When a marriage ends at one party's request, it is often hard to perceive how the party who wants to leave has any claim to the future work of the party who gets left.
Tonight's topic: alimony.
And alimony in that particular situation, where the party seeking alimony is the one who has left yet still wants to continue a relationship with her ex spouse. She wants that kind of relationship where she has no responsibilities but he will continue to support her. It seems the height of cynicism.
"I don't want to live with you anymore. I don't want to share meals with you anymore. I don't want to have Christmas with you anymore. Oh, but I still want you to take care of me."
I don't think that position works. I don't think you can sell that position. I think there is no market for that position.
If you want out, fine. But don't expect others to keep picking up your tab. It doesn't tend to work that way.
Put yourself in the juror's shoes, a relatively randomly chosen group of 12 regular folks, folks you might pass in the grocery store. Not your grocery store, but some other grocery store somewhere in your county. You're going to tell those jurors, those strangers, that you just want the allowance without the chores. You want the cake, you just don't want to have to bake it. You want the reward without the work. I can't think of a more spoiled meme.
And the jury never buys it.
Sure, you can think of circumstances where this scenario would work: spousal abuse, habitual adultery (on the non-leaving party's part), incurable alcohol addiction. But that doesn't happen often. That is not the norm. There's a reason why that's called the exception. And it is the exception that proves the rule. The rest of the time, the leaving party just wants out, wants to move on, wants to see other people, wants to have her own life.
She's more than entitled to have her own life. She just has to fund it.
But the jury will tell her that. Lord knows her attorney won't. There's too much money to be made until the verdict.
Michael Manely
Monday, August 9, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Adolf Hitler Campbell
A New Jersey couple have lost custody of their three children. The parents named their children Adolf Hitler, Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Himler. The authorities became aware of the couple when they asked a supermarket to inscribe a birthday cake with best wishes for their son, named above.
In its ruling the Court of Appeals did not reference the birthday cake, but did find that the couple had significant physical and psychological problems. The Court found that both parents had been victims of childhood abuse and neither "have received adequate treatment for their serious psychological conditions."
The father, age 37, cannot read. The mother only finished the 10th grade. The Court considered a letter the mother admitted to have written. The letter stated, in part, "Hes thrend to have me killed or kill me himself hes alread tried it a few times. I'm afread that he might hurt my children if they are keeped in his care."
It seems undisputed that the birthday cake incident is how the authorities, New Jersey's version of DFCS, learned of the Campbells. That the couple would saddle their three children with Nazi names is easily beyond what reasonable parents would do. But is that the issue? If DFCS disagrees with your political persuasion, no matter how reprehensible, is that grounds for seizing your children?
I have a distant cousin named Reagan. I have friends who've named their child Barak. Are we sliding down a slippery slope when DFCS becomes a political police?
I deal with this issue in my family law practice. For example, I represented a couple who lost their five children to DFCS a year before they hired me. Their little boy had been playing doctor with an older, little girl. Another family whose son had played the same game with the girl complained to the police. DFCS spoke to my clients in developing a case against the little girl. What DFCS found was that my clients had very odd familial behaviors which I won't go into here. Long story short, when DFCS learned of the family's behaviors, they seized the children and would not let them come home.
After a year of begging, pleading and following every single DFCS instruction, the children were still being kept away from their parents, a year of the children's lives, lost forever. Then the parents hired me. I realized that the parents' peculiar conduct was entirely cultural. Though it was not behavior that middle class white folks engage in, it was my culture's perjorative interpretation that determined that the conduct was harmful to the children. There was no universal condemnation of this conduct. Under a different value system, there was nothing harmful about it.
I immediately scheduled a meeting with the case officer, the DFCS supervisor and the Cassa. I would like to believe that I showed these folks the error of their cultural blinders and they became enlightened from my impassioned narrative, but I think the fact that my clients were Native Americans and that the treaty between the U.S. Government and their tribe required that all children seized had to be immediately returned to the tribal elders for determiniation and placement and that DFCS was therefore in violation of international law, probably had a lot more to do with DFCS surrendering the children back to the parents that very afternoon.
Our cultural and political norms define much of our comfort level. I find naming a child Adolf Hitler personally repulsive. I can probably correctly guess much about the stunted upbringing that child would have in his parent's care. But taking a child is a huge step. Our nation once took children just because they were Native American and wouldn't receive a proper Christian upbringing in their tribe. I'm not so sure that telling Nazi's that they can't raise their children isn't somewhat the same thing.
Obviously the letter from the mother takes today's case in a different direction, but discovery of the letter came later. Remember, what started it all was Adolf Hitler's name on a birthday cake.
Each case is wholly dependent on its facts. Maybe these parents are really wacked out. Maybe if anyone met them you'd get cold chills and agree with the Court that these parents were in no condition to raise their children. I'm not saying the New Jersey Court of Appeals is wrong. I don't know.
I'm just saying go slow. Be careful. Respect diversity. After all, I don't think diversity fits in the Nazi playbook anyway.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/05/adolf-hitler-campbells-pa_n_672045.html
Michael Manely
In its ruling the Court of Appeals did not reference the birthday cake, but did find that the couple had significant physical and psychological problems. The Court found that both parents had been victims of childhood abuse and neither "have received adequate treatment for their serious psychological conditions."
The father, age 37, cannot read. The mother only finished the 10th grade. The Court considered a letter the mother admitted to have written. The letter stated, in part, "Hes thrend to have me killed or kill me himself hes alread tried it a few times. I'm afread that he might hurt my children if they are keeped in his care."
It seems undisputed that the birthday cake incident is how the authorities, New Jersey's version of DFCS, learned of the Campbells. That the couple would saddle their three children with Nazi names is easily beyond what reasonable parents would do. But is that the issue? If DFCS disagrees with your political persuasion, no matter how reprehensible, is that grounds for seizing your children?
I have a distant cousin named Reagan. I have friends who've named their child Barak. Are we sliding down a slippery slope when DFCS becomes a political police?
I deal with this issue in my family law practice. For example, I represented a couple who lost their five children to DFCS a year before they hired me. Their little boy had been playing doctor with an older, little girl. Another family whose son had played the same game with the girl complained to the police. DFCS spoke to my clients in developing a case against the little girl. What DFCS found was that my clients had very odd familial behaviors which I won't go into here. Long story short, when DFCS learned of the family's behaviors, they seized the children and would not let them come home.
After a year of begging, pleading and following every single DFCS instruction, the children were still being kept away from their parents, a year of the children's lives, lost forever. Then the parents hired me. I realized that the parents' peculiar conduct was entirely cultural. Though it was not behavior that middle class white folks engage in, it was my culture's perjorative interpretation that determined that the conduct was harmful to the children. There was no universal condemnation of this conduct. Under a different value system, there was nothing harmful about it.
I immediately scheduled a meeting with the case officer, the DFCS supervisor and the Cassa. I would like to believe that I showed these folks the error of their cultural blinders and they became enlightened from my impassioned narrative, but I think the fact that my clients were Native Americans and that the treaty between the U.S. Government and their tribe required that all children seized had to be immediately returned to the tribal elders for determiniation and placement and that DFCS was therefore in violation of international law, probably had a lot more to do with DFCS surrendering the children back to the parents that very afternoon.
Our cultural and political norms define much of our comfort level. I find naming a child Adolf Hitler personally repulsive. I can probably correctly guess much about the stunted upbringing that child would have in his parent's care. But taking a child is a huge step. Our nation once took children just because they were Native American and wouldn't receive a proper Christian upbringing in their tribe. I'm not so sure that telling Nazi's that they can't raise their children isn't somewhat the same thing.
Obviously the letter from the mother takes today's case in a different direction, but discovery of the letter came later. Remember, what started it all was Adolf Hitler's name on a birthday cake.
Each case is wholly dependent on its facts. Maybe these parents are really wacked out. Maybe if anyone met them you'd get cold chills and agree with the Court that these parents were in no condition to raise their children. I'm not saying the New Jersey Court of Appeals is wrong. I don't know.
I'm just saying go slow. Be careful. Respect diversity. After all, I don't think diversity fits in the Nazi playbook anyway.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/05/adolf-hitler-campbells-pa_n_672045.html
Michael Manely
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Long Term Consequences
I've recently worked on a matter that highlights a critical difference in different firm's philosophies.
The matter was a modification action. A modification is a post divorce action where one ex spouse claims that there has been a "material change in circumstances," so much so that whatever was ordered in the divorce, should now be changed. A modification action is most often either a modification of child custody or a modification of child support.
This case was a modification of child support. The opposing party contended that the parties' incomes had materially changed so that he should now pay less child support.
As I worked through the basis of the opposing party's argument and evidence his case seemed piddly. He had nothing much to argue about with very little reason to bring an action and very little likelihood of success.
As I worked with the client, learned the history of the parties and got down to the core issues, I figured out the motivation of the suit, and it wasn't financial.
In her divorce, my client had hired a rather infamous attorney who practice what I call scorched earth litigation. No one survived his wrath in the courtroom. His litigation style felt like the Harry Potter characters describe the dementors. My client hired this fellow because she thought her soon to be ex was difficult and stubborn and needed an aggressive attorney to bring her divorce to a successful conclusion. What she wanted was a firm hand. What she got, apparently, was armegedon.
As my client expressed, you never knew what this attorney would say in the courtoom, but she quickly learned it wasn't going to be good. She found herself cringing for her in laws and husband's friends as they endured this counsel's harsh, cruel onslaught.
As she reports, her husband, now her ex, received a much worse result if he'd just been reasonable. I submit, so did she. For ever since the divorce, the ex has been constantly cantankerous, mean, vengeful, spiteful, and sometimes even wicked in his treatment of his ex wife, my client.
As I came to realize, the opposing party still felt brutalized by the divorce, by the scorched earth counsel. The opposing party was vengeful allright. He wanted my client's metaphoric blood and his thirst for vengeance seemed to grow stronger with each passing year.
This ex, this opposing party, was still battling through the beating he'd received in the courtroom. This man had become a bit of a monster, where as before the divorce he was just stupidly difficult.
Scorched earth can be a succesful strategy for attorneys. We look tough; we act tough; we beat up the opposition and then we walk away. At the end of the case whether its divorce, modifcation or contempt, we just walk away. But it's our clients who live with the aftermath. They can't walk away. They can't escape the harm we've caused. Good strategy for the attorney, bad strategy for the client.
Aggressive representation sounds serious; it sounds firm; it sounds like it commands respect. But I've found that far more often than not, aggressive representation yields negative consequences for the client for years to come. Parents, already torn assunder by the nature of divorce itself, become bitter enemies, ever more distrustful, never fully enjoying the moments with their children without looking over their shoulder with cynical eyes. With the additional pain inflicted by scorched earth, or aggressive representation, the pain endures and grows. The healing takes much, much longer, if it can ever occur at all.
Aggressive representation is unnecessary and counter productive. If your position is true, if your cause is just, the truth will out. Nastyness only clouds your merits.
In the matter I'm writing about, as his ex's new counsel, I worked toward getting the opposing party past that divorce trial and into the 21st Century. While he was successful at harassing his ex a little longer just by filing his modification action, he wasn't successful at lowering his child support. But, just as importantly, I helped moved this couple along a little bit further toward re-forming their relationship as good parents to their children.
Objectively and subjectively that's the right a result. Those are long term consequences that parents can live with. Those are long term consequences I can espouse.
Michael Manely
The matter was a modification action. A modification is a post divorce action where one ex spouse claims that there has been a "material change in circumstances," so much so that whatever was ordered in the divorce, should now be changed. A modification action is most often either a modification of child custody or a modification of child support.
This case was a modification of child support. The opposing party contended that the parties' incomes had materially changed so that he should now pay less child support.
As I worked through the basis of the opposing party's argument and evidence his case seemed piddly. He had nothing much to argue about with very little reason to bring an action and very little likelihood of success.
As I worked with the client, learned the history of the parties and got down to the core issues, I figured out the motivation of the suit, and it wasn't financial.
In her divorce, my client had hired a rather infamous attorney who practice what I call scorched earth litigation. No one survived his wrath in the courtroom. His litigation style felt like the Harry Potter characters describe the dementors. My client hired this fellow because she thought her soon to be ex was difficult and stubborn and needed an aggressive attorney to bring her divorce to a successful conclusion. What she wanted was a firm hand. What she got, apparently, was armegedon.
As my client expressed, you never knew what this attorney would say in the courtoom, but she quickly learned it wasn't going to be good. She found herself cringing for her in laws and husband's friends as they endured this counsel's harsh, cruel onslaught.
As she reports, her husband, now her ex, received a much worse result if he'd just been reasonable. I submit, so did she. For ever since the divorce, the ex has been constantly cantankerous, mean, vengeful, spiteful, and sometimes even wicked in his treatment of his ex wife, my client.
As I came to realize, the opposing party still felt brutalized by the divorce, by the scorched earth counsel. The opposing party was vengeful allright. He wanted my client's metaphoric blood and his thirst for vengeance seemed to grow stronger with each passing year.
This ex, this opposing party, was still battling through the beating he'd received in the courtroom. This man had become a bit of a monster, where as before the divorce he was just stupidly difficult.
Scorched earth can be a succesful strategy for attorneys. We look tough; we act tough; we beat up the opposition and then we walk away. At the end of the case whether its divorce, modifcation or contempt, we just walk away. But it's our clients who live with the aftermath. They can't walk away. They can't escape the harm we've caused. Good strategy for the attorney, bad strategy for the client.
Aggressive representation sounds serious; it sounds firm; it sounds like it commands respect. But I've found that far more often than not, aggressive representation yields negative consequences for the client for years to come. Parents, already torn assunder by the nature of divorce itself, become bitter enemies, ever more distrustful, never fully enjoying the moments with their children without looking over their shoulder with cynical eyes. With the additional pain inflicted by scorched earth, or aggressive representation, the pain endures and grows. The healing takes much, much longer, if it can ever occur at all.
Aggressive representation is unnecessary and counter productive. If your position is true, if your cause is just, the truth will out. Nastyness only clouds your merits.
In the matter I'm writing about, as his ex's new counsel, I worked toward getting the opposing party past that divorce trial and into the 21st Century. While he was successful at harassing his ex a little longer just by filing his modification action, he wasn't successful at lowering his child support. But, just as importantly, I helped moved this couple along a little bit further toward re-forming their relationship as good parents to their children.
Objectively and subjectively that's the right a result. Those are long term consequences that parents can live with. Those are long term consequences I can espouse.
Michael Manely
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Dog Days of Summer
We are mere weeks away from the beginning of school and, thereby, the end of summer. But as I sit here tonight in the sweltering summer weather, here in the hottest summer ever in recorded history, school, and with it the promise of autumn and cooler temperatures, seem forever away.
Families will soon enough return to the fast paced life of packing the kids off to school, making PTSA meetings and Parent/Teacher meetings and class events. Soon enough parents will be back to reviewing home work and wondering how projects get lost before they get turned in. Soon enough children will be back to early bed times (initially before dark) and extremely early rise times (maybe initially still after dawn?) Soon enough we will make sure the uniform is washed or just the right outfit is ready to go for the next day.
But right now families are wrapping up their summer, taking their last vacations, winding down the week long camps for the children. Within mere days we will be "back to school" shopping, meeting teachers, and standing astonished as our young ones go out that door again into a new grade, another year behind them and another year closer to being gone from our loving grasp.
But now, it's hot and it's steamy and it's lazy. And it's summer. And it's great.
Michael Manely
Families will soon enough return to the fast paced life of packing the kids off to school, making PTSA meetings and Parent/Teacher meetings and class events. Soon enough parents will be back to reviewing home work and wondering how projects get lost before they get turned in. Soon enough children will be back to early bed times (initially before dark) and extremely early rise times (maybe initially still after dawn?) Soon enough we will make sure the uniform is washed or just the right outfit is ready to go for the next day.
But right now families are wrapping up their summer, taking their last vacations, winding down the week long camps for the children. Within mere days we will be "back to school" shopping, meeting teachers, and standing astonished as our young ones go out that door again into a new grade, another year behind them and another year closer to being gone from our loving grasp.
But now, it's hot and it's steamy and it's lazy. And it's summer. And it's great.
Michael Manely
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
"Spacebook"
Tonight's installment comes courtesy of our own Elizabeth Marum.
http://www.allfamilylaw.com/CM/Custom/Attorneys.asp
___________________________________________
I am amazed at the wonder that is online social networking. Between the constant updates and reminders of friends near and far, new and old, it makes you feel connected and “caught up” with everyone. Until one day a nostalgic run through an old online photo album reminds you that you really aren’t “caught up” with your best friend from college but have been comforted into feeling in touch by regular “status” updates. In fact, you haven’t talked to her in two years!
Whether you are a Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, Twitter or whatever networker, there are inherent dangers to the use of these networks that aren’t advertised in the marketing materials. I think you know what I mean.
These dangers are becoming particularly apparent in the divorce cases we work in our offices. The obsession with digging into our partners, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends and family member’s “secret” dealings are no longer limited to just searching phones, texts and emails, but our desire to find more now has a bounty of information and wasted time in the online social networks. The casual “friending” atmosphere has lead us to a world where we easily “friend” unknowns, barely knowns, friends of friends of friends of friends, or worse... the dreaded exes.
Ex-wifes, ex-husbands, ex-girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, ex-lovers or even, the ex-best friend (of whom your spouse has always had his/her suspicions!).
Why we think that we can somehow “friend” the exes who tore at our souls and left empty shells recovering for weeks, months or years is a phenomenon of the online world. While it is sometimes the case that exes become friends and actually speak or see each other in their new (real) worlds, it is even more frequent and much easier for us to “friend” our exes in the safe online arena where we don’t have to see them in real life. I argue that this comes with risk. Risk of getting “caught”.
By caught, I don’t just mean our current love interest, but “caught” by our own potential to obsess, frequently follow updates and even, yes, cyber stalk their pages for evidence of their lives outside the internet. Even in the most innocent of circumstances, if someone you love sees that you are “now friends with” your ex, there is bound to be fall out. Chances are, without the Spacebook medium we wouldn’t even know what we were missing, probably wouldn’t think about it and wouldn’t care that we didn’t think about it much at all.
We’ve all heard the warnings about the dangers of the internet social world and the downfall of good old telephone, or (shocker!) in-person, communication. We should probably all delete our online social networking sites or cutdown our “friends” list to people that you actually know and communicate with off the internet. There are plenty of “how to’s” on deleting your Facebook, Myspace, etc. out there.
But you probably won’t.
So if you are keeping your social networking account, here are a few pointers:
• If going through a divorce, separation or otherwise, don’t verbally attach, debase, or slander your spouse.
• Do keep your personal information personal. Surely, all 587 of your friends don’t NEED to know how much of a harpy your soon-to-be-ex-wife is.
• Don’t advertise that you are not at home or out of town (not just thieves are looking for you, but your estranged spouse may want revenge).
• Realize that everyone knows who and when you friend someone or when you comment, so you may want to be open and honest with your new wife about your recent “friending” of your ex-wife (with whom you do not speak).
• Do not admit that you participated in an otherwise unmentionable activity with your husband’s best friend in an angry wall post.
Because there is probably someone stalking your page and they WILL capture that screen, save and print the evidence before handing it to their divorce attorney.
http://www.allfamilylaw.com/CM/Custom/Attorneys.asp
___________________________________________
I am amazed at the wonder that is online social networking. Between the constant updates and reminders of friends near and far, new and old, it makes you feel connected and “caught up” with everyone. Until one day a nostalgic run through an old online photo album reminds you that you really aren’t “caught up” with your best friend from college but have been comforted into feeling in touch by regular “status” updates. In fact, you haven’t talked to her in two years!
Whether you are a Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, Twitter or whatever networker, there are inherent dangers to the use of these networks that aren’t advertised in the marketing materials. I think you know what I mean.
These dangers are becoming particularly apparent in the divorce cases we work in our offices. The obsession with digging into our partners, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends and family member’s “secret” dealings are no longer limited to just searching phones, texts and emails, but our desire to find more now has a bounty of information and wasted time in the online social networks. The casual “friending” atmosphere has lead us to a world where we easily “friend” unknowns, barely knowns, friends of friends of friends of friends, or worse... the dreaded exes.
Ex-wifes, ex-husbands, ex-girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, ex-lovers or even, the ex-best friend (of whom your spouse has always had his/her suspicions!).
Why we think that we can somehow “friend” the exes who tore at our souls and left empty shells recovering for weeks, months or years is a phenomenon of the online world. While it is sometimes the case that exes become friends and actually speak or see each other in their new (real) worlds, it is even more frequent and much easier for us to “friend” our exes in the safe online arena where we don’t have to see them in real life. I argue that this comes with risk. Risk of getting “caught”.
By caught, I don’t just mean our current love interest, but “caught” by our own potential to obsess, frequently follow updates and even, yes, cyber stalk their pages for evidence of their lives outside the internet. Even in the most innocent of circumstances, if someone you love sees that you are “now friends with” your ex, there is bound to be fall out. Chances are, without the Spacebook medium we wouldn’t even know what we were missing, probably wouldn’t think about it and wouldn’t care that we didn’t think about it much at all.
We’ve all heard the warnings about the dangers of the internet social world and the downfall of good old telephone, or (shocker!) in-person, communication. We should probably all delete our online social networking sites or cutdown our “friends” list to people that you actually know and communicate with off the internet. There are plenty of “how to’s” on deleting your Facebook, Myspace, etc. out there.
But you probably won’t.
So if you are keeping your social networking account, here are a few pointers:
• If going through a divorce, separation or otherwise, don’t verbally attach, debase, or slander your spouse.
• Do keep your personal information personal. Surely, all 587 of your friends don’t NEED to know how much of a harpy your soon-to-be-ex-wife is.
• Don’t advertise that you are not at home or out of town (not just thieves are looking for you, but your estranged spouse may want revenge).
• Realize that everyone knows who and when you friend someone or when you comment, so you may want to be open and honest with your new wife about your recent “friending” of your ex-wife (with whom you do not speak).
• Do not admit that you participated in an otherwise unmentionable activity with your husband’s best friend in an angry wall post.
Because there is probably someone stalking your page and they WILL capture that screen, save and print the evidence before handing it to their divorce attorney.
Elizabeth Marum
Monday, July 19, 2010
Behavior Modification
Dear Reader,
The judges don't dislike you. They don't want to punish you. They don't want to make you cry. They just want to change your behavior.
I don't know if I'll ever cease to be amazed by mere mortals' efforts to win the battle against a judge on the bench. The battle takes many forms. Some folks are down right antagonistic. They'll attempt to argue with the judge. "You can't do that to me," or some similar phrase will be cast out miliseconds before the judge asserts unrivaled control over the courtroom and, more importantly, over the miscreant who issued the ill conceived challenge. And you thought the fourth of July had fireworks.
A craftier sort is the gamesman. He thinks he's smooth. (I write "he" but this is equally applicable to "she.") He pretends he didn't understand what the judge told him to do, or his answer is far from unequivocal. He is certain he is smarter than all of us and certainly smarter than the judge. Of course, one could ask, "if he's so smart, why is he the one in jail on contempt?"
The gamesman often thinks he's cute. He likes to mince words. He feigns confusion over the clearest of orders. He's not oppositional, just obstinate. His antics meet with no more success than the antagonist.
A judge might get riled by the antagonist, but seldom is really riled at the gamesman, though you wouldn't know it from observation alone. In either event, the judge's chief and often sole aim is to modify behavior. The judge wants compliance with her order. She wants people to do what she told them to do. Any resistence is futile.
This is not to say that there are no legal remedies to right an error. But fighting with the judge or believing you can outwit her are not two successful strategies. They are strategies for a quick one way ticket to an 8 x 12 gray room with two bunks and a guy named Tiny who is anything but.
So, if your attorney advises you to pay the $2.00 and go home, pay the $2.00 and go home. Home is far more comfortable than the alternative. Unless, of course, you need a new best friend named Tiny.
Michael Manely
The judges don't dislike you. They don't want to punish you. They don't want to make you cry. They just want to change your behavior.
I don't know if I'll ever cease to be amazed by mere mortals' efforts to win the battle against a judge on the bench. The battle takes many forms. Some folks are down right antagonistic. They'll attempt to argue with the judge. "You can't do that to me," or some similar phrase will be cast out miliseconds before the judge asserts unrivaled control over the courtroom and, more importantly, over the miscreant who issued the ill conceived challenge. And you thought the fourth of July had fireworks.
A craftier sort is the gamesman. He thinks he's smooth. (I write "he" but this is equally applicable to "she.") He pretends he didn't understand what the judge told him to do, or his answer is far from unequivocal. He is certain he is smarter than all of us and certainly smarter than the judge. Of course, one could ask, "if he's so smart, why is he the one in jail on contempt?"
The gamesman often thinks he's cute. He likes to mince words. He feigns confusion over the clearest of orders. He's not oppositional, just obstinate. His antics meet with no more success than the antagonist.
A judge might get riled by the antagonist, but seldom is really riled at the gamesman, though you wouldn't know it from observation alone. In either event, the judge's chief and often sole aim is to modify behavior. The judge wants compliance with her order. She wants people to do what she told them to do. Any resistence is futile.
This is not to say that there are no legal remedies to right an error. But fighting with the judge or believing you can outwit her are not two successful strategies. They are strategies for a quick one way ticket to an 8 x 12 gray room with two bunks and a guy named Tiny who is anything but.
So, if your attorney advises you to pay the $2.00 and go home, pay the $2.00 and go home. Home is far more comfortable than the alternative. Unless, of course, you need a new best friend named Tiny.
Michael Manely
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The folks I work with.
I wanted to write tonight about the people in my firm.
The people I get to work with are excellent people. Everyday they labor for hours over our clients' trials and tribulations, sorting through the volumes of information, sifting down to the information we need to make strong cases, to accomplish justice.
The people I get to work with are compassionate. They care deeply about our clients. We rise and fall with our clients. We are invested in their successes. We are there to work through the trials and tribulations. We are a part of the community cheering their childrens' triumphs.
The people I get to work with are pros. They know their stuff. They can dig in, toe to toe with anybody, and ferret out the right information leading to the right result. They are legal eagles, par excellence.
So, tonight I wanted to send a shout out to Stephanie, Jeremy, Elizabeth, Nora, Alyssa, Robyn, Gale, Loven, Jessica, Bill and last, but definitely not least, Lucy. I wanted to take a moment in time to acknowledge their hard work, their compassion, their commitment to our clients.
And my thanks would be far from complete without expressing the greatest of appreciation for my wife, our business manager and future managing partner (once she finishes law school at Georgia State) Shelia, without whom, I think none of this would be possible.
Thank you all. It is one of life's greatest privileges to work with such an excellent group of talented people.
Michael Manely
The people I get to work with are excellent people. Everyday they labor for hours over our clients' trials and tribulations, sorting through the volumes of information, sifting down to the information we need to make strong cases, to accomplish justice.
The people I get to work with are compassionate. They care deeply about our clients. We rise and fall with our clients. We are invested in their successes. We are there to work through the trials and tribulations. We are a part of the community cheering their childrens' triumphs.
The people I get to work with are pros. They know their stuff. They can dig in, toe to toe with anybody, and ferret out the right information leading to the right result. They are legal eagles, par excellence.
So, tonight I wanted to send a shout out to Stephanie, Jeremy, Elizabeth, Nora, Alyssa, Robyn, Gale, Loven, Jessica, Bill and last, but definitely not least, Lucy. I wanted to take a moment in time to acknowledge their hard work, their compassion, their commitment to our clients.
And my thanks would be far from complete without expressing the greatest of appreciation for my wife, our business manager and future managing partner (once she finishes law school at Georgia State) Shelia, without whom, I think none of this would be possible.
Thank you all. It is one of life's greatest privileges to work with such an excellent group of talented people.
Michael Manely
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