Chance Upon A Tempest

Chapter 9

Friday morning is quiet. Your first new client meeting is at 10:30 and this is the divorce case. You grab a large coffee before getting to your office. You look through your emails and voice messages. The next time you check the time, it is 10:00 and you decide to get things ready for the meeting. Around 10:20, you get a call from Lauren telling you that your 10:30 client has arrived early. You ask her to send her into your office so that you can get things started.

Your first client meeting is with Robyn Lee – Hewitt. She is looking to get representation for her divorce. Lauren brings the client into your office. When the client enters, you greet her and introduce yourself.

"Mrs. Lee – Hewitt, please come in and have a seat."

"Please call me Robyn."

"Sure Robyn. What I would like to accomplish during this meeting is to find out a bit more about what led to you coming in today and also to find out what you want to achieve. I don't want you to hold back. I would like for you to tell me what you want from the divorce, if you had the power to make it all happen exactly the way you want it to happen, and we can try to get the actual settlement to be as close to what you originally wanted as possible. How does that sound?"

"Sounds great."

For the next hour, Robyn tells you about being married for almost twenty years to an emotionally and sexually abusive narcissist and all the things that she had to endure. She tells you that she had no idea that she was even in an abusive relationship. She says, "I only found out that I was in an abusive relationship, after my husband told me that he wanted a divorce, and I started talk therapy. It was my therapist that told me all about what abusive relationships can look like and the cycle of violence."

Robyn tells you that her husband has been in a relationship with a woman almost half her age and that he was leaving her to be with the younger woman. They have three daughters and two of them are above the age of 18, and the youngest daughter is 17 years old and turning 18 in 8 months. So, most likely, custody or child support isn't going to be an issue, at least not for long. Robyn says her oldest daughter is finishing out her undergraduate degree in Harvard, second daughter is in her sophomore year in Princeton, and that her youngest daughter was recently accepted to Yale and will be attending there in the fall.

When you congratulate your client on having high achieving daughters, she said, "My husband pitted them against each other for his approval and affection. The one that got the highest grades was the one that was shown affection and approval. They all get along with each other, but underneath it all, I know that there is animosity."

What your client wanted was their current primary residence, for her husband to continue to pay for the children's schooling, and 50% of all of their marital assets including retirement, investment properties, liquid assets, and if there are any debts, that she would not be taking responsibility for any of it. Also, she wanted him to foot the bill for her legal fees. Robyn said, "I stayed home and raised our children for the past 20 years. I have no marketable skills until something changes in my life." She says he is the chief financial officer of an international pharmaceutical company. Last year, he made over a million dollars in salary and that isn't counting the bonuses. "I want every single penny that the law allows."

She also warns you that her husband will make every single step of the divorce process as difficult as possible, even though it is him that wants the divorce. She also says, "I need a bulldog. I need someone that will go for the jugular. He will not make this process easy for me. I don't want to relent on anything. Because everything that I give up for his benefit or to make the divorce process smoother, he will only see it as something that he deserves to get and not see it as a good faith gesture."