“It was the most insignificant piece of data that I have ever seen in my entire life.”

As a Writer at BuzzFeed, I write and curate quizzes, listicles, and articles about everything from pop culture and history to food and fashion.

"We come out and our clients are gone. Magically, and praise the Lord, in the course of 10 minutes of me and the lawyer talking, the father and mother made up, made out in the corner of the hallway and returned. The case was dropped. May I mention, this was pro bono? PA jurisdiction, too."

"Bonus: The saddest behaviour I have personally seen: the mom creating fake sexual abuse stories and dropping hints to the paediatrician, in turn causing the paediatrician to call CPS about the dad. All worked out in the end; the mom lost custody because of her actions after it all came out. Double bonus: The funniest thing I ever saw—Rich, the breadwinning wife, refused to pay her husband spousal support because "those laws were written to protect housewives! He's not a housewife! This is insane!"

Needless to say, this was NOT an emergency. I don't know how the motion was ultimately ruled on, other than that it wasn't an emergency."

"The most petty are the parents who phone CAS (child protection services) or the police for every minor disagreement. Your 2-year-old cries when leaving your home? CALL CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES."

"Real nice guy. In the end, he didn't use a lawyer, so he was completely steamrolled in court—his court documents were laughable; literally everything that had ever gone wrong with the kids was the mother's fault – and he now sees the kids once a fortnight instead of having them live with him full time. So there's a way not to do things.

Also, hilariously, one of the things he said in court was that he knew when he was impregnating the mother, because he could control his ejaculation. Riiiiiight."

"While the judge was very sympathetic and tried asking the ex-husband to be reasonable, in the end her hands were tied, since the dog was the ex-husband's property per the divorce agreement, and he was free to do whatever he wanted, provided it comported with state anti-cruelty laws. 

In the end she relented to give him custody rights basically every weekend of the month in order to save the kids' dog.To the judge's credit, she gave the ex-husband a verbal haranguing like I've never seen in all my years of practicing law since. She warned him that she would be watching this case very closely and would not hesitate to refer it to a criminal prosecutor if he slipped up in any way, either towards the treatment of the dog or the kids. And that if anything happens to that dog, she would fast-track a hearing to revisit his visitation rights and strongly implied the new visitation schedule would be vastly against his favor should that come to pass. On that day I realized I never wanted to be a family lawyer."

"Then there were the divorce cases. Appeals are not mandated in divorce cases, so my court only saw those divorce cases where the fighting between the ex-spouses couldn't be resolved satisfactorily by the divorce court. In other words, at least one ex wanted another opinion/chance at 'winning.' 

These case files took up drawers. These case files were measured in feet, not inches. The largest files were those where children were involved. In other words, these people wouldn't co-parent and so had to run back to the trial court for nearly every single disagreement: where and how to school, feed, and clothe; practize religion; conduct extracurricular activities; etc. Repeatedly renegotiating child support. Repeatedly trying to change custody or visitation orders. Trying to control how the other parent managed his or her time with the child. 

These fights were really rarely about the kids; they were attempts to control the ex-spouse through the kids. And what these litigants never realized is that, by refusing to co-parent, they essentially were giving over their parental role to the judge. In their efforts to control one another, they lost all power and control."

"He gave us copies of all of the money orders he bought as evidence of the support he paid, but she claimed she had never received them. Well, that seemed stupid, but no, he had actually just kept them and then, like an idiot, gave the original months old money order to the mom to pay for the outstanding child support balance. He was definitely found in contempt! People can be really ridiculous!" 

"She's made some half-hearted arguments that he couldn't handle and that she'd have to do too much driving. But I suspect it's just because I'm in favor of it. This is getting me really down—it's a great opportunity for our son, and she just...doesn't want to agree."