My Husband’s Attorney is Always Yelling, and Therefore He Must Be Winning?

In Family Court, the yelling lawyer is the losing lawyer.  Any legal argument that can rest upon its own reason need not be screamed.  It can be given at any decibel and be perfectly effective.   Judges are not juries.  Judges are not easily swayed by theatrical pleas or emotional expressions of sentiment.  Judges are a rather composed lot who are forever taking the 30,000 foot view of a case.  You would be wise to adopt their perspective.  They are the king (or queen), after all.

Parties may often believe that because one lawyer is making all the noise that means that lawyer is “winning.”  The loud lawyer is bossing around the reserved, meek attorney.  That must be how it is.  That is how it looks, after all.  That is how it is on tv.  But on tv there are juries.  On tv there are scripts.  In real-life Family Court a judge dealing with a screaming attorney is unlikely to be convinced of the performance and more likely to start thinking about lunch.  Judges have to worry about evidence and fairness, and giving their staff breaks.  They do not have to abide by an attorney who sucks all the air out of the room and is trying to win the Golden Globe.  Point is, attorneys yell to please their clients, not to please the judge.  The judges know it, the attorneys know it, and now, hopefully, you know it too.

Just because the other attorney is doing all the talking and screaming doesn’t mean he or she is really getting anywhere; in fact it is probably just the opposite.  The successful litigants in a Family Court proceeding stay the course, understand what is important, are patient and persistent and trust in the process.