It's probably the practice area that I see catch the most flak, is it really that bad? Anyone care to share their perspective? What makes it so much worse than other areas?

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Your client is virtually never happy at the end. They are almost always worse off financially after a divorce, and offer times emotionally worse off as well.

Also, it’s more personal than most other areas of law, so the clients are extremely demanding, but at the same time usually don’t have much money to pay for all the attention they want. Also because of how personal it is the clients struggle to understand what is relevant to your legal services versus what they are angry about and want to spend time talking about.

The clients are also extra needy because the matter pertains to an active part of their life. Even in criminal law, for the most part, all the facts and interactions that led to you being hired occurred before you got involved. But in family law, the kids still have to go to school. The parents still have to see each other. And so the dispute comes to a head, in real life, over and over again. Guess who the client calls when mom is 22 minutes late dropping the kid off? Guess who the client calls when the spouse sends a nasty text message?

Then, the clients rarely pays on time and often complain about bills.

Then, you’ve got opposing counsel who is often close with their client, which makes it persons for them. These clients are coming to them from kids’ school, church, lifelong friends. If opposing counsel doesn’t compartmentalize then they can be almost as emotional as your clients.

At the end, your client usually has half as many assets and less income than they had when they hired you, and less time with their kids. So they aren’t usually giving you a high five at the end of the case even if you do a great job.

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Family law is a personality practice in that some people have the right personality for it and some do not. Ask yourself how spending an hour explaining to a 20 something mom why she can’t wear hot pink spandex shorts to court would make you feel. If you cringed it probably isn’t for you.

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Real life experience.

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When I was as a summer intern at the district attorneys office a million yrs ago and they would tell us to go to the courthouse and watch for experience, we always went to the family courtrooms not the criminal ones bc they were so much more interesting 🤣. But no, I cant imagine actually practicing family law

I would want to work at Starbucks before I practiced Family Law

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