The upside of divorce

There is no quicker way to bring about a passion-filled response than to indicate you’re a divorce lawyer at a dinner party or in a cab.

The response is natural in the sense that divorce is such an intense and momentous experience for those that endure such upheaval.

I also fully acknowledge that it takes a unique personality to aspire to work with people going through such a difficult period.

“It must be so emotional?” and “how do you cope?” — compassionate questions, but misguided in the sense that the work we do requires a genuine level of objectivity and emotional detachment.

Becoming emotionally intertwined with a client and their concerns, offers little benefit.

Certainly, you can care and be deeply invested in the outcome, but that needs to be distinguished from acting out of your own emotional response when advising a client.

So why have I personally been drawn to this work?

I genuinely crave the opportunity to have deep and meaningful relationships with my clients.

I love that many of them remain my good friends, and I love that I am, at least partly, responsible for helping them move positively through a really awful period in their lives.

I love knowing that I’ve empowered a client and helped them advocate against an outcome that would be unfair.

I love knowing that I can actively promote outcomes that work for vulnerable kids.

I love working with like-minded professionals.

Family lawyers, are without doubt, the most interesting lawyers I know (apologies to the rest of the profession).

You need an exceptional capacity to communicate, emotional insight, personal discipline, pragmatism, the capacity to advocate persuasively — being a good family lawyer is exceptionally demanding and there is great satisfaction in working under that pressure but also seeing my colleagues achieve what they do.