One of the most emotional and physically debilitating events that can happen to a person is going through a contested divorce proceeding, whether a party, or a child of the parties.  When a marriage unit becomes "broken", it is akin to the death of a loved  one.  The emotional trauma of a domestic break up can cause mild mannered "good" people to behave in outrageous and destructive ways.  Sometimes the break up of a family is not caused by fault on any side, but rather by a slow gradual process of growth patterns of one partner going in directions which differ from that of the other party.
 
       Until recent years and the advent of marriage and family counselors, lawyers were often called upon to provide emotional as well as legal support to the client.This was a necessity even though the lawyer might have no particular training in this area, except his or her own experience in representing
parties in divorce cases.Now there are trained "marriage and family counselors" available to provide this counseling.  Some even specialize in divorce counseling.
 
       Our society is based on a strong family unit.  At one point in our recent history, it took two jury judgments of divorce in two different terms of Court before a divorce could be obtained.Further, until a few years ago, the Court always had to find "fault" on one side before a divorce could be granted.  This often led to some remarkable legal "gymnastics" on even the friendliest type of divorces to establish "fault".  For example, I have established grounds by testimony that the Defendant's "fussing
and nagging" caused the Plaintiff to sometimes lose sleep.  This has been declared enough to have a divorce granted under the "cruel treatment" section of the law.
 
       Parties to a contested divorce have even gone through several days of jury trials only to have a jury come back and not grant a divorce.  If the jury found no "fault" on either side, or equal "fault" on both sides, they were required by law to deny the divorce.  This is no longer true, and we now have the "no fault" divorce in Georgia which is specifically referred to as a marriage that is "irretrievably broken", thus removing the requirement that fault be placed on either side.  There is now no effective way to stop a person from getting a divorce in Georgia where he or she is determined that they are not going to live with the other party ever again as married partners.
 
       Of course, sometimes the parties have reached a joint decision that they no longer wish to be married or have been separated for a period of time and reconcile themselves that the marriage is over.  When this occurs, the emotional trauma might not be present in the divorce proceeding since any trauma has already been worked out in the past or on a very gradual basis over a period of time.
 
       Some lawyers will not handle contested divorces.  This is because that type of case can be emotionally draining, not only on the parties to the divorce, but to the attorney as well.  It requires an ability on the part of the attorney to deal with a lot of emotional pain on the part of the client.  The lawyer must help the client attempt to deal with the pain in such a way as to enable him or her to face the reality of the situation and to devote his or her energy to helping the lawyer protect and preserve the client's property and other rights.  Those attorneys who are experts in this area prefer to be called specialists in "family law" rather than "divorce lawyers".  (Copyright 1987, Homer M. Scarborough, Jr.)

  *    The opinions expressed in From the Legal Pad are based on the laws of Georgia in force at the time of the Copyright notice, and are not intended in any way to replace the neccessity and need of conferring with a private attorney as to the laws existing in your State and jurisdication.  Further, each situation is unique and the opinions herein are are general.