You listened, empathised and got how I was feeling

Dear Richard,

I never contemplated that I would ever need a divorce lawyer as divorce was something that happened to other people. I was devastated about my children's loss of family life, fearful for their future whilst also on the receiving end of huge levels of acrimony and threats to my personal safety from my spouse and her family. I feared losing my children on top of failing them. I hoped that I could at least "divorce well" and develop a collaborative, co-parenting with the children's mother, but acrimony and conflict were ruining that and I called you because you of all people would understand as a divorced parent yourself, rather than solely in a professional capacity.

During those early weeks in particular, I was angry at my wife for quitting on our childrens' childhood, their future, the marriage...you name it...and remember calling you to rant about the latest conflict conjured up by my acrimonious, angry, guilt and shame-ridden wife, furious at the latest conflict conjured up even around ultimately tiny issues in this grand scheme when I think about them now.

I imagine most lawyers would have run a mile to avoid such difficult conversation, but you listened, empathised, agreed and got how I was feeling, allowing me to vent my spleen which I needed to do in the early stages in particular. It helped that you appreciated my view about how terrible it all was and how by allowing me to let off steam and then by using it to illustrate how conflict and communication was operating to de-rail alignment and agreement (ie at the heart of it all) then enabled me to understand it. Rant over, we could then focus positively on the serious business of resolving issues and moving forward. That is to say, that the sometimes quite angry words of myself or my spouse were an understandable product of the conflict and bad communication that when operating ensure that my spouse and I are incapable of anything but a row and further conflict until we achieve greater understanding and skill at interacting.

Seeing the lack of such deep understanding of communication and conflict resolution from my wife and her lawyers has provided an eye-opening comparison between what you do and what some family lawyers seem to do. It is beyond the usual adversarial, legal, position-based argument and aims to facilitate a better understanding and future for all those issues which I will have to deal with as a co-parent, which the courts cannot by themselves resolve or rule on.

If I know anyone unfortunate enough to be facing a divorce I would not hesitate to recommend you for your law, empathy/alignment with clients and a deep understanding of how to work with clients experiencing significant emotional stress to resolve legal and non-legal issues which would no doubt remain long after a court ruling is made.

Kind regards