Never Want Too Much

Years ago, Sol Goldman was the largest real estate owner in New York other than the Archdiocese of New York and the city itself. An unassuming person, he owned more than 800 buildings when he died. I represented him in a contentious divorce that terminated in 1987. At one point, I asked him how he had accumulated such enormous wealth. He replied, "I never wanted anything so much that I couldnŐt walk away from it."

In negotiations, as in life, if you want something too much, you will pay too big a financial or psychological price because you will act on your emotions and not on your goal. You will end up on the losing end.

In some divorce cases, people come into my office hoping to get even with the spouse for an alleged emotional injury. They are out for revenge; they want the world to know about it. Often, I hear an impassioned new client (in general, but not exclusively, a woman) say, "I want you to carve up that SOB into little pieces. I want his reputation dragged through the mud. I want our children and our friends to know what a scoundrel he is and how terribly he treated me." I am going to have trouble with this client because divorce is not about squaring accounts, it is not about settling scores; and it is not about righting a moral wrong in the universe. Divorce is about negotiation.

Despite the new no-fault divorce system, some clients continue to hire lawyers to be an instrument of revenge. These people are not interested in simply obtaining the most money from a settlement but want to adopt a scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners policy. Some of them believe they are entitled to reparations, and if I defer to their wish, I may not be able to move the case toward a fair settlement even one tipped in our favor. There are men and women who want to air dirty linen. They would take pleasure in embarrassing, disgracing, and even forcing a final twilight of the Gods, a Götterdämmerung that could destroy both parties in the process. My objective is to make the best settlement.

A lawyer assumes a variety of personae for different claims, and changes character at different points of time, even as the law changes. When I started practicing law, clients viewed their lawyer as a white knight, charging for the on the other way, and with the advent of no-fault divorce, a lawyer is often perceived as a routine but necessary instrument of the legal system. We are relegated to a dull role somewhere between an accountant and a appraiser, whose sole function is to sit with another lawyer to divide up assets evenly.