'He'll walk out of court naked as a jaybird': Lies lawyers tell

It's only natural to fall in love and marry. But the love can die. Thanks in part to the rising incidence of divorce coupled with the rising population of lawyers in Israel, competition between lawyers specializing in family law and divorce has become so fierce that some do not cavil at stretching the truth about what they can get for their potential clients.

"Hire me and you'll get the house," you may hear. Or, "Place your trust in me and he'll leave court naked as the day he was born." There are the promises of sky-high child support: "I promise you NIS 5,000 a month," the lawyer may vow, and of course, "Custody is yours. Bank on it." You'd be wise to take sweeping assurances of the sort with a grain of salt.

Counting on a promise that proved false can lead to anguish. The proceedings bog down in recriminations now flying in more than two directions, causing distress to the divorcing couple and to any children in range, too.

A divorcing spouse often sees the lawyer as his or her savior from economic and emotional hazards. The easiest way to fish a client is to promise whatever he or she wants to hear. Believe these promises and you'll pay dearly.

Naama Zohar and Tehila Edry of the Zohar-Edry law office, which specializes in family law, provide guidelines for hiring a lawyer if that unhappy day comes.

The very thought of losing the children deters many people from divorcing. Family lawyers know it's an extremely sensitive issue. Parents are often willing to break the bank to assure they receive custody, Edry says.

But any lawyer assuring the father that he'll get custody of the kids is walking a very fine line between reassuring the client and misleading him. The same goes for promising 100% custody to the mother, by the way.

"In most cases the court will decide that minors under age 6 should stay with the mother," Edry says. "If there are older siblings, the court will endeavor not to separate them from the smaller ones. Therefore, even if a 15-year-old wants to live with the father, the court may decide it is better for him to stay with the mother and younger siblings."

Joint custody is a complicated issue, and should not be taken for granted, either. A great number of parameters come into play, including the relationship between the parents after the divorce, their degree of cooperation, their parenting skills, the child's own wishes, the child's relationship with each parent, and the question of whether the parents live reasonably near one another.

Any lawyer who claims to be able to foresee perfectly the court's custody ruling, given the complexity of the issues at stake, is talking through his hat, with potentially devastating results, Edry warns.

Divorce lawyers courting clients also may play on another delicate issue: child support. Sometimes child support is essential for a spouse, especially if he or she stayed home raising the kids and has no job, or worked only part time after the birth - and after the divorce, remains underpaid. And sometimes, a spouse will make a sky-high support demand just for the sake of revenge.

"A lawyer promising a woman that come what may, she'll get NIS 5,000 a month per child is usually misleading her," warns Zohar. "The law sets a minimum of NIS 1,300 in child support, not including the cost of housing and school. Only if the father earns well, or is proven to own assets, may the court set higher sums."

Beware empty promises when it comes to alimony, too, adds Edry. "The main purpose of alimony payments is to assure that she can maintain the standard of living to which she became accustomed, not to punish the husband for misbehavior."

Moreover, it is entirely possible that the court won't award a sou in alimony to the wife, if she works and earns more than NIS 6,000 a month, says Zohar. "The husband will have to pay child support and share housing and school costs for the kids. The court will examine whether the wife makes enough to meet her needs and if not, will award her an income supplement in the form of alimony."

But beware lawyerly loose lips: Alimony payments are limited to a few months, no more, until the woman has a chance to rebound from the divorce. And the sums awarded are typically not generous.

Dads, if your lawyer is promising you won't pay a penny in either alimony or child support, he's usually being economical with the truth.

"A lawyer who fails to warn a father that he'll have to pay child support, at least at some minimal level, is misleading him severely," says Edry.

A man who lost his job, or whose earning capacity has somehow become impaired, may use these facts as arguments in court, asking for consideration. But the court sets child support while taking into account the man's long-term earning ability. It won't consider some temporary setback. The man will have to present years of pay slips and income tax statements, and will have to list all his income and assets.

"It is not reasonable to expect that a man who owns fixed assets, such as a house and an expensive car, will be exempted from child support just because he isn't working at the moment," says Zohar. "The court's ruling is based on dozens of pieces of information, which are unique to each family. Promising a given outcome is selling an illusion."

Not only is the apartment the biggest investment most Israeli families ever make, it's also their home, their shelter, their sanctuary. They get emotional about it. Losing the home can be one of the cruelest blows in divorce, second only to losing custody of the kids.

Knowing full well how charged the issue of the home is, unscrupulous lawyers may leverage that feeling to lure clients, promising them wonders they can't actually assure.

There some broad guidelines. If, for instance, the couple bought the asset together and lived in it for several years, then it will be divided between them, like the rest of their property, explains Zohar. "But family court rulings aren't pure mathematics. Rulings on the home and similar issues may deviate from what one might expect."

The law may be clear, but reality is complicated, and the lives of each spouse may affect the judge's decision. No judge wants the appeals court to overturn a ruling, so they will hesitate to deviate far from norms. But at the same time, no lawyer can reasonably assume he knows in advance what the court will decide, says Edry.

People believe it when a lawyer promises he'll make sure the client gets the home, because they want to believe it. But if a lawyer paints in lines too bold, the would-be client would be wise to take a step back, warns Edry.

Divorce is often an ugly business marked by mutual recriminations, hostility, hurt and a keen desire for revenge. An unscrupulous lawyer will fan the flames for his own selfish interest and promise to shoot down the demon spouse in flames. That vision of her left begging on street corners may gratify the soul, but it's also baseless.

"Taking an emotional, not a realistic, view during a divorce proceeding may prove to be a terrible mistake, especially given the nature of court rulings in recent decades," says Zohar delicately. Israel's courts divide the property down the middle. It's rare for the court to rule strongly in favor of one party, for reasons of justice. Any lawyer promising to obtain an asymmetrical distribution of assets for his client is, usually, making a false promise, Zohar says.

Edry begs to add that a militant separation can leave the parents and children scarred forever.

Realism is the key, both lawyers stress. The lawyer must present a true picture of the legal complexities. Zohar and Edry's best advice is to assess whether the lawyer genuinely wants to help the client achieve his or her aims, or if he's painting an overly rosy picture in which all his aims are easily achieved.

If the lawyer warns of pitfalls and possible outcomes that the client won't like, then he's being realistic and empathetic, explains Zohar. Describing only sure successes should sound an alarm. Part of the lawyer's job is to disillusion the client, even at the cost of contradicting his own narrow financial interest, they say.

Finally, complaining about a lawyer usually achieves nothing, but that said, there are four ways to do it.

A lawyer who makes baseless promises could be subject to a malpractice suit, but it's hard to prove when it comes to family law, warns legal ethics expert Limor Zer-Gutman. The client has to prove actual damage and prove the lawyer's false promise caused it.

A complaint could be filed with the ethics committee of the Bar Association. At worst the lawyer could be disbarred. Most complaints go nowhere, but the process is at best unpleasant for the lawyer, Zer-Gutman says.

The third is to hurt his reputation. Lawyers get most of their clients by word of mouth, says Zer-Gutman, and if the word is bad, he won't get work.

And fourth is to withhold pay, or to pay and sue for the money back based on loss of faith. That can be messy. The best advice is, lawyer: Don't talk nonsense, and client: Beware of succumbing to heady lies that promise you the world. Nobody gets the world.