In this episode Attorney Brad Tengler talks with grief coach Emily McGrath about the importance of separating the roles of a divorce attorney. Divorces are always hard, both financially and emotionally, it’s important to know a divorce attorney’s role and a therapist’s role in the process.

Male:               Law Talk does not give legal advice. It is a source of information for people suffering the effects of divorce or who have ended long term relationships. If you need legal advice, please retain an attorney in your own jurisdiction.

 

Brad:               Good evening folks, and welcome to Divorce Talk Radio, this is attorney Brad Tengler here in the studio with Emily McGrath. How are you Emily?

 

Emily:              Hi Brad, good, how are you?

 

Brad:               I am doing great. Our topic for discussion this evening is your divorce attorney is not your therapist.

 

Emily:              That’s a great topic Brad.

 

Brad:               I think it’s an important topic because obviously for many people when they’re going through divorces, it’s a very emotional time and the natural response of people when they come to their divorce attorney is to also use them as a therapist and that can be financially burdensome for them and it cannot also be productive.

 

Emily:              Absolutely. You need to, as a divorcee myself, I actually did use my thera–excuse me, my divorce attorney as my therapist not knowing it and looking back, it really did cost me a lot of money that was unnecessary.

 

Brad:               Well and I think it’s a natural response. You’re coming to a professional who is well acquainted with the ups and down of divorce and all litigation and there’s many things you want to tell them, many things you need to tell them, especially during emotional litigation because you feel as if they need to know the whole story. And a divorce attorney does often need to know the whole story.

 

Emily:              Right.

 

Brad:               I tell my clients, I want to know absolutely everything. I don’t want to have any surprises. I want to know what the other side is going to say, I want to know the lies that they’re going to say.

 

Emily:              Right.

 

Brad:               Because the worst thing that can happen to me in court is to be caught by surprise.

 

Emily:              Absolutely.

 

Brad:               Never want to be caught by surprise, but at the same, you know, in the same sense, divorce attorneys are not therapists and it can be counterproductive when clients use them as therapists.

 

Emily:              Absolutely. That’s so true and by using a therapist during this time can be helpful to alleviate that need to come to their divorce attorney and use that time to talk to their divorce attorney about the same things that are still going on, so they’re kind of reliving everything through you which is not helpful to try and get your litigation work done, correct?

 

Brad:               Yes, and I think the first point under this topic is, the reason we say this, that your divorce attorney is not your therapist is because divorce attorneys are not trained therapists.

 

Emily:              Right.

 

Brad:               That’s not what we are trained in professionally.

 

Emily:              Absolutely.

 

Brad:               And while we might have some intuition and while we might have a lot of professional experience observing people going through these situations, in terms of providing a therapeutic environment, that’s not what we do.

 

Emily:              Right.

 

Brad:               What we do, is we hear the facts, or the alleged facts in a case, we put together a litigation strategy that will help get our client what they want or minimize damage if there’s all kinds of problems with the c[...]