Several years ago, a client and I were sitting outside the courthouse in Statesville discussing strategy for a custody hearing. We had to overcome some negative facts, including an altercation he had with his ex-wife in the parking lot of his son’s school. My client lost his temper and kicked a dent into the door of his ex-wife’s car in front of his son. Those were the undisputed facts, but my client steadfastly refused to take any measure of responsibility for his behavior.
Actually, that’s not a fair characterization. He admitted it was wrong to kick the car, but he insisted she was the instigator – that she goaded him beyond the limits of human tolerance, thus excusing his outburst.
This college graduate and accomplished businessman was utterly convinced his testimony about that day’s events would illustrate perfectly for the judge the type of devious torments he’d endured through 20 years of marriage, thereby clearing the path for him to be granted primary custody of his two kids.
Let me be clear. This man was a good father. He was kind, attentive, engaged, and 100% invested in his children’s futures. Trouble was, so was his wife.
Neither parent had any criminal record, no history of mental illness – nothing objective that might concern a judge about putting a child in his or her care, except this outburst by my client. Unfortunately for our case, my client’s wife had only worked part-time for the last 9 years and was clearly the primary caretaker for the children during that time. His odds of achieving primary custody were slim.
My client didn’t see it that way. He had bastardized the history of his marriage in his mind, morphing it into a complex mythology in which his wife was his constant tormentor, he the hapless victim.
Case in point – to convince me his criminal defacement of his wife’s car door was, in fact, the smoking gun that would win his custody case, he printed out a Google Earth map of the parking lot zoomed in tight enough to single out the parking space where it happened. The map showed the position of his car in red marker, several other parked cars in blue, and then his ex-wife’s car in green positioned so that it partially blocked the exit.
It was true the parking lot was crowded, and it was true we couldn’t prove that his ex-wife even knew he was there when she parked there. But none of that mattered because according to my client his ex-wife “knew that his car has a low clearance and knew parking where she did would force to jump the curb to get out.”
If this argument doesn’t sound farcical to you, you must already be one of my clients. Stop reading right now and fill out the paperwork I’ve been hounding you about for the last two weeks! Just kidding, I love you all and appreciate that new retainer you are about to bring me.
Now, back to my story. Client management is all about finding the right explanations for your client. In this case, the analogy I came up with to explain how my client’s expectations were skewed was this: Imagine you’re in Las Vegas with a friend. You’ve spent the night gambling and drinking and just realized that next month’s mortgage payment is now winding its way through the counting rooms of Caesar’s, Harrah’s and the Wynn. Is it your fault for gambling? Or is it your friend’s fault for agreeing to drive the car to Vegas?
Regardless of what role other people play in bringing you to the precipice of a bad decision, only you can decide to act poorly. No forces you to make a wrong choice. My client had to come to grips with this principal that day in court. The judge allowed the opposing attorney and I to preview the evidence for her in chambers, gave us a strong indication of her likely ruling, and my client (to his credit) was able to negotiate a fair custody schedule for himself without putting his son on the witness stand. It wasn’t what he hoped for, but it was a lesson well learned. That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas.
