My Lawyer Can Beat Up Your Lawyer

Lawyers are expensive. Most of us charge by the hour. That means every time a client calls, a meter starts running. Most of the time calls aren’t an issue, but some folks need more hand-holding than others. Jill was one of these people. She emailed and called constantly. I finally had to explain to her that she was eating away at her retainer by asking questions for which she already had the answer. She still didn’t get it. Finally, I printed out her bill and walked her through the ever-decreasing retainer until she understood what I meant. We agreed that she would limit her calls to emergencies only and would wait for me to contact her with updates as needed. Peace descended upon my office. The phones were calmer, email inbox emptier and my days less stressful. This lasted for about two weeks.

My first warning that something was wrong was the baleful stare my receptionist leveled on me as I walked in the door from a morning in court. “You need to check your voicemail” was all she would tell me. With a growing sense of dread, I put the phone to my ear to hear Jill’s voice blasting out. “You need to call me immediately. I can’t believe I hired you. I trusted you!” Feelings of dread were confirmed.

There is a reason so many lawyers are alcoholics. Calls like this would drive anyone to drink! I resisted the urge to head to a bar and hesitantly dialed Jill’s number. “Hello Jill, what’s going on?” I could tell that she was trying to calm herself before replying and I greatly appreciated her efforts. “I just don’t think you are qualified to represent me.” This is probably not the best start to a conversation with your lawyer. “I don’t think you are being aggressive enough. I know you haven’t been practicing law all that long and the other lawyer has been practicing for twenty something years.” Before I could respond, she continued. “And you’ve got a reputation for not wanting to fight. I didn’t know all of that when I hired you. You should have told me that you didn’t want to fight for my rights and protect my children’s future.” At this point, I’d had enough. “What the hell are you talking about Jill? What exactly have I done that isn’t fighting for you? I have filed several motions and they are all set for hearing next week. I’ve done everything that can be done. Where is this coming from?”

Over the course of the next ten minutes it all came out. She had talked to her husband and apparently his lawyer “told him all about me.” The other lawyer had informed him that I was soft. That I didn’t like confrontation and would settle for whatever they offered. This other lawyer then pointed out that he had been practicing law for 20+ years and I had less than half that number under my belt. Basically he told her that his lawyer could beat up her lawyer so she should just give in now.

I was able to calm her down and assure her that I intended to fight as hard as I could in her case. After two calls to the other lawyer’s office and a few to mutual acquaintances, I managed to get the other lawyer on his private cell phone. I politely inquired as to veracity of the charges laid against him. Actually, I asked him “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Slowly, the truth started coming out. According to him, he had not said those things about me to his client. He did not think I was a push over. He had mentioned to his client the difference in our years of practice, but he did not tell his client that it would make a difference in the case. I chose to believe him. It appears that Jill’s husband had mostly fabricated the alleged conversation with his attorney. He saw that Jill was starting to calm down over the case, so he started pushing her buttons to cause hysteria. He wanted to disrupt her ability to calmly deal with the situation and work with me. And to a certain extent it worked. She ended up wasting her retainer on a bunch of non-issues, which eventually applied pressure on her to either settle the case or continue paying attorney fees. I was left scratching my head and wondering, “Why would you believe what your soon-to-be-ex has to say about your lawyer? They don’t know your lawyer and probably have no idea about their reputation, but they have every reason to lie to make you sweat.”

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Ho Ho Ho

On a beautiful Tuesday, a week before Christmas, I sat at my desk thinking of all of the things I’ve given and received for Christmas over the years. Then my thoughts were interrupted when my secretary announced that my next appointment had arrived.

Waiting in my reception area was a normal looking fellow we shall call “Bob.” He seemed normal, but I’m used to my clients “seeming” normal at first. Once back in my office, Bob began giving me the run down. It seems that he and his wife had been on the outs for years, but over the past few months things had gone from bad to worse. The two were still living together for the sake of the children. They wanted to maintain appearances for their 12-year-old daughter, Anna, and 5-year-old son, Tim. So they lived under the same roof and shared bills, but slept in separate rooms.

Bob stated that over the last few months his wife had become very spiteful. In the past, she had been distant or cool, but over time she became downright frozen. The only heat between them was the spiteful barbs she threw his way when she wasn’t ignoring him. She made little comments to the children that were aimed at making him look bad. She would hide or move things and then pretend that she did not know what had happened. But the worst thing was the Victoria’s Secret credit card she opened. What use could she have for lingerie?

The answer was painfully obvious to me before Bob could even choke it out. His wife was having an affair. Bob did some sleuthing and found out that she was regularly seeing a co-worker. Bob confronted her and she admitted to the affair. The discussion turned into an argument and Bob left the house, a scant week before Christmas morning. During the argument, she told him that he would not be seeing his kids on Christmas morning this year and he was not to come to the house or she would call the police. Things had gone from bad to worse, but Bob was about to go nuclear.

Bob informed me that he wanted to get a divorce. I explained how things work most of the time in divorces, specifically in those with children and adultery. I could tell that I lost his attention fairly quickly. Eventually, I wound down and in an effort to get the blank stare off his face I asked Bob if he had any questions. He shook his head and said “just one.” I waited patiently for him to collect his thoughts and then he said “You mentioned that you have to give her notice of the divorce?” I nodded. “And that can be done using a private process server?” again I nodded. “And I pay for that? And I can tell them when to do it? And they’ll do it at our house?” Looking like a bobble head, I continued to nod. I could feel that he was formulating a plan, but other than repeating what I had already told him I couldn’t see where this was going.

Bob leaned back in his chair and with a truly evil smile slowly spreading across his face, he said “Fine. Here is what we are going to do. File the paperwork and have her served. But I don’t want her served until next Wednesday morning. And I want the process server to wear a Santa suit when he comes to the door.” I must have had a confused look on my face because his smile broke into an unholy grin as he explained “That’s Christmas morning and she’ll have the kids. I’d like Santa to deliver a special present just for her. I’ll pay extra if he’ll yell HO HO HO at her!”
And Tiny Tim said “God Bless us, each and every one!”

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Like Seeks Like Round Two Or Didn’t We Learn That Psychological Evaluations Are Scary?

Some people turn up like bad pennies over and over again. Theresa was one of those people. Not surprisingly, her reconciliation with Jeffrey had not resulted in the picture-perfect marriage she had deluded herself into believing was possible. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Jeffrey and Theresa had managed to play nice for about three months. But of course, they spent another three months playing nasty before Theresa came to see me again.

I’m familiar with Theresa, and her drama, a bit better by this point so I was prepared for a certain amount of histrionics. But even I was a bit dumbfounded by her story this time. I was expecting more of the “he’s a super bad man and I’m a saint” stuff (which I did hear) but this story went way beyond what I had anticipated. According to Theresa, her 7-year-old son, Abel, shared a room with Jeffrey’s 9-year-old son, Junior. Allegedly, Theresa walked in one morning to find both boys naked in the same bed in a compromising position. She told me that she held her cool and waited to talk to each of them about what happened. Junior denied that anything had occurred, but under slight pressure Able admitted that Junior had undressed him and done “things” (that I won’t repeat) to him. I was a bit shocked. Theresa was more than shocked; she was furious. She confronted Junior. She confronted Jeffrey. She called child protective services. She called the police. Then last but not least, she called me. Once again the divorce was on.

On to round two, which makes the first look passive. The anger and resentment were through the roof. Theresa described her confrontation with Jeffrey about his son’s behavior in the most painful way. “I told him what Able told me and all Jeffrey did was laugh. I told him to be serious and repeated the story and he stood up and screamed in my face that I was a liar. He told me to take my lying bastard and leave his house.” As time went on the conversations between Theresa and Jeffrey became more and more caustic. Theresa accused Jeffrey of not caring about his son’s aberrant behavior and even condoning it. Jeffrey was convinced that Theresa was coaching Able to say these horrible things.

Theresa moved into an apartment and took their daughter with her. She wouldn’t allow Jeffrey to be alone with their child and wouldn’t allow Junior anywhere near her. She was absolutely convinced that if Jeffrey had their daughter he would allow Junior to do unspeakable things to her. You can only deny a parent access to their child for so long before they finally get a lawyer and attack. Eventually we ended up in Court arguing over temporary custody of the little girl.

On that fateful day in court the battle lines were drawn. Each attorney launched attacks against the other side and deflected assaults against their own client. Mud and other filth were flying that day. As each detail of the alleged incident came out, the judge’s eyes grew wider and wider. Miniature sexual predators preying on their step-siblings? Fathers refusing to acknowledge something is wrong? Again and again I assaulted Jeffrey’s character. Witness after witness testified that something seemed wrong with this situation and that not addressing aberrant sexual behavior in small children is dangerous. At the end of the day, when the smoke was clearing, it seemed that I would emerge triumphant. The judge seemed inclined to grant all of my requests. Theresa would keep their daughter and Jeffrey would get supervised visits while we sorted out the rest of the divorce. Victory seemed assured. That is…until Theresa opened her mouth and ruined it. When asked what she thought should be done to protect her daughter, she answered (as we had agreed she would), “I think that I should be the one that designates her primary residence and Jeffrey should have supervised visits for now.” If she had stopped there, we would have won. But she couldn’t stop; she had to continue. “And Jeffrey and Junior should have a psychological evaluation done on them to figure out what is wrong with them.”

We won on most of our points. Theresa got the girl and Jeffrey got supervised visits. Theresa and Jeffrey got ordered to attend counseling sessions with both of the boys to determine what really happened. Had she not suggested it, the judge probably would not have ordered it. The temporary orders could have been leveraged into final orders that got Theresa exactly what she wanted. Instead she gave Jeffrey another bite at the apple by giving him a new person to listen to his side of the story.

Unlike the last psychological evaluation that Theresa requested, this session would be with a counselor who was ordered by the court to dig into what happened and prepare a report to the judge with recommendations. And he did just that.

Theresa and Jeffrey met with the psychologist separately and with each of their children. The psychologist asked hard questions. He refused to accept avoidance. He poked and he prodded and then he reported.

“Theresa exhibits characteristics of self delusions. She appears to believe that she is saint-like. When confronted with her mistakes or errors she refuses to acknowledge them.” Apparently the psychologist saw through Theresa’s halo and was able to pinpoint how she justified her sainthood. “Theresa has a loose grasp on the truth. She appears to be perfectly willing to adapt, change or even fabricate events to achieve her goals.” That was the high point of the report. “It is my opinion that the incident reported by Theresa regarding the alleged sexual abuse of her son by Jeffrey’s son did not occur.” The therapist went on to state that, “After meeting with both parents and both boys it is my opinion that Theresa saw the children innocently in bed together and created the story. She then went on to coach her son as to what to say and attempted to coach Jeffrey’s son.”

At this point all of my hard work was undone. Jeffrey hadn’t forgotten my savage attacks on his character in the courtroom, and armed with this new material his attorney began maneuvering in for the kill. Theresa learned the hard way that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t be secretly crazy…or something like that.

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Like Seeks Like Or Why Psychological Evaluations Are Scary

My boss once told me that, “Jeffrey Dahmer doesn’t marry Mother Theresa.” In my experience, truer words have never been spoken. I often remember them during initial client meetings and then later as things go wrong.

Theresa Anderson walked into my office and appeared to be a self-possessed, in-control kind of woman. While a bit intense, she seemed normal enough. She had married her second husband, Jeffrey Anderson, 3 years earlier and thought she was going to live the sweet life. Her first marriage had ended bitterly, but she came out of it with a six-year-old boy. Jeffrey was also on his second marriage and had an eight-year-old son by his first wife. Together they had beautiful 1-year-old little girl.

Some where along the line things started falling apart. From Theresa’s point of view, Jeffrey changed, “He just stopped caring about his family! He wanted to hang out in the garage drinking beer all of the time.” The decent toward divorce began picking up speed when she confronted him about it. “We began arguing regularly. They would start off with me asking him to join us in the house and he would reply with some thing rude and it would get worse,” she recalls. After much prodding, she revealed deeper problems, “He would call me names and swear at me and I would yell back. But the children never saw any of this.”

Most people wouldn’t survive long in an atmosphere as charged as the one Theresa described to me. Eventually she left Jeffrey. According to Theresa, she packed the bare essentials and walked across the street to her parents’ house with the children in tow. When Jeffrey returned home and discovered she was gone, he went crazy. Theresa said he started destroying the house and everything in it. She claims, he stood in the lawn and screamed curse words towards her parents’ house. He called her cell phone and threatened to harm himself if she didn’t talk to him in person at the house. Against all advice and her own better judgment, she went to see him.

Theresa explained that Jeffrey had calmed down by the time she got there and their conversation started out well. When she refused to return home, he began making wild accusations about affairs and abuse by her. She became so frightened that she ran to the family car, a brand new Ford Expedition, and locked herself inside to get away from him. Her parents called the police and the two were separated, however neither was arrested. Not surprisingly, Jeffrey has a very different version of the story Theresa tells. Two days later Theresa was in my office and the next morning I filed their divorce.

Although Jeffrey had never been arrested for violence in the past and Theresa had never complained of his aggressive behavior, she was convinced that he was a threat to everyone around him including himself, her and the children. She demanded that he undergo a psychological evaluation.

There are numerous types of psychological evaluations that can be used in a divorce proceeding. Some resemble couples counseling; a professional counselor meets with both parties either separately or together. Others are essentially a series of personality tests with a report explaining the results. With all types of evaluations, the findings, and occasionally recommendations from the counselor or psychologist, are reported to the Court. Judges tend to pay close attention to reports from the couples counseling style of evaluation and even more attention to any recommendations made by the counselor. Sometimes a counselor’s recommendation ultimately decides the case as the judge assumes they are more familiar with the parties and acting as a professional to assess the situation.

I warned Theresa that if we pushed for Jeffrey to undergo a psychological evaluation, his attorney would immediately counter and ask that Theresa also be evaluated. It has been my experience that Judges like to make things “fair.” Maybe they’ve heard my boss’s thoughts on Jeffrey Dahmer and Mother Theresa.

The other thing to know is that psychological evaluations are expensive. Psychologists charge by the hour and they aren’t cheap (hey, they have student loans to pay off!). Generally the Court orders that the party getting tested pay for his/her own evaluation. If both are being tested, they each have to pay and the charges can range from $500 to $1500 each.

Theresa is a good storyteller. Keep in mind that I never believe 100% of what my clients tell me, but from what she was saying there was enough there that I thought her request for a psychological evaluation was valid. I filed the proper motions and waited for the fireworks. Sure enough, the other lawyer went ballistic and demanded that both parties be tested. The judge agreed and ordered that they have a psychological evaluation done with a specific psychologist who would complete an evaluation more along the lines of a personality test. He gave the psychologist the freedom to choose if he would make a recommendation.

They each met with the counselor four times. The counselor administered a number of different tests and roughly six weeks later, submitted his findings. By this time, I had gotten to know my client better and the results of the tests didn’t surprise me. However, the commentary and recommendations he made shocked me.

The results from the tests showed that Jeffrey was verbally aggressive and had a personality that could be verbally and emotionally manipulative and abusive. However, the evaluation did not indicate that he was a danger to himself or others. The psychologist’s commentary on Jeffrey showed that he was somewhat impressed with Jeffrey’s scores and thought the charges made by Theresa did not match up to the character and personality the tests showed.

On the other hand the psychologist was not impressed with Theresa. “The results of the MMPI-II test indicate that Mrs. Anderson has an exaggerated and inflexible sense of personal virtue.” The psychologist also noted that, “Theresa appears to be highly manipulative of the people and situations around her and appears to be very capable of controlling those she loves and has the most contact with.” To make matters worse he found that “it appears she has an increased, even extreme need for affection and attention and if she feels this impossible need is not being met, will act out in an inappropriate manner to illicit a response. The response she gets does not have to be affection at this point, she is only seeking a response.”

When the dust settled the psychologist, an expert that the judge holds in high regard, felt that while Jeffrey had acted mildly inappropriately, Theresa had caused the entire scene and could not be trusted. Theresa’s case went from being a powerful juggernaut, with a poor abused woman, to a weak, floundering case of an emotionally damaged woman forcing the people around her to act out her drama.

Needless to say, Theresa did not take this well. She ranted and raved about how the psychologist was a liar; and that she was sure her husband had tricked him or cheated on the tests. She demanded a trial by jury in which she expected to exonerate herself. I explained the costs and preparation associated with a trial; and she told me she would get back to me soon. A few months later, I called to find out what she had decided. She managed to shock me, yet again, by announcing that she was back with Jeffrey and everything had been worked out. She asked me to drop her case and refund any money she had left on retainer. I explained that a high percentage of “reconciled parties” end up ultimately heading back for divorce after failing to completely reconcile. I told her that we could drag out the proceedings for a few more months to see how things were working out down the road, but she refused. So I filed the appropriate paperwork and left Jeffrey and Theresa to wedded bliss, or so I thought…

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