Every Dog that Barks
I posted this quote by Winston Churchill some time ago:
“You will never get to the end of the journey if you stop to shy a stone at every dog that barks.”
I get to use it on divorce clients from time to time. A divorce has a beginning, middle and end. The beginning is fact gathering, settlement proposal, complaint, answer, countercomplaint and answer to countercomplaint. The middle is discovery and mediation. The end is settlement or trial.
But there are many details along the way. And in a divorce, control, anger, revenge, and sadness are all swirling around to cloud good judgment. So some clients tend to get bogged down in the small stuff. They fixate on something that is a detour from their main objectives of getting divorced from their spouse, providing for their children and untangling their finances.
I have had clients get stuck on furniture, used automobiles, jewelry, whether visitation will be on Tuesday or Thursday, something their spouse or the other lawyer said, and lots of other things that will give rise to argument.
The problem with this is they end of spending all of their time, effort and legal fees at the beginning or middle of their case and have nothing left at the finish line. So my advice is try to keep things in perspective. The end of your journey is a settlement or a divorce decree. Remember that, along the way, you don’t have to throw a stone at every dog that barks.
