Testimonials

My experience with Family Law has been a horrendous one. Despite having a legal agreement, the divorce dragged, and dragged, and dragged, for years. The process itself has nothing to do with justice. Justice itself proved an illusive dream. And here comes the issue of expectations. Do you want to protect your child from the effects of a train that seems to be heading towards a cliff, or do you want to stay on that train and work for a judgement that can not give you back the time you’ve lost? Throughout a process that took more than ten years, I’ve met and talked with quite a few solicitors and quite a few people caught up in trying to protect their children. I’ve seen quite a bit of madness. The most difficult aspect of it all is how little control one can end up having. The irony is that those who opt for nasty tactics can appear to have the most power. My advice: avoid the legal process and try to settle as quickly as possible. But wait, I did that, and things still didn’t turn out too well. I’ll try again. My advice: pick a team that will be honest with you, not a team that will do everything you want, because sometimes your head is going to be spinning and you might have been gritting your teeth at night for months, maybe years, and you’re not going to be thinking clearly. Pick a solicitor that will share his or her experience and help you learn to see things from the judge’s perspective, while getting your head around the fact that no two judges are the same. It can be a lengthy process, and a costly one. Beware of promises. Beware of temptations to do unto others what has been done unto you. Pick a solicitor that will help you stick to a clean path, because the path you are on is carving itself inside you; it is who you are becoming. You’ll have to live with yourself after all the dust has settled. By the time I asked Gary to take me on as a client I had about ten years experience with Family Law. He had reservations about taking me on as we were friends. One thing I trusted about Gary is his integrity. I knew at no point will I question his motives. What I didn’t know was his ability to pick a team that… I’m actually not sure how to describe the experience. In some ways it has been surreal, more than a year and a half after the divorce my head is still spinning. Even if you haven’t seen Star Wars you would have a sense that ultimately it’s a fight between light and darkness. That’s the only way I can see it, some weird spiritual mission by which I’m being trained to focus on staying clean and not be dragged into the dark side. In that regard, I’m a bigger person than the person I used to be. I respect myself for not crumbling. I’m still piecing myself together, but I think the ingredients are maturing. Thanks to Gary and the team he assembled, I learnt to develop patience, listen to experience, focus on what is essential, and rise to the occasion. No corners were cut, integrity every step of the way. And humanity. That’s the one that makes me tearful. I was asked if I would write a short testimony. Two words came to mind: “Head and Heart”. That’s how I would describe the team.