Ringing in new year with divorce

Some ring in the new year with champagne at midnight. Others wait a week and partake in “Divorce Day.”

The day — which comes across like a made-up, faux holiday to celebrate the ending of once-stated nuptials — actually refers to the first post-holidays Monday when law firms receive a spike in new divorce filings.

Kimberly Cook, a partner at Chicago law firm Schiller DuCanto & Fleck, said she returned from vacation Monday and already has four inquiries about setting up meetings this week alone.

“There’s a surge on this day,” she said, “which comes from people having a sense of urgency.”

The uptick continues through the rest of January, Cook said, largely due to the hope of a clean, fresh start in the new year.

“People have this renewed sense of not having a repeat of the last couple of years,” she said. “A lot of times the holidays and the end of the year was somebody’s last straw. The decision to file at this time usually is due to resolving to take the rela- tionship and life in a new direction; it’s similar to the surge in gym memberships. It’s signifying that you can’t live like this another year.”

Cook calls January the “hangover month,” saying that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s there’s often one last binge on family time, or even one last attempt at saving a marriage. But when the rubber meets the road, she said, “you wake up and you feel sick, like, ‘I can’t do this anymore and I’ve got to do something about it.’”