LEGAL PROBLEMS OFTEN COMPLICATE UNDERLYING ISSUES
By Lynn M. Swank

Every person who walks into a law office (including attorneys and staff) can be tormented by stress. These individuals may be spouses who are involved in domestic quarrels and financial disaster, persons planning for their eventual death or disability, persons who hurt physically from accidents or emotionally from betrayal -- the list extends beyond imagination. What most of them have in common is that they are trying to make huge, often life changing decisions, while barely able to focus on moving one foot in front of the other.

1. Maintaining Support Systems: when dealing with emotional, physical, legal or financial pain, one human response is often to stop talking to those persons who are close by. Friends and family may be choosing sides or critiquing choices. Co-workers are often too biased to be able to give strong support. In our modern world, many of us have pushed away from community, church and extended family members. Thus, legal professionals and staff should be observant for isolation and depression in those with whom they work. Attorneys are not diagnostic agents or responsible for providing treatment. On the other hand, winning the legal case while losing everything else in that person’s life is hardly a victory. Sometimes we even need to watch for these strains in each other. Attorneys and staff are not immune to the pain of what is seen and felt around us.

2. Permitting other persons around us to maintain their support systems: Give thought to the stress, frustration and disillusionment of those around us. Hard as it may be to make choices, don’t lose perspective that those choices can tear the spirit out of the others on whom it touches. Elderly parents feel their minds slipping away and their friends die off. Then they are ripped from their homes and sent to live among strangers. Our children are pulled out of their schools, away from their friends and caregivers, and told that they will be fine because the remaining ‘custodial’ parent loves them. Addiction, alcoholism, and illness can flare up or become visible to families for the first time during a legal crisis. Arrest, job loss, foreclosure or bad weather can destroy the home, take away a lifetime of savings, or leave nothing but the clothes each person is wearing. As legal professionals we should not assume that the client is making choices with an awareness of these other type of impacts. In situations such as divorce, the client may be temporarily unable to see any issue other than the fight with the soon-to-be former spouse. If parents slowed down to consider the perspective of the child, many custody problems would simply evaporate.

3. Locating support which was not previously used: For all these kinds of stress, there are professional, licensed counselors and therapists. Financial resources may not permit the use of health care trained professionals and insurance coverage may not be available, but individuals do not have to scream their emotions out to the world. Many schools, employers and churches have internalized programs for counseling. There are also anonymous groups with historically effective techniques. By example, there are 12 step programs for almost every kind of personal crisis. More importantly, there are 12 step groups for families of people with problems. Hard as it may be to admit that a spouse, parent or child has a problem (such as chemical addiction), it is more difficult when you think you are the only person in the entire world who has confronted that situation. Voluntary groups [like Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon for Families of Alcoholics, Narcotics Anonymous, Nar-Anon for Families of Addicts, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Debtors Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Obsessive Compulsive Anonymous and dozens more] provide involvement without disclosure of identity. At meetings there can be sharing of experiences, and refocusing of energies away from the illness and back on hope of regaining sanity and control.

4. However, there should be wariness of communicating personal concerns in a public manner: Specifically the Internet with blogging, social networking, and community sites is a good but dangerous place. Many people put into print or picture things they mean for a minute or a day – never considering that what is said on the Internet does not really ever die. Employers, opponents, and soon to be former spouses can all access information which should never have been published, even years later, even after a site has been removed from index on the internet. There are documents instances of stronger sentences in criminal cases where DUI defendants made internet comments which showed no remorse, or where non-custodial parents made threats and were then prohibited from seeing their children without supervision. The consequences can be very far reaching.

Part of any legal project should include consideration of the life issues that task will create or destroy. Court Orders can redefine the obligations and privileges of the participants but until the individuals learn to deal with the emotional chaos which surrounds the changes, there can be no solution or progress. Attorney, staff, client and support system are all important parts in a unified effort to achieve the best possible outcome, short or long term.

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