The practice of family law has changed in so many ways in the twenty five years I have been practicing it. When I started out, I did not have a computer on my desk. We did legal research with books. Only a few clients would correspond by email, and when they did, my assistant would print out the emails and bring the paper to me. Every day there were dozens of pink slips with handwritten phone messages on them. To check the court file we had to go to the courthouse and pull the file. I had no cell phone, and I carried an appointment book around with me.
One other change that's happening rather quickly in the practice of family law relates to social media. So many clients now have social media accounts and many are not very cautious about using it. They rant and throw accusations and make defaming statements about their ex. Even worse, they say awful things about their children's other parent, as if the children will never be old enough to see this material. They reveal information about jobs, assets, new partners, plans to move etc. Perhaps people don't believe a social media record is permanent. Or they don't realize a mutual friend could be printing out posts and handing them over to the ex.
Or, they might not believe that we can use pages, posts and photos as evidence in court. In fact, we do. And it can be quite effective. It's one thing for the Judge to try to figure out
his word vs. hers with respect to a phone call and who said what, but it's another thing to read all the evidence in writing on a spouse's own page, expletives and name-calling and all.
One other change that's happening rather quickly in the practice of family law relates to social media. So many clients now have social media accounts and many are not very cautious about using it. They rant and throw accusations and make defaming statements about their ex. Even worse, they say awful things about their children's other parent, as if the children will never be old enough to see this material. They reveal information about jobs, assets, new partners, plans to move etc. Perhaps people don't believe a social media record is permanent. Or they don't realize a mutual friend could be printing out posts and handing them over to the ex.
Or, they might not believe that we can use pages, posts and photos as evidence in court. In fact, we do. And it can be quite effective. It's one thing for the Judge to try to figure out
his word vs. hers with respect to a phone call and who said what, but it's another thing to read all the evidence in writing on a spouse's own page, expletives and name-calling and all.
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