means something missing in your understanding of each other. 

Adoption

Dear Gretchen:  My wife and I want to adopt her nephew, who is an 18 year old living in a refugee camp.  Her sister, the young man’s mother, agrees with the adoption.  We have spent a lot of time in the country where she was born and we have known and loved this young man since birth, but he has no prospects if he stays there.  We want to adopt him and bring him back to the U.S.  He’s like a son to us already.  We very much want to help him.  How can we do this?  What are the adoptions forms we will have to fill out and what are the immigration forms we will need? 

Answer:  I’m so sorry to have to tell you that at the moment, there is no way to do what you would like to do.  If your reason for adopting him is to bring him to the U.S., it won't happen.  At the current time, the only adoptions allowed to bring someone to the U.S. are adoptions of children.  If they are children, there are two ways to do it, either through the Hague convention which requires that the adoptee be an orphan (no parents available), or by having an adoption approved through that country and then being that child’s primary parents for years before bringing the child to the U.S.  I know people who have gone through the second process for the purposes of bringing child to the U.S. and it’s not an easy choice to make.  Essentially you have to live in the country where the child is from for those years after the adoption to prove that your intention is to be their primary parent.

The Hague convention information can be found here:   http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD&vgnextoid=7b500c5a5d068110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD

If you choose to adopt a non-orphan and go through the other process, please retain an attorney for help with this process.  It is not the type of thing to try to handle on your own.

But considering the adoption of an adult, simply put, the current U.S. immigration laws do not allow what you are looking for.  Even if the laws of the country where your nephew is located or the state where you live, would allow adult adoption, the U.S. Immigration Service does not give family preference for immigration to adult adoptees.  However, these laws change every day so it’s worth checking with an attorney from time to time to see if this has changed.  Because it is currently not possible to do what you are asking to do, there are no forms available for the process.

BUT ALL IS NOT LOST.  There may be several other ways to bring this young man into the country.  Check with an immigration lawyer for more help.  The analysis of the possibilities is not something I can give to you online, but you will want to ask about and explore the possibility of finding an employer for this young man who might be able to bring him to the U.S. on a work visa, or perhaps get a student visa for him.  Or if his life is truly in danger in his country of origin, check to see whether he might be able to seek asylum here.  This will all depend upon what are his interests, talents, and circumstances. 

About Gretchen

Hey Gretchen:  I thought you were working for a law firm?  Why the new solo practice?  Why the blog? 

Answer:  Yes, I was working for a law firm.  I was happily working for Davis Miles, PLLC, in Arizona.  Wayne took a job out of state and Davis Miles graciously allowed me to telecommute for the next few years while we moved around the country and finally settled in Maryland. 

Why the new solo practice?  While I loved working for them, having zero face to face time was draining, as was the schedule, with an Arizona time zone while I lived on the East Coast.  At this point in my life and career, I had no evening time during the week at all for family or friends, and it was tough to make new contacts here in Maryland.  And while I value all my friends around the country, I wanted to have people that I could call up on a Friday afternoon to go have coffee with after work, or just go to dinner with my husband.  I couldn't even join the church choir because I'd miss all the rehearsals on weekday evenings. 

I respect how Davis Miles allowed me this flexibility at a time in my life when I really needed it, and thank Ron Jones and all the attorneys I worked with there, for their patience in being willing to practice with someone they never had a chance to see in person, at least for the past year & a half.  Heck, I had to teleconference just to give a CLE presentation.  I know webinars are commonplace these days, and it was an interesting experience to conduct one, but I prefer the face to face contact.

So I am going solo here in Maryland. 

Why the blog?  I have taken a course in mediation, which works well with my background as a therapist and divorce lawyer.  We all know how tough times are these days, and while I've been in practice for 20 years as a lawyer, and as a therapist before that, no one around here knows me so I don't have a lot of contacts yet.  No one here knows me, but you wonderful friends around the country who have followed my practice may be able to give some insight about me and my services to potential future clients.  I can also post advice and thoughts online about issues that don't require legal analysis, without compromising my ability to earn a living by getting paid for my legal analysis.  My first post was derived from a conversation I had with a very good friend.  A very long, painful conversation, which was much more detailed than I posted, but which inspired me to blog. 

I hope to be able to help some people with my insights derived from my experiences as a lawyer and as a therapist, without breaking confidences and without interfering with my current practice.  In other words, the things I might be willing to talk about at a cocktail party or in a continuing education seminar are fair game, but the things that could compromise my ability to provide a legal service to individual clients will be off limits here.

So far, most of my post ideas are from private e-mails.  I hope sometime some of my friends will choose to share their thoughts online in comments to my posts, to give me inspiration.  I also hope to re-organize the posts so that they're searchable by topic rather than by date.  We'll see.  Keep tuned for further developments!  Like my wonderful, roller-coaster life, it's bound to be exciting.  WHEEEEEEE!!!!!

Drama!!!

Dear Gretchen:  My sister just got divorced after 20 years of what she claimed was a fairy tale marriage.  She is pretty, smart, and she has a job that gives her high hourly pay and no shortage of job opportunities.  She takes flack from no one, and unfortunately this causes problems with jobs, neighbors, friends.  In short, she is a drama queen, and her husband spent the last 20 years soothing her nerves and rescuing her from problems she'd create.  She takes on the problems of others as if they are her own, and then makes them sound as if the problems really are her own.   For example, to hear her tell it, a distant cousin's cancer diagnosis affects her more than it affects anyone else in the family.  After you live with it for a while, you realize that she's just seeks out opportunities to act dramatic.

Life with her is never boring.  When she's up, her enthusiasm is childlike.  I thought she might be bipolar, but she's more hysterical than depressed.  She makes really bad choices and never takes the blame for the results.  She quit her job & walked out on her husband and their teens.  When the divorce didn't go her way, instead of looking for a place to live, a job, or time with the kids, she started imposing herself on our distant relatives, lying and getting sympathy from them, claiming to have been an abused, abandoned and unsupported.  I made the mistake of saying she is exaggerating.  Family members all over the country are angry at me.  To hear them tell it, the lawyers were all against her, the judges were against her, the police failed to help (she never tells our family members that she never called police in the first place), her employer was unfair, her husband was abusive to her and the kids, the kids all turned against her, and now I am also part of the problem because I'm an insensitive jerk.

I tried to explain that the entire world is not against her, but that she made some really bad choices and is a drama queen, and they need to talk to people who know what really happened, before they make judgments.  She needs tough love but they won't listen so I sat down and wrote a long letter.  Now I wonder if this is a bad choice.  Talk me out of it.

Answer:  You know it's a bad choice and probably didn't need me to tell you that you have done all you can and now you have to back off.  Even if she were not  a drama queen, your sister is in a really difficult time of her life.  The fact that you disagree with her choices is not something that matters right now.  This is not the time for tough love.  Tough love might become appropriate if her choice to impose herself on family members starts hurting those family members, but for now, she can't be helped and they don't need your help.

People will naturally come to her rescue because she's a pretty, smart, drama queen.  People who do not know her history will think that life has knocked her down and that they can help by being supportive.  You know that it's not true, but because you are currently her scapegoat, you are not credible about this issue.  By continuing to be involved, you're creating more drama.  I know how tempting it is when you're in the middle of it, but stop.  find a way to disengage from the battle and let things cool off.  Wait until someone who is on her side of things comes to you with questions.  Until they ask, they are not ready to hear the answer. 

You have to trust that they will see the illogic of her position if she doesn't have you as a red herring to distract them from her real story.  If and when they start questioning her issues and come to you with questions about thier concerns, be very gentle about explaining it so that you don't appear to be attacking her again.  This is your only choice.

Since you are the person who seems closest to this drama queen at the moment, you may be helped by reading about the extreme version of drama queens and how their families cope.  I love the book Stop Walking on Eggshells to help with this, and recommend it frequently. Check it out.

In my opinion, a long letter explaining how wrong she is, in the current situation, will backfire.  Put it aside. 

Good luck.