{4:06 minutes to read} A friend and dear colleague of mine has been going through the matrimonial legal system for a total of 9 years. Yes, you heard that right—9 long years shackled to the adversarial/court system. It took 5 years getting the final divorce settlement, but then 4 more years to litigate the non-compliance of that settlement. Every time she thinks it’s almost over … No! There’s always one more thing.
Whenever we have lunch together, she brings me up to date on the most recent insanity. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband is an attorney. He knows how to game the system. He knows how to play the delay game and he’s done it very well.
Oddly enough, he’s the one who wanted out, and yet, he did everything he could to make her life miserable. He even accused her of something (that was not true) which put her livelihood in jeopardy and prevented her from being able to earn a living while the case was pending.
Though she is a friend, I’m not taking her side. I’ve been involved in this world long enough to know there’s always plenty of blame to go around. But I do know this about her—there isn’t a vicious bone in her body.
Along the way, she has been through 3 attorneys, losing confidence in each of them, the judicial system and the whole “bloody mess” as she calls it. At this point, she just wants to be done and put it behind her, but the system being what it is, she has to let it play itself out. She’s almost there—or so she hopes.
She says the system is broken, broken, broken … and if only people knew that before they went to court, they would do everything in their power to avoid it.
Here is what she told me to share with anyone even thinking of going to court:
- If you think you will get your fair share in the end, think again. No one cares about your side of the story. There isn’t enough time or the resources to get to the bottom of it no matter how bad your case may be.
- If you think your ex is hiding things from you, the system isn’t going to look for it. You can hire a forensic accountant on your own to prove it, which is just more money you have to spend to get a fair deal.
- All your money will end up with your attorney—not you. Your time in the system will ensure that all your money is wrung out of you.
- Everything takes what feels like forever—years and years of time. The courts are so backed up. Take a number! You’re not any better than someone standing in a bakery line.
- The attorneys will discourage you from moving out of the house while the case is pending. So if your case goes on for 5, 6, 9 years, that’s 5, 6, 9 years of a living hell.
- Your children are suffering. Your children will continue to suffer and the system doesn’t care about it. You do, they don’t.
Litigation or mediation? Think about it.
Divorce & Family Mediation Center, LLC
Phone: 631-585-5210
eMail: Info@DFMCLI.com
888 Veterans Memorial Highway
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Hauppauge, NY11788
Suffolk and Nassau Counties, Long Island, New York
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This article really hits home for me and makes great points. People that rush right into contested litigated divorce without considering mediation are really not acting in the best interests of themselves or their children. My divorce lasted 3 years and we started a trial which lasted 3 days at which point the judge leaned heavily on us to settle- and we did- for just about what I offered my exwife 3 years prior! She refused to settle because her attorneys promised her so much more. I can imagine what they told her at the end “well we tried but you never know what the judge will do and we can’t help it if they made a bad decision”. We spend over a quarter of a million in combined legal fees, which was a good chunk of the assets we were fighting over, I went through 3 attorneys because there was a lot of apathy and what I consider to be incompetence, and the case dragged on far longer than it needed to be- and it’s obvious why, for anyone who has been through the system. It IS broken and the poor litigants are at the mercy of the judges, the attorneys, and the bailiffs who treat you like second class citizens, because to them we’re in and out of a system for a brief time, while they do it day in and day out, and they just don’t care.
To us, it’s our lives and our futures, to them, it’s just one out of maybe 40 cases they’ll see in a given day. They don’t have the energy, the resources, the compassion, or the interest to give each case the attention it really deserves. That’s why so many mistakes are made and the results so unpredictable, and at such a great cost. I think the whole court process is one big game, and the judge and attorneys know pretty much how it’s going to go on day one, but it’s dragged out long enough to drain the parties of their assets because that’s what keeps the judges, the attorneys, and all the court people gainfully employed. I think it’s all a show, and after court ends and the attorneys finish “fighting” for their clients, all the attorneys sit at a bar together and laugh about how much money they are making off of their clueless clients.
In my situation I had no choice, my exwife was unwilling to compromise, listen to reason, or even consider settlement. I was an involuntary boxer in a ring, knowing it was a huge waste of time, money, and emotional resources. I had no choice but It doesn’t have to be that way for everyone.