By S. Sponte, Esq.
As a lawyer I frequently wonder,
Have I made a professional blunder?
Each case of divorce,
Causes me such remorse,
That I always wind up asunder.
Oh, I know, I know, it’s a pitiful poem, but then again it does serve to prove, if proof there still need be, that there there is no good rhyme to the practice of law.
Though I am admittedly not rational on the subject of matrimonial law, that has never inhibited me from expressng myself in the past, nor shall it now. I know of no other professional subject that, more than divorce, is so traumatic, so psychologically devastating to the lives it touches, and so fraught with the savage interplay of elemental human feelings rubbed raw. And it’s pretty hard on the clients, too.
I have in my time been handled by hundreds of divorces, some more brutally than by others, and I have come away from them with certain basic truths about marriage and its death, the most fundamental of which is I don’t want to do it any more. It isn’t that I mind spending so much time and energy for so little money to have both sides so unhappy. I’m used to that. After all, I am a lawyer. Rather, it is that when a man and a woman have lived alone together for too long, and one spouse determines ex parte to proceed ex partner, I can no longer be professional and coolly detached, even from the periphery, when the years of pent up frustration explodes with a ferocity that makes Mt. St. Helen look like a weenie roast.
Early on in my career, when I was younger and hungrier, and my budding practice did not as yet afford me the luxury of my feelings, I took lots of divorces. I needed the money and while I certainly did not intend for that to be my life’s work, I was content to bide my time with the notion that not every case could be a wrongful death. I was determined to be professional about it and I even developed a questionaire to bring some semblance of organization to the otherwise chaotic initial client interview. I quit using it, though, when I realized I could never get the client past Question No. 7: And then what did he (or she) do to you?
The grounds for divorce in those days were strictly statutory and it was a simple as Adultery, Bigamy, Cruel and Barbarous Treatment. The client’s case consisted mainly of hanging the appropriate hat on the appropriate statutory hook, and then dodging the bullet of injured and innocent spouse. At first, it seemed easy. I always believed my client was truly the injured and innocent spouse. (What do you want from me? I also believed that the client would pay the balance of the fee after the decree was granted.)
In time however, I came to realize that the injured and innocent spouse was a non-existent life form, an ephemeral little beasty that neither I nor my colleagues had ever seen. I knew of one colleague, though, who clung so steadfastly to his belief in its existence that he became obsessed in his need to find one.
When his survey of local spouseum availed him naught, he closed his practice, deserted his wife and kids, and set sail on the Diasporan Sea in search of a live specimen. Eventually the trail led him to Scotland where, one evening while closing in on his heretofore-elusive quarry, he was eaten by the Loch Ness Monster.
Much of that now, however, is academic, and my colleague has apparently been eaten in vain, for with the advent of no-fault divorce, the existence of the injured and innocent spouse is irrelevant. By the new Divorce Code, I have to some degree been legislated back into the ignorance of my youth. While such a state has never before hindered my acceptance of a case in other arenas, I am now perfectly willing to abandon the field of matrimonial law in favor of the matrimonial lawyer, that intrepid specialist so skilled in divvying up the stocks and bonds of matrimony. Though they charge a great deal for their services, they are worth it, and no doubt considerably more adept than the general practitioner at being paid with money.
I have made this decision neither lightly nor quickly. Rather it is that I have become increasingly more uncomfortable in feathering my nest with other people’s broken twigs. My practice is sufficiently well established in other areas, and since most of my long-time clients are already divorced, or if luckier, dead, I no longer feel compelled to accept divorce cases. Oh, I suppose if a nice friendly divorce came along, I could be persuaded to change my mind, but I think I’ll see the Messiah first.
Lest there are some colleagues to whom these presents come snickering, who perchance think I’ve lost my nerve from slogging about in the pits for too long, and who might wish to take cruel advantage of a fallen and presumably dotty adversary, let me just say this:
I fear not yet the trial,
Nor the courtroom, nor the fight,
I savor still the research,
Through the middle of the night,
I’ll still litigate my cases,
With the proper touch of fear,
But when love turns to lava,
I will wait for you right here.
Copyright 1982 - S. Sponte, Esq.