“Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15).
Keywords for lawyers
By living City
Keywords for lawyers
A Belgian attorney applies a spirit of unity at work.
By Isabelle de Moffarts
For 15 years I have worked as a lawyer in Brussels at a small law firm with 10 lawyers. I practice in different areas, but mainly in private law (family, tort, real estate) and immigration law.
For me, this profession is fascinating. From the outside or through the lens of some movies, you might think that the key words to describe the profession are eloquence, strength, strategy, and success. My experience in trying to apply the spirituality of unity leads me to other words could express it better: trust, truth, respect and creativity.
Trust
Starting with the effort to understand my clients, I try to establish relationships of trust with them. Together we look for th best solution, beginning with the situation as it is, even if we would have wanted circumstances to be different.
I respect their wishes, of course within the limits of my conscience. I do not drag them to a trial if they fear the cost and the consequences. I ask their opinion before each decision. I try to open lines of communication with the client, resisting the “expert” temptation to control every aspect of the process.
This reliance on the client’s input is not necessarily equivalent to weakness; on the contrary, it can be a source of strength. The more I “enter” into what the client is living, the more I can express it, give reasons for behavior and give a voice to feelings of injustice. It also helps the judge better understand the situation.
Recently, a real estate client asked me to help him with a very complex inheritance matter. I hesitated to represent him on this, in part because I lacked the expertise, and in part because the trial would have been in Flemish, which is not my first language. The client insisted: he had started the case with a specialist in inheritance law, but felt that this lawyer did not allow him to be sufficiently involved in the matter. He preferred to work with me simply because of the relationship of trust and collaboration that we had already built.
Truth
Clients come with their own perception of reality: a feeling of injustice, a desire for revenge, the certainty of being right or an attitude of victimization. I try to fully welcome them as they are, but I also do not hesitate to speak up when I do not share their vision of reality.
Suffering can blind people to the fact that the other side may have legitimate reasons for their actions. I feel it is my duty to share my point of view with my client, with respect and readiness to accept that I may have not fully understood the situation. I see that this relationship of truth gives deep roots to our collaboration and often leads to profound agreement on a particular strategy. When clients choose an option that I would not have chosen, I respectfully inform them of my reservations.
Respect
Respect for the client is an obvious principle of our profession, but I also feel called to respect my adversaries. I try to use exact words to describe facts without unnecessarily denigrating the opponent. This can be very difficult in practice, especially when you are in the heat of the conflict. The judge often appreciates the capacity to step back and stick to the facts and concrete claims without useless aggression.
This attitude does not keep me from strongly denouncing injustice. In fact, the more I live the value of respect, the better I can present my client’s claims. And each time I recognize my mistakes or the mistakes of my clients, it increases my own credibility. By not pretending to be right on everything, I have more authority to ask for what I see
as right.
In some extreme cases, it may seem impossible to express respect for an adversary. In a major trial before the criminal court in France, the May 2008 Fourniret case, I was representing the only survivor of a serial killer who was accused of murdering seven young women. My client, a young girl full of idealism, hoped that her testimony might contribute to the conversion of the accused, or at least help him to be aware of the wrong he committed and perhaps even confess other crimes that were not yet known.
The parents of the other victims saw the accused as a monster who no longer deserved to be treated as a human being. I fully respected their suffering and their feelings toward the accused, even if I did not fully share their opinion. Personally I am convinced that even a man who commits tremendous evil remains a human being.
In my closing arguments, I tried to express both aspects: on one hand, lucidity in regard to the evil that he committed and a refusal to enter into his manipulative game by speaking sternly to him; on the other hand, faith that he might one day be capable of an act of contrition, even though he had been given over to lies and falsity his entire life.
I tried to focus less on the accused and more on the dynamics of life that had been created through love among the victims.
Almost all the other parents came to me afterward to thank me for my sensitivity toward their position. The day after, I learned that my remarks were the only thing that had touched the accused. This obviously did not change his perverse character, but who knows if part of the message stayed with him and continues to work on him during his
life sentence.
Creativity
My training as a lawyer at times brings me to see the world in a polarized way: those right versus those wrong. But reality is much more complex. When trial is the best option, I try to conduct it in a manner that is sensitive to preserving relationships.
At the end of the Christmas holiday this past year one of my clients phoned me, panicked because her son’s father had refused to return the boy to her custody and had indicated that he intended to bring him to the African country where he works. All of this was in violation of the custody agreement. There were many legitimate reasons to be outraged by this, and I immediately moved for a hearing before the court. The law was clearly on my client’s side, even if the boy had given false testimony to the police that she was mistreating him.
By really listening to my client, however, I came to understand that, even though she was very angry, she also appreciated that the boy really wanted to live with his father. It was not that he was unhappy with her, but rather that he needed his father at this point in his development.
This understanding complicated my client’s goals. If we were to consider the “best interests” of the child, it no longer meant “winning” the case, which would have been pretty easy. The new goal was to renegotiate the custody agreement so that the boy’s transfer to his father would also guarantee the relationship with his mother at a distance.
At times, it was difficult to navigate my client’s emotions and competing desires. Creativity and perseverance were needed, but after three weeks of tough negotiations, the boy flew to Africa, peaceful and sure of both his parents’ love.
Light in the shadows
In all sincerity, my experience as a lawyer also brings to mind other, tougher words: suffering, failure, powerlessness, doubt, absurdity.
I cannot heal a raped girl. I cannot bring a child back to life. I cannot reconcile the parents who are set on destroying each another. I cannot shield the despairing foreigner from expulsion.
I also experience a sense of suffering and failure when I receive a decision that seems absurd, when it seems that the judge did not listen to arguments that, in my opinion, were well-founded, or when I notice that I am giving way to the logic of the conflict, forgetting my great ideals.
Many of these “whys” remain without answers.
My task is to live this drama fully, to be there to accompany those who suffer so as to protect their human dignity. My greatest joy is when I am able to help them open their horizons to new perspectives and discover a sense of hope.
Isabelle de Moffarts practices law in Brussels. She shared this experience at the international conference for young lawyers in Italy last February.
Lawyers reaffirm their ideals
A global network of law students and professionals gathers for a series of profound conversations.
What emerges is a vision of legal work that is socially responsive and spiritually rich.
The following stories will bring you their experiences and reflections:
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Keywords for lawyers
A Belgian attorney applies a spirit of unity at work.
By Isabelle de Moffarts
For 15 years I have worked as a lawyer in Brussels at a small law firm with 10 lawyers. I practice in different areas, but mainly in private law (family, tort, real estate) and immigration law.
For me, this profession is fascinating. From the outside or through the lens of some movies, you might think that the key words to describe the profession are eloquence, strength, strategy, and success. My experience in trying to apply the spirituality of unity leads me to other words could express it better: trust, truth, respect and creativity.
Trust
Starting with the effort to understand my clients, I try to establish relationships of trust with them. Together we look for th best solution, beginning with the situation as it is, even if we would have wanted circumstances to be different.
I respect their wishes, of course within the limits of my conscience. I do not drag them to a trial if they fear the cost and the consequences. I ask their opinion before each decision. I try to open lines of communication with the client, resisting the “expert” temptation to control every aspect of the process.
This reliance on the client’s input is not necessarily equivalent to weakness; on the contrary, it can be a source of strength. The more I “enter” into what the client is living, the more I can express it, give reasons for behavior and give a voice to feelings of injustice. It also helps the judge better understand the situation.
Recently, a real estate client asked me to help him with a very complex inheritance matter. I hesitated to represent him on this, in part because I lacked the expertise, and in part because the trial would have been in Flemish, which is not my first language. The client insisted: he had started the case with a specialist in inheritance law, but felt that this lawyer did not allow him to be sufficiently involved in the matter. He preferred to work with me simply because of the relationship of trust and collaboration that we had already built.
Truth
Clients come with their own perception of reality: a feeling of injustice, a desire for revenge, the certainty of being right or an attitude of victimization. I try to fully welcome them as they are, but I also do not hesitate to speak up when I do not share their vision of reality.
Suffering can blind people to the fact that the other side may have legitimate reasons for their actions. I feel it is my duty to share my point of view with my client, with respect and readiness to accept that I may have not fully understood the situation. I see that this relationship of truth gives deep roots to our collaboration and often leads to profound agreement on a particular strategy. When clients choose an option that I would not have chosen, I respectfully inform them of my reservations.
Respect
Respect for the client is an obvious principle of our profession, but I also feel called to respect my adversaries. I try to use exact words to describe facts without unnecessarily denigrating the opponent. This can be very difficult in practice, especially when you are in the heat of the conflict. The judge often appreciates the capacity to step back and stick to the facts and concrete claims without useless aggression.
This attitude does not keep me from strongly denouncing injustice. In fact, the more I live the value of respect, the better I can present my client’s claims. And each time I recognize my mistakes or the mistakes of my clients, it increases my own credibility. By not pretending to be right on everything, I have more authority to ask for what I see
as right.
In some extreme cases, it may seem impossible to express respect for an adversary. In a major trial before the criminal court in France, the May 2008 Fourniret case, I was representing the only survivor of a serial killer who was accused of murdering seven young women. My client, a young girl full of idealism, hoped that her testimony might contribute to the conversion of the accused, or at least help him to be aware of the wrong he committed and perhaps even confess other crimes that were not yet known.
The parents of the other victims saw the accused as a monster who no longer deserved to be treated as a human being. I fully respected their suffering and their feelings toward the accused, even if I did not fully share their opinion. Personally I am convinced that even a man who commits tremendous evil remains a human being.
In my closing arguments, I tried to express both aspects: on one hand, lucidity in regard to the evil that he committed and a refusal to enter into his manipulative game by speaking sternly to him; on the other hand, faith that he might one day be capable of an act of contrition, even though he had been given over to lies and falsity his entire life.
I tried to focus less on the accused and more on the dynamics of life that had been created through love among the victims.
Almost all the other parents came to me afterward to thank me for my sensitivity toward their position. The day after, I learned that my remarks were the only thing that had touched the accused. This obviously did not change his perverse character, but who knows if part of the message stayed with him and continues to work on him during his
life sentence.
Creativity
My training as a lawyer at times brings me to see the world in a polarized way: those right versus those wrong. But reality is much more complex. When trial is the best option, I try to conduct it in a manner that is sensitive to preserving relationships.
At the end of the Christmas holiday this past year one of my clients phoned me, panicked because her son’s father had refused to return the boy to her custody and had indicated that he intended to bring him to the African country where he works. All of this was in violation of the custody agreement. There were many legitimate reasons to be outraged by this, and I immediately moved for a hearing before the court. The law was clearly on my client’s side, even if the boy had given false testimony to the police that she was mistreating him.
By really listening to my client, however, I came to understand that, even though she was very angry, she also appreciated that the boy really wanted to live with his father. It was not that he was unhappy with her, but rather that he needed his father at this point in his development.
This understanding complicated my client’s goals. If we were to consider the “best interests” of the child, it no longer meant “winning” the case, which would have been pretty easy. The new goal was to renegotiate the custody agreement so that the boy’s transfer to his father would also guarantee the relationship with his mother at a distance.
At times, it was difficult to navigate my client’s emotions and competing desires. Creativity and perseverance were needed, but after three weeks of tough negotiations, the boy flew to Africa, peaceful and sure of both his parents’ love.
Light in the shadows
In all sincerity, my experience as a lawyer also brings to mind other, tougher words: suffering, failure, powerlessness, doubt, absurdity.
I cannot heal a raped girl. I cannot bring a child back to life. I cannot reconcile the parents who are set on destroying each another. I cannot shield the despairing foreigner from expulsion.
I also experience a sense of suffering and failure when I receive a decision that seems absurd, when it seems that the judge did not listen to arguments that, in my opinion, were well-founded, or when I notice that I am giving way to the logic of the conflict, forgetting my great ideals.
Many of these “whys” remain without answers.
My task is to live this drama fully, to be there to accompany those who suffer so as to protect their human dignity. My greatest joy is when I am able to help them open their horizons to new perspectives and discover a sense of hope.
Isabelle de Moffarts practices law in Brussels. She shared this experience at the international conference for young lawyers in Italy last February.
© 2012 by the Focolare Movement (New York) •