This seems to be the overriding message that everyone even remotely involved with the process is shouting from their lungs. I don’t know whether to take them at face value and run for my life, or rationalize their warnings away to my possible detriment. If I go into Family Law, will I become a haggard, angry shell of a human within 6 months as they all seem to suggest?

I know that plenty of people joke around about their career choice, especially in front of the young and uninitiated. Oh, here’s Suzie our new PT intern. “Ha, ha, ha Suzie… run for your life!” Or say hi to Joe our new Marketing intern. “Get out now while you still can! HA!” It’s usually pretty obvious that these kinds of you-don’t-know-what-you’re-getting-yourself-into warnings are only half-hearted and half-true. But there is so much more urgency to it when an attorney in a nice suit approaches you and says it in a serious tone, and then you notice his dead eyes, frazzled hair, 10-year old loafers, and 100 cases a year.

I don’t doubt that Family Law can be trying. Maybe the resistance I’m getting is due to the environment? These attorneys are working in public service, making next to nothing while trying to decide who is the better parent for a stunted and abused four year old: a mom with serious psychiatric problems who deadbolts her daughter in her room, or a father who just got out of prison on a 6 year sentence for child abuse. And yet… I seemed to pick up the same feelings from the attorney who practices divorce law in the suburbs and who probably makes over $200,000 a year.

I even had to defend my choice of Family Law today to one of the county’s Family Law judges, who herself seems to hate the subject altogether. What am I getting myself into? Am I making a huge mistake? Or am I just talking to all the wrong people?