“Don't Be Dumb”: 57 Divorce Lawyers Share The Messiest Cases Of Their Careers

Didn't hear it from a lawyer, but heard it from a guy who buys storage lockers...

There was this lady who was going through a nasty divorce. Her husband had all of her possessions moved into a storage locker. He quit paying for the storage locker and conveniently failed to tell his ex-wife that it wasn't being paid for any longer. My buddy who buys storage lockers said that he saw the lady showing up with police officers in tears at the auction sale after someone else had already purchased the locker with the police telling her there was nothing they could do, that this is a civil case and she would have to pursue it through the courts. In other words, someone else had just purchased all of her life's belongings and memories for pennies on the dollar.

My dad has been married to my Mom for 37 years. He had a five 5 year marriage before her which ended from an affair. This is how it went.

My dad's wife at the time was having emotional problems or anxiety and started seeing a shrink. Weeks go by and she tells my dad she isn't happy and needs time to think and will be staying with her parents.

Dad says ok I love you we can work thru this bla bla. Anyways finds out from friends she is staying with her pharmasist. Also note my dad is still sorta fresh from Vietnam and was a ranger in the army.

Old man goes phsyco. Goes to the dudes house early in the morning, knocks on the door, the pill giver answers and my dad physically ruins him.

Driving away from the scene and passes the cops, small town so my dad knows where they are going. Dad's like well s**t I better go back or I'll just get leaving the scene too.

Goes back and meets the cops and they go who are you

I'm the dude who beat the guy up

Sir he's really messed up we are calling an ambulance for him (starts cuffing my dad), why did you do that?

My wife's in there

Uncuffs my dad and let's him go.

At the time in Minnesota, you can sue somebody for having an affair with your spouse through the Loss Of Love clause.

So my dad did. Won big time and with the winnings bought a brand new float plane. Named it Justice.

I was a secretary for an attorney.

I think the most entertaining one was when a guy had to divorce his wife via newspaper because she wouldn't leave the house or answer the door for the process server.

Obligatory "not a lawyer but...",

Basically what was done to my wife's sister by her (now ex) husband. He pretty much just dragged his feet on everything to make the divorce take as long as possible. He had a good job making $60k/year and she had a home day care making about $20k/ year.

He bled her dry in lawyers' fees.

I'm sitting in Family Court right now. I'm a public defender handling some contempt issues but I have to sit through all the divorce and custody stuff before my cases get called. I just want to say thank you to all of the Family Lawyers who deal with this stuff. I can't even handle watching it. I'll take the horrible crime all day to avoid divorce and custody stuff.

Less messing over the spouse than the kids, but...

My mom used to work as a family lawyer. She's discussing custody with her client, who's the husband. Because of many factors, he's not getting primary custody. She's trying to explain this to him but also that he'll still be able to see his kids and have a place in their life, that his role as a father is still important. She's talking about ways they can challenge the decision and what his recourse is. He's clearly not listening and apathetic.

"Alright," he says, "but do I get the motorcycle?"

She quit family law shortly after.

Getting my counseling license and taking legal/ethics classes.

One crazy story is while a lady is in her counseling session, her husband comes in and says to the receptionist that he's her husband and he won't be able to pick up the kids because he has to go into work right then and could the receptionist let the client know when she gets out of the appointment. The receptionist says yes. When the client comes out of her appointment the receptionist passes along he message and the client says "Are you serious? He isn't supposed to know I'm here..We're in the middle of a divorce and he's crazy."

TL;DR Train receptionists to say "I can neither confirm or deny that person is a client.".

IANAL. I heard this story secondhand from my mother, but after growing up knowing this woman, I totally believe it.

My mom's friend (we'll call her Wifey) suspected her husband was cheating on her with his ex-wife (yes, his ex-wife. The one he'd divorced prior to marrying Wifey). She hid a tape recorder (it was the 80s) under the couch and caught him talking to his ex on the phone, making plans to meet up and bone. She played it cool, real cool. Wifey didn't let on that she knew. She waited till the husband went out of town for a business trip.

She changed the locks on the house, took his prized saddle and threw it into the fireplace. She emptied their bank accounts so every check he'd written on that trip bounced. The house was in her name. The husband came back, couldn't get in the house, and found he didn't have a dollar left to his name. All she'd left him was the truck.

When they went to court, Wifey told the judge that since her husband was cheating with his ex-wife that she was afraid that she had AIDS. So the judge made the husband keep Wifey on his health insurance for the next few years so she could get regular AIDS tests!

My mother told me that it took the husband something like 8 years to recover financially. All over his ex-wife that he'd already married and divorced once!

IANAL but a law student. Worked for a firm over the summer and one of the lawyers worked a divorce case that he knows as the "Praying hands" case. Divorce is all but finalized but by the hand of God, there a couple more issues to deal with. One of them was a picture of praying hands with like a rosary around it. Apparently the divorce was pretty messy and it all just culminated over this picture. Each client paid their lawyers' hourly (hundreds of dollars) rates to try to figure out who got this one, essentially worthless picture. Like you could get this thing at any christian bookstore or whatever. But this apparently went on for over a day. Just two lawyers arguing and negotiating over a worthless picture where they both know it is purely out of spite and a waste of their time. I guess you dont bite the hand that feeds though...

My first divorce case was the most memorable. My client was a nice looking, fiftyish waitress who was breaking hearts at the local small-town cafe. She was on divorce number 5.

I had a little lawyer kit of things she should do - clean out the joint accounts, change the car title, etc. She had done all of 'em, plus a few things neither I nor the professional list-maker had thought of.

Husband No. 5 came into my office to cry and concede everything. Now that was a guy who needed a lawyer with a list. No such luck, she messed him over gently, professionally (I thought) - didn't overreach too much, but got everything she was or might have been entitled to, plus a little more.

Was easy peasy for me. Helps if your first time is with an experienced woman. I learned a lot.

My aunt lived in a state where community property rules were triggered after ten years. She was by far the more successful of the two (like engineering director of a computer company starting in the early 80s successful). Her ex served her with divorce papers without any warning, at a huge family dinner (like my grandparents here there) on their 10th anniversary. She had to pay him an enormous amount of money, even though she ended up with custody of their kids.

My SO parents were divorced. He told her she could stay at the house and he moved to another state. Both moved on with their lives. Years later, the IRS comes and puts a lien on the house because the ex-husband never paid over $100k in back taxes. His name was still attached to the property. They took the house. She’s been paying the mortgage on it for over 15 years and just had less than a year left to finish paying. She hired a lawyer and tried to fight it but she had no proof that her ex-husband transferred ownership. She flew across the country to get her ex-husband to sign some papers that will stop them from taking the house but he refused to sign anything. She lost the house and a lot of money.

Used to be a secretary for a family law Solicitor.

Had this one divorce case where the wife was a teacher of 30+ years and had a very nice pension. In the divorce settlement it was decided somehow that the pension would be considered as a marital asset and the husband was entitled to 40%. He wanted the money right away and so she had to cash in her pension so to speak and had to have a reduced amount. The husband ended up getting around £20,000.00.

He was an alcoholic, wasted the money and drank himself to death within 2 years of receiving the money.

My mom works in a Trustee's office in KS. She once saw a divorce case between a soldier and a dependa. The soldier elected not to get a lawyer and handled it on his own. He specified that he would pay alimony but did not specify that it would stop when she remarried (to another soldier). Moral: Lawyer up if you divorce.

A former co-worker and his wife had split up. Among other things, she took all of his belts from the house. He showed up for work with an ethernet cable tied around his waist because he didn't have any belts. We worked an early shift so there weren't any stores open before he had to get to work.

A girl and her mother hired a PI who obtained pictures of her husband and his boss cheating on their spouses in the home of a government official who had been accepting their bids for contract work with the state for years. The photographs also showed them drinking and driving in the company vehicles.

By agreeing not to receive alimony, she was able to raid the hell out of savings, retirement, and got debt paid off as well as a general lump sum of cash up front. But then, after the settlement the pictures of their highly illegal activities were sent to the company owners who promptly fired his manager for wild impropriety and drinking on the job and had the ex-husband submit his resignation for the same thing. The government official also lost her job which meant her employee who the husband was sleeping with also lost a job.

So the dude got ruined and she made bank. She also got out of a very unhappy marriage, guilt free whereas beforehand she felt obligated to remain in a very bad relationship due to religious hangups. The thing is, she has to be one of the sweetest girls I know. But man, does she know how to revenge.

EDIT: Let me clarify, she did not use the pictures to obtain any more money than normal. She did not take the cash as any kind of payoff to be quiet about it afterwards. He just decided to pay her more money up front rather than having the loose end of alimony last years after the fact and potentially being a lot more money in the end. He just didn't know that his illegal activities would also cost him the job that would have reduced the alimony payments to significantly less. Either way, she didn't commit any crime, rather she uncovered one and rightfully reported it.

Don't do this kind of work anymore, but honestly? Using the kids as weapons during the case. The kids are the only ones who have absolutely no responsibility for the situation. Both adults, to some degree and at some time, made the decisions that brought them to where they are.

Also see plenty of incompetence on property settlements... Ask questions and demand inventories, people of Reddit. Might justifiably end up with a lot of money for your simple efforts on that front.

PS this is not legal advice and you should consult a family lawyer in your jurisdiction if you have additional questions.

Not a lawyer but I'm sure the divorce lawyers for my parents could write a lot. Both my parents are stubborn and often irrational. For example, my dad accused my mom of being a negligent parent for giving me chocolate chip cookies. My mom accused my dad of breaking into her house to replace my anti depressants with sugar pills. I had a weird childhood.

Not a lawyer either. My parents are going through a divorce currently and my dad put his hands on my mom which resulted in me calling the police and him going to jail because she wouldn't pay him for the word he had done on the house, stuff like putting in a wood stove tiles floors etc, mind you she had paid all of his expenses for 10 years because he's an alcoholic and refused to get a job. When he got out of jail he texted me saying that he was going to take my college fund and get a divorce lawyer so they'd get their assets split 50/50 since they're still considered "Married" regardless of if she has paid for everything or not. So yea, he screwed his spouse and his kid over.

My wife's first husband screwed her out of her share of his military retirement. She was naive and just wanted it to be over so she agreed to use the same attorney, his. They agreed that she would get half of his retirement as part of the divorce proceedings. Agreed mutually. He then went through military channels and had his retirement pay reclassified as a different source of compensation. When they went to court, the judge told her that he clearly violated the intent of the agreement, but that legally since there was no retirement listed in his payment structure, she got nothing. A woman he was dating during the divorce proceedings told my wife what was going on when they were fighting. By then it was too late.

Six months after the divorce, he bought a house with a built in hot-tub and a brand new pick-up. To this day he still take subtle digs at her about it.