Family Law Chose Me, But I Reject The Realities Of Domestic Litigation
I went to law school to become a business lawyer. In fact, the law was supposed to be my appetizer en route to me becoming a business tycoon—like Sam Walton and Oprah. But a course called “Child, Parent, State” got in the way. My instructor was phenomenal and the subject matter intrigued me. It grappled with issues including: should a parent who lives in a cabin with no electricity enjoy visitation with his children?
The course also dived into issues such as do parents have a fundamental right to parent their children and if so, what reasonable burdens can the state place on the parent in parenting their children? I became less impressed with mergers and acquisitions and more captivated with serving as a certified legal intern, where I advocated for indigent and abused parents.
The first time I saw, firsthand, the impact of the work a family lawyer does was when I witnessed a parent terminate their parental rights due to substance abuse. Every person in the room was crying. In that moment, I committed to never do a Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) again and to become a family lawyer.
After leaving the Ivory Tower of Law School and a brief stop in corporate America, I entered world of domestic litigation. This was a place where I did some good, but the overwhelming stench of self-absorbed lawyers seeking to increase their financial bottom line, judges with too many cases to truly care, and misguided clients focused on winning caused me to revaluate my professional choice.
In one instance, I had a case that was prime for settling but the opposing counsel did not want to settle the case because they were going to make more money if the settlement were delayed until the day of the trial. The unnecessary stress and anxiety just for some extra coin was disheartening. So was a judge telling me in chambers that no matter what the evidence yields he would only grant every 2nd, 4th, and 5th weekend for child access.
So there I was, a former family law fellow, with desire to add value to families, but was navigating a system where you have thousands of filings in one year in one jurisdiction, overloading the system, making it unable to provide support, perspective, and counsel for families in conflict.
Biadvo is the alternative to the system. It provides parents with an avenue to explore custom independent settlement, unique to needs of that particular family. My way is to utilize my skill sets coupled with empathy to help parents take ownership of their co-parenting process.
