My Professional Epiphany

I remember it so well. I had been practicing family law litigation for about 4 years. I saw how the courts just pulled families apart and caused children immense pain and distress in its adversarial system. It was so disheartening to me because I went into law practice to help people.

I was at a Pennsylvania Family Law Winter Meeting in 1992 when a woman stood up and said, “I am a reformed custody litigator.” My head just about exploded, and I thought that was what I wanted to be when I grew up. After that, I started looking into how to become part of the solution instead of part of the problem (to paraphrase John Lennon). I found something called mediation.

I traveled to Silver Springs, Maryland, for a week-long course to train to become a family law mediator. I felt like I had found Nirvana. What a wonderful way to support people through the painful divorce process and give peace a chance. Unfortunately, mediation was not well known as an alternative to divorce and custody litigation at the time, but it has slowly taken a foothold. I proclaimed never to try a custody case in court in 2002 and never to try another divorce case in 2012.

Lawyering up and duking it out in court is not the best way to get divorced. I kicked the litigation drug then and there and feel so much better not putting myself and my clients into that pressure cooker to have a stranger in a black robe decide the rest of their lives.

There is a better option. It’s called mediation.