Once upon a time in 1996, in a Seattle park, Sean met a girl – Isabelle. She was charming, spoke with a delightful French accent from her native France, and was wearing a yellow dress. The normal chain of events that often happens in these stories occurred – one thing led to another, four years later they married, traveled back and forth to France, bought and sold a condo, bought and sold a house, Sean learned French, they had dogs, and cats, and at one point – a turtle, they moved across the country so he could go to law school, moved back to Seattle because that’s where they wanted to live, and had a baby boy in 2008. They lived. They laughed.
They were happy…
Also as is normal in these stories, one year became two, two became six, a decade passed, then 15, and along the way the people they were when they met, became different people. Their relationship grew and changed, it had successes and failures. Things happened. Neither of them were perfect, both made mistakes, things got to the point where they needed to change.
Sean moved out in late September 2016. A little over 18 years after meeting that french girl in a yellow dress…
Initially, it was just to have a little ‘break’. The goal was to get a little distance, have some ‘peace,’ and see how they felt about each other. Because they knew they still cared about each other, and they absolutely loved their son, and they didn’t want to act rashly. Neither of them wanted to have their relationship blown apart by a divorce. They weren’t even sure they wanted a divorce. They wanted a change. They needed some changes. And their son needed his family to calm down. He needed his parents to stop yelling at each other. He needed his mom to stop drinking so much. He needed normal. But most importantly, he needed both of his parents, because both of them were amazing people, with a lot to teach him about life, love, and how a family should transition to a new normal when the old normal isn’t working.
So that’s what they did. They set out to create a new normal for their family. Something that made sense for everyone, and would provide what their son needed through his childhood. Sean got an apartment, and their son immediately started spending 50% of his time there. Sean and Isabelle worked to negotiate an Agreed Final Parenting Plan that preserved both the mother/son and the father/son relationship and gave him equal time in both homes. And they lived that agreement for six months. It wasn’t perfect, but it was working. The issues were being ‘worked out.’ A new two-home normal was being created. The parents were building on their long relationship, trust, and respect for each other and created a co-parenting relationship.
Isabelle hired a lawyer from a firm that advertised itself as one in which “Counseling is encouraged in almost every case, whether reconciliation is considered as a possibility or not. We focus our efforts on keeping the children out of the middle and in helping our clients preserve relationships where possible.” A firm that says their “experience in the courtroom… coupled with patience and an openness to see both sides, often results in settlement.” And her initial lawyer basically did that – helped the parents draft their Agreed Final Parenting Plan, which she sent as an “Offer of Settlement,” and Sean accepted.
They had done it. They had achieved a ‘soft landing!’…
They had preserved the best of their relationship by focussing on what their son needed – relationships with both of his parents. And they had successfully given themselves breathing room to figure out how they felt about each other, whether they needed/wanted a divorce, and a plan to work on how they communicated with each other, and how to navigate the financial minefield so if they needed/wanted a divorce they wouldn’t destroy their financial future.
But when Sean said “Ok, I’ve accepted your settlement offer of an Agreed Final Parenting Plan, now fulfill your commitments…”
Things took a dark turn…
Isabelle’s first lawyer consulted the firm’s ‘big dog’ about the case, and like a spider spinning a web to catch prey, she entered their relationship, and whispering in Isabelle’s ear, convinced her that she could get ‘more,’ by doing what she told her. Little did Isabelle know that by listening to her, that she would destroy everything positive between her and Sean, hurt Sean, hurt their son, hurt his cousins, his aunt, his uncle, his grandfather, and everyone that cared about him, and ultimately hurt herself. Like a spider preying on the fly caught in its beautiful net, Isabelle heard her new lawyer’s siren song, promising whatever it is that Isabelle wanted – revenge, power and control over Sean, money, a feeling that the problems in her marriage were not her ‘fault,’ whatever, and she went along with her plan.
It was one of the worst decisions of Isabelle’s life…
On Aug. 19, 2017, Isabelle listening to her new lawyer’s advice, breached the 50/50 plan and seized their son. Meanwhile, her lawyer filed a motion falsely accusing Sean of vile things – domestic violence, child abuse, fabrication of evidence, assault, battery, perjury, tax fraud, seeking to eliminate Sean’s decision-making rights and reduce his residential time from 50/50 to about 25%. As support for her motion, counsel lied about statements she claimed that their son’s therapist said about Sean, including “that he is experiencing distress when with you and wants less time,” lied claiming that Sean was “fabricating “evidence,”‘ and lied about the Agreed Final Parenting Plan. Lies that would eventually be conclusively proven as just that – lies.
And just like that, a family was destroyed…
Even worse, Isabelle didn’t even realize that her own lawyer was manipulating her for her own advantage. Because, like the spider that slowly feeds on its prey, taking a little blood, while its movements attract more prey to the web, by convincing Isabelle to lie about this situation, by convincing her to either lie about abuse, or convincing her that she was a victim of domestic violence when she was not, she was convincing Isabelle to help her attorney, instead of herself.
Because what Isabelle’s attorney wanted, was not to make Isabelle’s life better. Nor to make their son’s life better. Because if she wanted to help improve their lives, she would have told Isabelle to find a way to work something out with Sean. No, instead what Isabelle’s attorney wanted, was the equivalent of what the spider wants from the fly – continuing sustenance – here – massive amounts of both Isabelle’s, and Sean’s, and ultimately their son’s, money.
Sadly, this story plays out in cases across the world, day in, and day out…
A family is in transition. It needs help. It needs to help move from one model, one structure, one way of being, to another one. It needs help navigating a difficult path in a way that “preserves relationships where possible.” It needs professionals who have “patience and an openness to see both sides,” to help the family get to a “settlement.”
So one, or both of them, turn to the people whose job it is to help families transition. People who took oaths to serve the interests of justice. People who are supposed to conduct themselves according to a high-ethical code. People who at the very core of their profession is the idea that what they do, is the foundation civilization is built upon – facilitate finding resolutions to inter-personal problems with fairness, respect for everyone, and based on what can be objectively proven as the truth – Lawyers…
Sadly, neither Isabelle, nor Sean, nor their son, nor many other people that had come before, and many that have followed, got any of that from Isabelle’s lawyer. Instead what they got was a lawyer who manipulated and used the system not only to abuse Sean – like she has abused many other fathers before him – but to manipulate and abuse her own client – by creating massive conflict and chaos – which while destroying everything good between Isabelle and Sean, irreparably hurt her own client, hurt the father/son relationship, and hurt a child.
But it has made her lawyer rich…
To date, she has charged Isabelle over $264,000, more than 60% of her total net worth, to accomplish nothing because Isabelle still has the same problems she had then. The same two issues of 1) a parenting plan in the best interest of their son, and 2) a fair economic split exist tody. In fact, by creating so much chaos in Isabelle’s life, encouraging her to lie about Sean, encouraging her to ignore the court’s orders, encouraging her to file false police reports, she’s made Isabelle’s life infinitely worse.
Her attorney has made her life worse, not better…
Because instead of having a 50% co-parent partner to help raise their son, Isabelle has been locked in a litigation firestorm she probably doesn’t even realize she created. Instead of having a friend she spent two decades with to help her and lean on, he’s being forced to expose her to the world to protect himself. Instead of having secure family relationships with people that respect her, even her own family is disgusted by what she has done. Instead of having her son’s father financially secure, she’s financially ruined him and he’ll never be able to help her financially.
And she is a lot poorer than she would have been. Money that should have gone to help raise their son, money for school, for college, for summer camps, for childhood and life, instead went to her greedy lawyer. Which is exactly what her lawyer wanted – to create chaos and conflict in Isabelle’s life to profit herself – by encouraging Isabelle to direct her emotions through the court system instead of toward a good therapist. All of which made her lawyer richer, but made Isabelle, Sean, and their son much poorer.
What her lawyer wanted was to get rich off a lifetime of her client’s hard work…
What her lawyer didn’t anticipate, was that Sean would not walk out of his son’s life like she has forced so many other men before to do. What she didn’t anticipate, is that Sean would eventually expose her lawyer for the unethical, greedy, and manipulative person she is. What she didn’t anticipate, is that he would take the lessons he learned, coupled with what he knows of the law, and speak out about this injustice to teach others how to deal with these types of unethical bad-apple divorce attorneys.
These Unethical Karmas…
Because, just like the philosophical law of cause and effect – of karma – that you ‘reap what you sow,’ and eventually what you put into the universe comes back to you with consequences for what you’ve done – as your karma. So if you are unethical, if you misuse the system to terrorize and intimidate others, someday, someone refuses to be bullied, and exposes you for what you are, and consequences happen to you – that’s karma…
Unethical karma ultimately creates ethical karma…
This website, the upcoming book, and Sean’s media education program is the result of years of suffering unethical karma.
From a trial by fire comes tempered steel…