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Effectively dealing with highly emotional clients can be one of the most difficult aspects of practicing family law. Emotional clients may find it difficult to make rational decisions about their case, causing them to become entrenched in untenable positions. Emotional clients may also be challenging to communicate with effectively, sometimes hearing what they want to hear as opposed to what you are truly saying. Even worse, highly emotional clients may lash out against us or our staff when their anger actually comes from the circumstances they find themselves in, not our representation of them in those circumstances. Because representing highly emotional clients is a nearly unavoidable hazard in our profession, we must all find a way to reach past those emotions to help our clients make sound decisions about their case and future. When dealing with highly emotional clients, keep the following in mind:

NCBA Out & About: A Hike Along England’s South Downs Way

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By Jonathan Maxwell

There are few better opportunities for relaxation and rejuvenation than a long walk. English national trails take it to a new level.

In the bracing air along the Seven Sisters, the prominent chalk cliffs overseeing the English Channel, I encounter a fellow hiker who recommends a 13th-century inn in Alfriston as a perfect first night‘s stay. Later, in the gloaming along the Cuckmere River, a gentleman farmer pauses while working in his field to point out a distant steeple, advising that if I stick to the river path I will be in Alfriston ere long.

Of the English walks officially designated as “national trails,” one of the most historic and varied is but a 50-mile train ride south of London. Beginning in Eastbourne on the English Channel, the South Downs Way wends westward one hundred miles through a national park – along coastal cliffs, inland atop an escarpment, and through the woods, to Winchester. (See www.nationaltrail.co.uk/southdowns.) I cannot resist taking six days to walk it solo.

And Now For Something Completely Different … About CLE Titles

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By Catherine Peglow

Have you ever wondered how our CLE programs get their names?

“The Alimony Tour – Not Starring John Cleese” was the name of the 2015 Family Law Section Annual Meeting CLE in Asheville. Now, I’m a Monty Python fan, but a clever name like that can present some problems when you consider the life cycle of a typical North Carolina Bar Association Foundation CLE program. After the live program, we generally do video replays across the state, and those video replays count as live CLE credit. After the replays finish, the program is edited into sessions and uploaded to our On Demand catalog. When you view those sessions online from the convenience of your home or office, they count as online CLE credit.