New Lawyers and their Transition into the Marketplace
by Thomas F. Liotti
[continued from prior page]
Q - Mr. DaSilva, if I may, I would like to turn your attention to your expertise in matrimonial law. You have indicated you have been qualified previously and you have testified previously in cases involving matrimonial law.
Could you describe just generally for us what the nature of your testimony as in those other matters?
A - Basically I was called upon to testify about a reasonable list of legal fees charged by an attorney in a matrimonial case that was predominantly the nature of my testimony that I had given the Courts before. The most recent one was before Judge Carter. That went up to the Appellate Division.
Q - What is matrimonial law exactly?
A - Well, there is a difference between matrimonial law and family law. Matrimonial law deals primarily with divorces, separations, dissolution of a marriage, separation of parties. Family law incorporates other issues also relating to the family which would include just plain support orders, juvenile delinquency problems, other things that the Family Court would handle that normally are not handled in the Supreme Court, so basically, I think it is matrimonial law is in the Supreme Court and family law matters are dealt with primarily in Family Court.
Q - Do these matters interrelate with each other, family law or Family Court matters with Supreme Court matters?
A - Yes.
Q - How so?
A - Well, if you are having a divorce, it is not uncommon that there be domestic violence in the household. It is not uncommon that children have problems, sometimes the problems stem from the marriage, sometimes the problems in the marriage stem from the children, so you have childrens problems that are intertwined with marital problems.
There are delinquency problems which relate to neglect and other issues that involve parents, so we are talking really about the parenting on the part of the husband and wife in addition tot he problems between the husband and wives themselves.
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Page 3 of 9
Q - How does the practice of matrimonial law differ from, let's say, another field of law such as corporate law, for example?
A - I think the major difference would be the emotional factors involved. Sometimes when I am facetious, I say I practice commercial law in a family setting, because if you look at the core of most of the matrimonial cases, you are dealing with money and property.
A notable exception would be a genuine child custody case, but sometimes even they are created because of money factors, a custodial parent gets child support, so there is a fight over that.
But other than custody, you deal essentially with money, but that is clouded with an emotional factor, which makes it extremely difficult for clients to see what the real issues are, and it makes it extraordinarily difficult for the attorney to deal with the issues because you cannot focus on the true issues of the case. They are being buffered by the emotional factors, the phone calls, the letters, everything from your own client, and, as a matter of fact, it has been shown by studies that matrimonial lawyers suffer most emotionally, have the most problems in terms of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, other abuses, nervous breakdowns, more so than attorneys practicing in other fields. It is also true with judges who practice regularly in the matrimonial courts.
That is one reason why many judges don't want to sit in the part and it is understandable. Emotionally, it is a grueling part to sit in.
Q - It is stressful?
A - Extraordinarily stressful. That's what leads many of the lawyers to seek outlets for the stress by abusing themselves.
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