Soon-to-be-divorced Kelly Cavits had a dilemma. When her husband first filed for divorce, she didn’t know which lawyer she should hire. After asking around, she chose someone that came highly recommended by several of her divorced girlfriends. The lawyer had a fierce reputation as being tough against opposing counsel. Her friends told Cavits that she would make sure that she got a great settlement, something that Cavits wasn’t overly concerned about but she hired her anyway.   

“But then I found out that she and my husband’s attorney hated each other,” said Cavits, 47, from Northwestern Pennsylvania. So much so, that her husband asked that she switch attorneys so that the divorce could proceed without the contempt brewing between the lawyers. Cavits ignored his request.  “I kind of liked it that it rankled my husband. I didn’t want to make the whole thing easier for him and felt , ‘who is he to tell me what to do?” she said.   

Perhaps like a lot of people looking for a good divorce attorney, Cavits also believed that a tough lawyer, one who was generally combative, would represent her well as the case moved forward, acrimony would translate into fairness in the end. 

“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” said David Rasner, a 61-year old veteran matrimonial lawyer and co-chair of the Family Law group of Philadelphia-based law firm Fox Rothschild. “What usually happens is the reverse. And it is the lawyers who make it so. If the lawyers are contentious between themselves, that contentiousness bleeds into the case. Because if the lawyers don’t like or trust each other, things cannot be done on a handshake, on a calm basis, to move the case forward.”    

“Lawyers are supposed to act as buffers between their clients. If I have a cooperative relationship with the opposing counsel, I get the best results for the client with least amount of cost,” said David Pisarra, 41, practicing family law attorney of 10 years, who heads the Santa Monica, Calif. law office of Pisarra and Grist. “If the other side just wants to battle, it creates acrimony. And that acrimony is counterproductive. What we are tying to do is split up their stuff and work with issues of custody and support of the kids. It doesn’t facilitate that at all if I don’t trust the other lawyer or get papered to death.”   

Working through the details of a divorce can be highly charged in the best of cases, said Pisarra. Adding another element to heighten the stress not only complicates the process, it can lengthen it as well – costing both divorcing parties in legal fees in the end. The only people it serves financially are the lawyers. “It’s very costly and we are the ones making the money,” said Rasner.   

Part of the problem is that the public doesn’t see how a lawyer is perceived amongst his or her colleagues. Often times, a lawyer’s reputation amongst his clientele and the general public is far different than the one he has in family court.  “There is one lawyer in town. Amongst the general public, he is known to be extremely expensive and therefore ‘a good lawyer’ in their mind. But in legal circles, he is known to generate a lot of busy work paper which generates nothing productive. When we know he is going to be opposing counsel, there is an ‘Oh God attitude.’”