Mindful Divorce: A Middle Way
Our aim is simple: How best to get you out of this mess?
Whatever its usefulness in protecting business interests, the American model for resolving legal disputes as applied to
relationships is defective and inadequate. An adversarial system founded upon conflict ignores the consequences of making a contest over every issue to individuals and to families. This encourages otherwise sane, decent people to become obsessed with arguing every point and winning at any cost which, of course, is an oxymoron: A win at "any cost" is a terrible loss.
The family law adversary system invites dishonesty. In the process family law litigants forget their ethics, they misplace their essential goodness, and cause themselves, their children, and other family members and support persons economic and emotional catastrophe. The high conflict divorce is expensive and inefficient and destructive beyond reason. It promises that the next generation will repeat the experience, and that the children of divorce themselves may one day reject the warring parents or that they will have to work through their experience of their parents rage again and again over the course of their lives. Haven't we already learned this?
Some lawyers subscribe to the viciousness that the trance of the divorce contest provokes, encourage it through misconceived aggression, or just don't know how to integrate another approach. It is not entirely their fault: The warrior role that lawyers are trained to assume remains the consensus.
There is a small but growing number of lawyers who realize that the old style of practice misses the point and accomplishes avoidable misery. These are the divorce attorneys who have remembered why they became family law professionals in the first place - something in them resonated and empathized with the suffering, confusion, and plight of others. As Steven Keeva observes, "[t]o the extent that you enter it as a calling, the practice of law is about hunger - the hunger for resolution; for healing the lives of individuals,... and communities; for enabling society to function harmoniously and productively; and ultimately, for justice."
Thurman Arnold is such a lawyer. It took years of battling much like the rest to accumulate the wisdom of a middle way.
We are dedicated to mindfully guiding you through family law proceedings. True, contests are at times unavoidable. When confronted with dishonesty, overriding selfishness, or compulsive and destructive behaviors or violence, we forcefully litigate your case. But it is our experience that even then sensitivity towards the traumatic experience of divorce is a potent tool for restoring balance and dignity to the process for both sides.
There is a more satisfactory alternative to the high conflict divorce and all its downstream consequences. We want to help you find it in the midst of your crisis - at a reasonable charge. Thurman Arnold is a highly experienced family law litigator, who always represents his clients interests zealously.
Let us help you get out of this mess intact!
Learn More About our Divorce Practice Philosophy
Palm Springs Attorney
Thurman W. Arnold III
Family law attorneys are litigators within an often radically adversarial setting. Clients who seek us out find themselves deeply within the throes of wrenching emotional disequilibrium. Remembering that clients are uniformly in crisis - to such an extent that they will deposit with us large retainers borrowed on credit cards or from family members in amounts that parties not in divorce might never otherwise consider spending - is more a reflection of the participant’s distress than the fact of how “good’ a lawyer we are. Understanding the effects of crisis, and the consequences of failing to address crisis constructively, offers one path to redemption for lawyers and clients.
The emotional benefits of mindfulness in divorce will not only save and protect you, they may resonant far into the future and save and protect everyone with whom you come in contact - including not just your children (the best reason), but everyone else you meet. Relationships arise and they disintegrate. It would be wonderful if no one divorced, but it would be better if we could all be more mindful when we marry in the first place. Or remarry for that matter.
Financial benefits may be the most immediate but also the least obvious result of a mindfulness practice! In fact no "practice" is required. Mindfulness just challenges us not to go unconscious.
The cost of reactive divorce - that is, any divorce where people are responding with their emotional brains rather than consciously choosing how to feel and behave - is mind boggling.
People enmeshed in divorce tend to think that they should hire the most aggressive divorce attorney they can afford. Some lawyers market themselves to respond to such values and this impulse. They advertise their practices as "aggressive advocates" or "aggressive divorce lawyers" "or "aggressive family law advocates." If you look at their websites they often also describe themselves as offering "compassionate representation" or "charitable divorce help." Which is it? Having it both ways is unlikely.
Mindfulness requires nothing because it exists outside the realm of achievement. It is based within the present moment, and the present moment exists without concern for past or future. The present moment doesn't care about striving to change anything. It is not in argument with "what is." Yes, we are forced to come to peace with the past, and with the future. As timeframes, these concepts remain highly relevant. We will not disappear in a cloud of bliss.
Before you step into a lawyers office, you should know something about them. Today this is easy. Go to the California State Bar website. Search the attorney's name. You will learn where they attended undergraduate school and law school; when they were admitted to the Bar, whether they belong to any Bar Sections and stay current with the law, and how long they've been practicing.
If you are considering or facing a divorce, I invite you to think outside the box. You alone have the ability to define your experiences upon separating your affairs from those of another whom once you loved. Seek out lawyers who aspire to be peacemakers rather than warriors. Destruction is easy: Set a brave new course instead.
