322 - Why Good Lawyers Still Lose Custody Cases

And it's a hard question and that is when you hired your attorney or when you're thinking about hiring your attorney, what did you think you were hiring? Because in my experience, almost every dad answers that question in the same way, whether or not he says it out loud or not.

And he thinks he's hiring someone who's going to run his case.

Somebody who's going to think about it in the way that he thinks about it.

Somebody who's going to lie awake at night the way that he lies awake at night.

turning over every single angle, worrying about the outcome, strategizing three moves ahead.

Like it's the only thing in the world that matters because frankly to you and to me, and it was to me, it is the only thing that matters and it is the most important thing and time consuming thing on our minds all the time.

It's our kids, right? It's the next 18 years of your life with many of you.

It's whether you're a weekend visitor or an involved father going forward.

But here's the cold, hard truth.

And I need you to hear this in upfront in this because it's been a week of attorneys and because everything else we talk about today builds on it.

And that is your attorney is not that person that you think that they might be.

They can't be not because they're bad at their job and not because they don't care, but because of what they were trained to do.

how the system pays them, and what their actual role in this process is versus what you need someone to be doing for you.

So what we're going to talk about is the pitfalls dads walk into when they hand their case to their attorney and just hope.

There's that word again.

And they just hope that the attorney sees what you see, hope that the attorney is thinking about your life, Five years from now, the same way that you are, hope that the system is fair, which it's not.

And if you just tell the truth and hire someone competent, that the truth will win out.

I hear some version of that hope in almost every conversation.

single, a strategic risk consultation call that I do.

A dad tells me he interviewed a good attorney, someone with a solid reputation, somebody who came recommended and he says something like, I feel really good about my team.

And I always ask the same follow-up question.

Okay, great.

What's the plan for the next 90 days? And more often than not, I get a pause.

I Because there isn't one.

There's a retainer, there's a first filing, and there's a general sense that the attorney will handle it.