There was a time not so long ago when clients would unload their domestic troubles on lawyers like a cord of rotted wood. They might take care in shopping for the right fit in terms of who would represent them. But once the selection was made, the answer was "Let the lawyer do it." That's what they get paid for, right?
True enough, but as the quantity and quality of on line resources have proliferated, legal advice has started to be viewed as an indulgence. Anyone can tell you it's expensive, and it is. And, there is a huge array of free information on the internet (like this blog) calibrated to be useful.
Millennials, in particular, like to do it themselves. In domestic affairs, they see this as their relationship and they should be able to regulate how it ends. They may grudgingly tolerate advice from others but they see that as a plot to abridge their right and their power to manage their own affairs. Their parents tend to be more practical at least in their own view. "For what I pay a lawyer, I could go to Disney, replace a car or some other entirely useful thing." All true. Until it bites you in the backside.
In the past couple of weeks here are some of the internet myths we have had to detonate for true believers in the power of the web. Divorces are granted automatically in Pennsylvania after two years. Custody courts automatically impose shared physical (50/50) custody arrangements. The person paying the child support always gets to deduct the children. There is no alimony in Pennsylvania. Every child over 10 gets to decide where he will reside. Courts can't divide pensions because they belong only to the employed spouses who earned them. All of these myths contain a kernel of truth but are more wrong than right. Not any of the websites we have seen actually misrepresent the law. But none of us relies exclusively on the net for information. We dose it with the information we get from the yoga instructor, the bartender at the favorite restaurant or the well- meaning advice of great uncle Ellwood who left his horrible first wife in 1978 to marry your not so great aunt.
So, does this mean forego Disney, the new car, or the 72" flat screen? Perhaps yes. But if you are doing a divorce where money matters or it is going to affect whether your kid spends two non-consecutive weeks or half the summer with his dope smoking mother, some legal counsel may be in order. There are times when we actually do advise clients that the battle is not worth the personal or economic price. But we had people come to us with agreements they have signed or court orders they never appealed that promise them a lifetime of pain. Like the spouse who assumed that lifetime alimony meant "until he retired". Or the parent who thought that if she just let father relocate to San Diego with the child, she could always go back to her local court to undo it later. This has become more true over time. We now commonly see executives who once could easily afford the college commitment they signed up for in 2005. Ten years later, their child has been admitted to a college with tuition that consumed more than half of their downsized net income.
Lawyers are not retailers devoted to crafting a "happy" shopping experience. Like physicians we sometimes have to report unhappy results. But the results you get will be directed toward your assets, your children, your experience and not some well-crafted avatar which might seem to be similar to your life experience, but really does not. Your domestic affairs are about your skin and, like it or not your skin is a custom made suit, not something you found on line or at Kohl's or Boscov. If you must do it yourself, at least find out whether it needs to be done, and how best to do it.
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