During the past few days, as I enter my home each evening, I
am met with “stuff” strewn everywhere: towels, pillow, sheets, shorts, shirts,
and shoes… lots and lots of shoes. Yes,
my baby is packing up, and heading off to the University of Florida to officially
begin her college career next week and join the Gator Nation.
So, as I reflect
back over these past 18 years, I know that she accomplished quite a bit, but
inside I feel that I have done so as well.
I have fulfilled one of my personal obligations by ensuring that on the
financial side of matters my daughter would have no worries. Are you asking yet how this relates to family
law? Well, here it comes.
When I first opened the Law Offices of Cindy S. Vova, P.A.
this daughter was not yet born. Her older sister was still an “only child.” My
future Gator came along about two years after the firm took on its first
client. As I met with each new client,
many with young children themselves, and I explained that there really was no “winning” or “loosing” in divorce, and I wanted to help them achieve a
reasonable and fair outcome. I demonstrated this as follows:
“Here,” I’d say, “is the marital pie.” At this point I drew my rendition of a circle on my yellow legal pad, where my client quickly understood why I pursued law and not art.
Then I would continue: “Now, if I draw a line down the middle of the
pie, this represents basically, what the Court is going to give you and what
the Court is going to give your spouse. Of course, again, I doubt my line represented a perfect geometric division, which also explains why I did not delve into a field requiring mathematical ability .
Then I would proceed to use my pencil to “cut off” little
slices of the pie on each side, and explain that this is what the attorneys
would “eat” from each party’s half of the pie.
I explained that in order to ensure that a client received a fair deal
and all issues were addressed in a divorce proceeding, that an attorney’s input and knowledge was
invaluable. “However,” I continued, “the
more your spouse and you fight, the more pieces of the pie the attorneys get to
eat."
“So,” I would continue, “do
you want to send your children to college or mine? My children are going regardless, but I intend
to get them there by taking little pieces of pie and putting them all together
to make my kids’ pie.”
My pie point was made. Some clients heeded my advice, and we
resolved their cases where most of their piece of pie remaind intact. Others ignored the advice and had their pies
carved up into smaller pieces. Some clients
had spouses, who had lawyers who wanted more of the pie, an unfortunate
byproduct of this profession. Still ,
all-in-all, when Dominique DeSantiago,
Associate Director of the Fisher School of Accounting, responded to an email I
sent him and said that UF would provide “value for my investment,” I couldn’t
help but think that my philosophy in practicing family law provides “values”
for my clients' investments. Twenty plus years of helping clients through tough times and trying to take only small pieces of the collective pies of many clients
