The going gets tough

I set up the matrimonial department at Oliver Fisher nearly 35 years ago. In those days small firms of solicitors were normally general practitioners doing a bit

of this and a bit of that and we were not very different from all the rest. Nevertheless with the rise in divorces we felt it was necessary to form a department dealing specifically with divorce, ancillary relief, domestic violence, making children wards of court, etc.

Matrimonial work is among the most challenging that solicitors deal with on a day-to-day basis. Certainly when we track the firm's phone calls we find that the matrimonial department receives around five times as many calls as any other department within the firm. When people are getting divorced they are involved in relationship breakdown, they need to talk, talk fast and talk often. Many years ago people involved in such situations would talk to their priest or social worker but nowadays they talk to their lawyer.

The work is demanding and involves the ability to counsel, litigate, mediate and frankly become your client's friend. This is not an easy thing to do. Quite often you will have an opponent who is not represented and who will ring you up in an extremely hostile fashion in some cases making threats of personal injury.

The clients themselves can become desperate when they see their dream marriage falling to bits or having their children taken away by a local authority. In their frustration they can hit out at the very person who is seeking to advise them and resolve their difficulties.

Clients often come in to the office without an appointment, desperate to talk to a lawyer. Clients involved in domestic violence arrive in the office perhaps with a support worker, a bag full of clothes and buggies full of children. All of this can be a real strain on the firm's resources and it is not only the legal aid cases that can be challenging. Private clients involved in multi-million pound divorces regard their solicitor as their knight in shining armour but believe that their problem is the only matter being dealt with in the office and see nothing wrong in phoning and emailing their solicitor dozens of times a day.

Tipping over the edge

Some of the work involves children who have been taken away from their parents by a local authority and perhaps put into foster care and subsequently put up for adoption. These clients may be involved in substance abuse or may have mental health difficulties. Seeing their children taken away from them can sometimes tip them over the edge, and again their only hope is to involve a lawyer and if things do not go their way they can vent their frustration on that very same lawyer.

I stopped doing matrimonial work after about ten years as I found that it wore me down '“ it was just too demanding and never-ending. However, we still have an extremely large matrimonial department. Indeed we are the only firm in our procurement area that does legal aid work and I think one of the few firms in Kensington & Chelsea that does matrimonial work of any kind.

I was interested to see that The Co-op has decided to pop its toe in the water. Perhaps they think that matrimonial work is just another piece of work like probate or conveyancing. I suspect they are in for a shock. Matrimonial work brings with it a great deal of baggage. It brings damaged individuals as well as anger, frustration and chaos. Putting together a case management system for the typical divorce is certainly possible, but unfortunately matrimonial clients are well versed in breaking all the rules. Whether The Co-op has fully realised exactly what it is taking on board I cannot second guess. Nevertheless having been involved in matrimonial matters for some 35 years I suspect they will be unprepared for the horror of a large-scale matrimonial venture.

We have a secret weapon. Cosmo sits with the client and plays with their children. A crying child generally stops crying when they have a furry dog to cuddle. So my advice to The Co-op is simple. Cosmo is not for sale.