The pandemic has led to a spike in divorces. With business volumes yet to decline, family law practices are having difficulty finding attorneys

With divorce cases on the rise in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, some local family law attorneys have not yet seen a slowdown, and finding talent to meet the demand remains challenging.

Recent trends in family law in South Florida include an uptick in mental health issues, exacerbating some divorces along with a larger overall caseload, but attorneys at different firms highlight different sets of concerns.

“People have been really hurt, and that makes the cases more difficult,” said Judy Fore Colton, a partner who focuses on family law at Brinkley Morgan.

Fur Colton, who usually handles very high net worth cases, has seen tensions mount in her cases along with the amount of work hitting her desk. As her firm’s nine lawyers dedicated to the practice handle every case that comes their way, she says the work has become stressful.

And the high volume continues even as home prices rise, forcing some couples to stay put for the time being. Fore Colton says that because it’s hard to find an affordable home, some couples are determined to continue their marriage in the hope that Florida’s hot housing market will cool off.

Meanwhile, Deborah Chimes, another family law partner based in South Florida at Clogger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine, says she was getting three to four phone calls a week. Now she receives the same number of calls every day.

“No one really knew how the pandemic would affect divorces,” Chams said. “It went on for about two weeks. I thought I’d actually get a vacation there for a while, but I’ve never worked as hard in my life as I did during the pandemic.

Like the Four Coltons, Chams has seen a large number of cases continue long after restrictions were lifted. She is also seeing more controversial controversies, which she believes stem from a change in temperature in relation to mental health.

Another frustration, Chams said, stems from dealing with a system that has a backlog of court cases, which makes it hard to get a trial package.

“People are very frustrated with this system, and that frustration falls on the lawyers because maybe they think we can do something about it and we can’t, or maybe because they don’t know where else to vent their frustration,” she added. He said. “But it also makes it more difficult to deal with.”

In contrast to Four Colton, Chimes sees the shortage of experienced family law attorneys as a sign that many young lawyers are alienated by the anger involved in the cases that followed the rise.

“A greater proportion of your cases now are higher conflicts, so the pressure has increased in proportion to that,” she said. “The main reason for a lot of us (to go into the field) is to help people, help families and children. To some extent, you’re willing to sacrifice your personal life, you even sacrifice your family’s personal life. To some extent though. People get sick of it. You just think “Why are you doing this?” I could be a different kind of lawyer and not have to put up with this.

And while trends in size have also affected local family law attorney Aliette Carolan, she uses the flexibility she has in running her own firm, the Carolan Family Law Firm, to ease her exposure to the most stressful cases.

“Every 18 months or so, I purge my office, getting rid of anyone who doesn’t fit my way of thinking. Anyone who wants me to do something I’m not comfortable with, I won’t do it. Sometimes I get fired, and I get fired too. Sometimes it’s like “Sometimes relationships just run the course,” Carolan said. “Obviously, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. But I don’t have to collect extra bills on anyone’s case because I work for a big company.

Although Carolan has also had problems finding a partner to help her caseload, she is reluctant to blame any problem in her line of work.

Contrary to what others see, Carolan actually sees cases as running smoothly thanks to her control over the cases she takes on, the remote hearings and people’s changing perceptions of their circumstances.

“I think (clients) find it difficult to get out of their relationships,” she said.

But even with more divorces on her way, Carolan believes people are less likely to fight in most of her cases, and she’s also noticed remote experiences helping cases reach resolution more quickly, at least in her own experience.

“People are much wiser now,” she said. “They realize that there is really no need to waste their time, money and psychological resources fighting these long battles. Is it still out there? Obviously. But I actually think the trend is going the other way, as leveraging self-help platforms is actually the way to go.” that people want to follow, and most people don’t want to spend $30,000 to $50,000 for a breakup.