Write Emails that Won’t Cost You Your Case
The emails and texts you send to the other parent could be the evidence that decides your case. In fact, attorneys often use text messages as exhibits because they’re so revealing about who the parties are. Therefore, we have one piece of advice we say over and over to clients: Write as though the judge is going to read your text or email out loud in open court. Because, very often, someone is reading those communications out loud in open court. And it can make the difference.
Keep Your Communication in Check
Here are three examples of communication gone wrong:
Scenario #1
Here we have an extremely high-conflict co-parenting relationship. The parties went through 10 years of family court litigation. For most of those years, each court battle ended in a deadlock. After about seven years of litigation, one of the parents came to us. As we reviewed the case history, we immediately identified that communication was one of the biggest problems. The parties routinely exchanged lengthy, vitriolic, and hard-to-follow messages.
When a judge or other third party (and many circled through their case) looked at the communications, they saw only conflict. They couldn’t discern which parent was the source of the strife. As a result, everything remained deadlocked.
We knew the opposing party was the provocateur. But we also knew we could not prove that unless our client’s communications improved.
So, we worked with our client on this. His texts and emails soon became shorter, clearer, free of emotion and insults. The opposing party continued sending lengthy, barbed communications. Her mean, invective-filled diatribes, contrasted with our client’s courteous and concise messages, painted quite the picture and were one of the reasons he was ultimately awarded full custody of the child.
Scenario #2
In another high-conflict case, our client was the problem and on the verge of losing custody due to her inability to coparent effectively. We worked with her to improve communications. Her emails suddenly became rational, clear, and free of rudeness or emotion. The opposing party, perhaps seeing his case for full custody falling apart because of her improved communication, even complained that we had taught her to write more appropriate emails. Her improved communications helped her maintain joint custody.
Scenario #3
In another case, our client complained about how rude the other party was and gave us a 100-page printout of their text messages. Our client was right: The other party was incredibly mean. The only problem: Our client was worse. Her cruel text messages made his mean text messages utterly unusable for our client’s case.
In family court, communication is more than just an exchange of words; it’s evidence. Judges don’t always have time to untangle who started what. They rely on tone, clarity, and purpose of written communication to assess character and parenting behavior. If you’re in a custody dispute, assume every message you send could be scrutinized in court. If you need a little extra assistance, consider a co-parenting communication app such as Our Family Wizard and the tone meter to help guide you. Keep it calm, clean, and focused on your child.
