One of the really fun things about being a divorce lawyer is when a complete stranger decides to insult you.
Today, the Liberal Democrats published their manifesto for the General Election on 12 December. Among their policies, there is a commitment to introduce no-fault divorce and also to bring in increased rights for cohabiting couples, for example, to give them greater protection in the event of separation or a partner’s death. I tweeted my support for this.
I then had the following exchange of tweets with @HotTubSolicitor (one of Colchester’s finest civil litigators):
I thought this was all pretty uncontentious stuff. There is cross-party support amongst the three main political parties for the introduction of no-fault divorce, although unfortunately this doesn’t extend to greater rights for cohabiting couples. Legislation to introduce no-fault divorce was recently underway in the House of Commons. Unfortunately, this ran out of parliamentary time before Parliament was dissolved, but it is still expected to become law sooner or later. There are some MPs who are opposed to it, but it is supported by most MPs (or at least it was in the last parliament) and public support for it is overwhelming. So, all in all, fairly uncontroversial.
Or so I thought.
Then I found that someone else on Twitter had retweeted my reply:
I haven’t included this person’s Twitter handle because I don’t feel the need to give him any additional publicity. I also have not responded to him on Twitter. Doing so would just encourage more of this sort of thing. However, his claim merits some comment by me.
This person thinks that lawyers are blood suckers because we get paid for handling divorces. But what precisely is so wrong about divorce lawyers expecting to be paid for the work that they do? Doctors, surgeons and nurses all expect to be paid for the work that they do. A doctor who is paid for treating someone with cancer isn’t regarded as profiting from their patient’s misfortune. Why should lawyers not be paid for acting for people who have legal problems?
This tweet reminds me of individuals that I occasionally encounter who assert that divorce lawyers in some way cause divorces. Such a sentiment is completely absurd. It is as ridiculous as saying that doctors make people ill.
Divorce lawyers do not cause marriages to break down. Husbands and wives achieve this without any help from lawyers. A lawyer’s role is to represent the husband or wife in a divorce. If divorce was not legally possible, this would not save marriages. They would still break down, but people would simply separate and never divorce, or people would be trapped in dreadful, loveless marriages. I fail to see how that would be an improvement. You cannot resuscitate a marriage’s corpse by refusing to bury it. In any event, there is no reason to believe that the introduction of no-fault divorce will cause divorces to rise. It will remove pointless additional conflict, it will not make divorce easier.
People who divorce usually need legal advice and representation. Divorce is a complex process, frequently requiring expert legal advice about difficult issues. A divorce lawyer’s role is to ensure that his or her client achieves a fair outcome that meets his or her needs and the needs of their children. I make no apologies for doing this. In fact, I am proud of the work that I do.
Sadly, one of the downsides of being a lawyer is to occasionally suffer from silly anti-lawyer prejudice by people who simply don’t know what they’re talking about. Divorce lawyers seem to come in for more than their fair share of this. It isn’t the first time that I have been insulted in this way and it probably won’t be the last. Before you start to rub your thumb, index finger and forefinger together and make comments about “the world’s smallest violin”, I accept that it goes with the territory.
Not that these insults often make a lot of sense. The last online abuse I got was from another complete stranger who decided to describe me and my fellow solicitors as “greasy, long-haired lawyers”. If you take a look at my profile photo, you will see why I felt that being described as “long-haired” was somewhat unfair.
20 November 2019.