Perhaps you’ve heard the term Divorce Day, a depiction used for a particular day of the year on which family law offices are allegedly inundated with queries and concerns regarding marital dissolution. Supposedly divorce attorneys in Illinois and nationally are besieged with calls and office visits on that day, to a degree unparalleled on any other day of the year.
For the record, Divorce Day is said to occur on the first workday of any given year. This year, that was precisely one week ago, on Monday, January 4.
There’s just one problem regarding Divorce Day: Reportedly, it doesn’t exist. According to one recent poll, an overwhelming majority of family law attorney respondents say that nothing untoward happened on January 4. In fact, nothing exceptional regarding divorce-related inquiries occurred at all during the first week of the year.
The hype surrounding the day is thus largely — if not totally — based on a complete fiction. As one article on Divorce Day states, designating a single day to spotlight marital difficulty and the hard choices many couples must make “trivializes the very painful and difficult decisions couples make when they separate.”
Now, many divorce attorneys do note that they experience a general uptick in divorce-related contacts in the early part of a year, which no doubt owes to the pent-up demand from personal decisions to delay such inquiries during the preceding winter holiday season. Moreover, there is evidence indicating that online searches focused upon family law matters do jump during January.
As noted in the above-cited article, it is important that, regardless of when an attorney fields a contact regarding a divorce-related question or concern, he or she ensures that a caller or client “have access to appropriate and balanced information” regarding divorce, That centrally includes professional feedback and representation concerning conflict management, reducing stress on children, various avenues for divorcing (for example, a formalized court process versus mediation or arbitration) and other important matters.
The divorce process should not at all be focused on sensationalism or what allegedly happens on a specific day. Indeed, marital dissolution is a process that plays out over time and can encompass many complex and detailed considerations.
A proven divorce attorney can carefully address all those concerns.