Back when it was still really hot out, I went to see a lawyer. One of my mom’s friends, a lawyer herself who is twice divorced, recommended this woman. “She is the best,” she said simply, adding that she’s won the best family law award for our state several times in a row. So I went. I was overwhelmed just going and felt nervous because I didn’t know what to ask. Like a kid at school, I felt I should be better prepared.

It turns out that she asked all the questions, writing everything down longhand on a legal pad. To many of my answers, especially regarding our lack of  income or Alex’s plans to go to Africa, she nodded her head disparagingly, as though I told  her that we subsist on garbage. “You have to get a job,”  she intoned. The fact that  I have about 5 freelance gigs at once clearly didn’t cut it with this woman. Given Alex’s poor earning powers in recent years, her mind was also rummaging through possibilities to locate a loop, find a time in his history when he was making more money and argue that that should be the bar from which we decide things. All I wanted was to understand what was going and what would happen in the months ahead as we proceeded with a divorce – something that can’t even occur when Alex is out of the country and thus is on perpetual hold. When I tried to ask, I got a very fast answer that floated well over my head and landed somewhere on the bookcase behind me. I might as well have asked my mechanic for a 30-second explanation of my exhaust system.

Since then I’ve been looking for alternatives. A friend in Seattle swears by no lawyers at all, but she’s lucky enough to live in a state where it’s possible to do this. Likewise, a friend who got her divorce in New Mexico showed me her papers and described the process, which was brief, inexpensive and void of lawyers. This appears to be all but impossible in my state, and everyone I’ve asked has told me I’d be nuts to go forth without a lawyer.

Bringing lawyers into divorce strikes me as messed up as the way we’ve turned child birth into a medical procedure that’s based on an illness model. We basically get married without legal intrusion. Our marriage, in fact, was  overseen by my meditation teacher, who was ordained through the Universal Life Church. We got our license down at City Hall during a coffee break one afternoon, and that was that. Today, we have very little by way of assets, mainly the house, and we’re in fairly clear agreement about how to handle the kids. A smart, kindly mediator could easily help us patch together a plan. 

According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a lawyer is  ”a person learned in the law. Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver justice. Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific individualized problems, or to advance the interests of those who retain (i.e., hire) lawyers to perform legal services.”

I don’t want MY interests advanced, I want OUR interests advanced – because although we are ending the marriage, in many ways, we aren’t ending the family. The children come first, and we both get that. Nor are there any wrongs that need correcting – unless two people falling out of love is a wrong. And the only stability I need maintained is my own sanity, and that is only going to be undone by lawyer, not maintained. Here’s what I propose: A system that provides lots of massages and therapy to the splitting parents, plenty of good childcare for the kids, and a really nice mediator to help cobble a tolerable plan. Oh, and a bit of good red wine thrown in for measure.