An attorney e-mailed me recently. He asked several questions that all led to this one:

"Honestly, with the dealings I’ve had so far, I dislike the other attorneys more than the opposing spouse! Why do attorneys have to make everything so personal? I know we are dealing with an emotionally charged area. How do you deal with attorneys like that?"

I’ve been asked that question or variants of that question for as long as I can remember. In fact, I asked that very question back when I started practicing family law. “How do you deal with attorneys like that?”

Here’s the answer: You’ve got two options.

First, you can just cope. They’re out there and they’re not going away. There are plenty of them out there. If you’re dealing with unpleasant opposing counsel you can just accept that they are part of the job.

Second, you can find some other area of law. These folks aren’t going away. There are more difficult humans being born every day, and some of them are going to practice family law. They are part of the nature of the game. Are family law attorneys worse than other lawyers or other people? It’s tough to say, but it’s easy to say that there are some very annoying family law attorneys.

I wish I could pass along some magic formula you could use to make difficult humans more pleasant, but that’s not going to happen. These people are always going to make the job challenging, and your best bet for avoiding them is to change jobs.

However, if you can cope with these people and do a good job representing your clients, then stick with the work. Our clients need people like you who can handle challenging humans, and your skills will be well rewarded.