Exhale

Haha as a follow up to my previous post, I can assure everyone that no one's going to come out of the Da Vinci Code movie going 'Omg! I've been living a lie!' And why?

It was just lame. Impt moments in the movie where cruical information was supposed to be revealed turned out to be quite laughable because of a poor, heavily condensed script which did not build up any suspense/tension/anticipation which would precede any 'great' revelation. And of course compounded by Tom Hanks' incredibly wooden acting. Why does everyone say Tom Hanks is a good actor? He's not. He's as stiff as a plank. That's why the only role he was good in was the one where he played a retarded guy.

Anyways!

Started work at the law firm last week. Have been attached to a family lawyer in the Litigation department which is really cool because she actually deals with clients who are people as opposed to huge, souless corporations like some of the other departments in the law firm do. So it's more interesting in that sense...and rather humane if you know what I mean. Plus, get to read up on cases which involve salacious details of adultery, betrayal, desertion, callous ex-husbands, scornful mistresses and vengeful ex-wives! Haha...well no not all the time...it's usually very pedantic exchanges between the solicitors' of the spouses who demand increasingly higher levels of maintenance (eager wives) or progressively lower settlements (desperate/broke husbands).But now and then you do get cases involving emotions which are very Meditarranean in nature.

I signed a confidentiality agreement so I can't spill any details regarding the cases. But I always feel strange when reading through all the clients' files because I find I know too much about this person I've never met just by looking through her bank account statements, her expenses, long accounts of her ill-fated marriage, email correspondences with her ex-husband...I mean I actually know the address of the wet market where A always goes when she shops for fresh fruit from reviewing Annex A. I know she always buys honey melons for $5.50 whenever she goes there every 2 weeks. I know that B took 6 cabs on the 5th of November and spent $500 on transport for that same month from her list of declared expenses. I know C had "improper relations" (what a great euphemism) with at least 3 other women..and some men, during the course of his marriage by his own admission. I know D got married when she was just 20 to a man 10 years older than her who later abandoned her for 11 years to start another family. I know E's spouse is contesting sole custody of her children because he thinks she's psychotic. And I know E think's he's psychotic in return from her letters demanding psychometric test results. And I know that their kids have been barred from seeing their father from the affidavits and various angry email exchanges. I even know who E is because she's a renowned personality and I've just visited her website and seen her photo. It's really strange because I feel like I'm intruding upon their private lives and overstepping several unwritten boundaries, forming impressions of these distant yet familiar personalities. Sometimes I try and reconstruct how they and their marriages might have been like based on the affidavits. Haha. Weird huh. Maybe I'm just bored.

However, it's always less fun when I meet them in person. Then they turn out to be less exciting than in the files @_@

But in any case I think family court is a really terrible place to be. Everyone there (excluding the lawyers who charge $500 an hour) look stony. And now and then you have upset children who for some reason, follow their parents to divorce court (why, I can't imagine). Argh not a pleasant place.

So don't get divorced! It's sad and also very very very expensive especially when you have vengeful ex wives on the loose.

posted by Jeanne @ 9:49 PM