Parenting After Divorce (AND during marriage!)
Today I read an Opinion piece in the New York Times, and it’s so good, I think it deserves a spot in my blog for ya’ll to read. This article is just about parenting after divorce, but gives some insight into How NOT to Get Divorced. I particularly encourage all those who have an iron grip on what they believe their “rights” are with custody. You might be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
A Change is as Good as a Break
I must be a Change Magnet, though I can’t complain (much). Most of the changes I’ve experienced in the last decade or two have moved me forward in a positive path. Some have made me want to jump off the path and travel paths no more. But my current Change is just straight up Wonderful.
I had opened up my own solo practice here in Wyoming, but again, I was solid family law. I do have a great love for people who are going through their own family law experiences, and I do love to help. But as I might have mentioned before, family law is HARD. It’s emotionally exhausting, it’s painful, and it never seems to end. Best one can hope for at the end is that they’re not too beaten up to start again, and that their kids are still healthy and happy. I know that law, and those people, and their pain. I have lived it myself. So having options other than just family law have always been on my radar.
And just when I thought I would be doomed to be a solo forever, I saw an ad in the Jackson Hole News. It was for an associate attorney, at Lubing, Gregory & Rectanus, LLC. They’re a law firm in Jackson, they do very little family law, and they liked me (They REALLY LIKED ME!!!) enough to hire me.
LGR is legal utopia for me. I still have some family cases (though I’m taking new ones on a very limited basis), but I get to learn about other areas of the law as well. This is a very good thing for one such as I being a new-to-Wyoming lawyer. And they also have cases in Idaho, soooo since I’m also a fresh Idaho lawyer, I’ll learn that law as well while I work on cases with the partners.
These are good people. The entire staff–partners, associates, office managers, legal assistants–feel like a family. And having moved to Star Valley, Wyoming, and joining a Jackson Hole law firm, I think I *might* have Arrived. I want to stay with LGR until I die (or retire, whichever comes first). And I have a new Life Theme Song. Have a listen ;).
We’re Open!
I know it’s been a very long time since I posted an article. It’s been a VERY busy year for me! I’ve relocated to Wyoming, and am licensed here as well as staying licensed in Utah. I’m also working on my application to the Idaho Bar, so (fingers crossed) I can add that to my credentials soon.
And I am now taking new cases. I’m doing GAL work as well as domestic and a smattering of other civil law in Wyoming, and am available to take domestic and minor criminal cases in Box Elder, Cache, and Rich counties in Utah. I’m excited to learn new courts and new law (and there IS new domestic law in Utah! Stay tuned for THAT information.)
It’s been a very chaotic several months, but I’m finally settled enough to help YOU get resolution in your legal case. You can contact me at marca.tanner@gmail.com, or through the comments section on any blog post.
Cheers to new starts and new hope!
…from 2020: The Lost Year
Is it just me, or does everyone feel like we somehow lost a year? I find myself looking back, thinking about different events, and thinking “this happened last year.” But it didn’t. Whatever Thing I’m trying to place in time happened in 2019, BP (Before Plague). The Plague and the political and social climate here in the US brought out the best–and worst–in people. What have we learned, as a society, as a country, during the Lost Year Called 2020?
Here’s what I learned:
I like working from home. My anxiety and stress levels plummet when working from home, because I don’t feel like I’m being pulled apart by Family and Work interests. I can work all day, taking breaks to do the dishes or start the wash, reviewing contracts from my porch couch, while listening to the sounds of bugs, birds, and the breeze. My brain can focus on work, then switch to home, then to work, almost seamlessly. Women CAN have it all, but it’s best Had working from home.
I have stronger convictions about the marginalized and working poor and how politics and society affect them. According to my family, I’m a liberal. Whatever. I call myself a Pragmatic Christian, though the Christian label is just to sum up the teachings of Christ from the Bible. It could just as well be Pragmatic Buddhism, or Pragmatic Islam, or Hindu, or (name a world religion that teaches love for all)–that’s what I am.
Reading the whole article matters. A lot. There have been so many inflammatory headlines flying around out there, on “news” websites, Facebook, Huffpost, you name it. I am best served if I research an issue, check out the sides of it worth checking out (and no, the lady who thinks Washington DC is full of lizard people, and that women’s health issues are caused by sex with demons, is NOT a source worth wasting my time on), and make up my own mind, without the yammering of conflicting opinions and biases.
Fact check. Fact check, fact check, fact check. And bring your documentation before you start telling me something that you saw that a friend of yours on Facebook posted from the friend of another friend, who is the cousin, of someone who Knows. I’m not interested. I’m gonna Google whatever you told me. And I’ll set you straight. Nobody likes being set straight by a middle-aged, greying, white woman lawyer. Save yourself the pain ;).
And I really DO want world peace. (view from my porch, moonrise June 5, 2020.) 
Liberty & Justice…?
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, I was a very naive person. In my sweet, sheltered, fantasy land, law enforcement was always right. Judges were always fair. Lawyers always did the right thing in working for their clients.
I didn’t have to grow up very much, however, to learn for myself that none of those things were always true. Sometimes law enforcement officers are bullies. Sometimes they profile people and harass them. Sometimes they’re just straight up tired and take shortcuts just to get a case done. Judges have egos, and personality flaws, and again, are just straight up human and don’t always get it right. And lawyers….let’s not even go there.
I support the work of the Innocence Project. They are an organization around the country that represents people on claims of actual innocence who have been wrongfully convicted. It happens. Sometimes out of racism. Sometimes because law enforcement just wants to get a distasteful case out of the way. Sometimes because a prosecutor wants a conviction to get support for re-election (and a big reason why I DO NOT think county prosecutor, or judges, should be elected officials.)
In real life, people get railroaded and wrongfully convicted. I’ve seen it close to home; I’ve seen it close to me. I had a domestic client who was wrongfully convicted (I did not represent him in his criminal case, btw–I’m not qualified for that type of criminal defense). His case was overturned on appeal, but not before he spent 3 years in state prison and was practically unemployable on release. You can read his case here, from the Utah Appellate Court (the State Supremes declined to hear it, because they felt the Appellate court got it right.)
And then there’s this case…Chris Tapp. Chris grew up in and now lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder, and spent nearly 20 years in prison before his conviction was over turned and he was released. The Innocence Project, and a local public defender, worked his case tirelessly–because he didn’t do it. Sadly, however, when you erase 19 years of a person’s life, they can’t just come back out and pick up where they left off.
So not only do I support the Innocence Project, I support compensation for the wrongfully accused and convicted. It’s the least the community can do, after it’s ripped a person’s life to shreds.
To support the Innocence Project’s work, go to their website, www.innocenceproject. org, and see what you can do to help.
College of Law Ranked Best School for Practical Training and Best Value Law School
My alma mater, yet again, rising to the top!
The University of Wyoming had another successful academic year earning distinction as a Best Law School for Practical Training and a Best Value Law School by PreLaw and The National Jurist Magazines. The College of Law has garnered recognition in both categories for six years running.
The 2019 fall edition of PreLaw and the National Jurist Magazines highlighted the UW College of Law as a best value law school. Under the methodology used to determine rank, the College of Law proved that graduates have excellent chances of passing the bar and getting a legal job without taking on a ton of debt. In addition to the obvious factors of tuition costs, costs of living, and average debt load upon graduation, the ultimate bar passage (two-year pass rate), and employment rates were also taken into consideration.
The College of Law has remained dedicated to keeping the cost of attendance affordable…
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It's the End of the World As We Know It…
*Updates to the courts procedure while we’re going through this COVID-19 thing can be found at this link, which is to the Utah Courts webpage for updates.
Ok, so not really. It IS the end of the world as we know it for at least a few weeks to months. I’m avoiding Facebook, etc., myself, because I had been before (depression + Facebook=kill me now, most of the time) but it’s even worse now. My family is basically prepared. When the store shelves cleared immediately of toilet paper and water, I had a dozen and a half or so rolls, and kept wondering who these weird people were who thought a pandemic was the equivalent of an earthquake, and that our city water would suddenly become contaminated and undrinkable.
That’s not how pandemics work, ya’ll. That’s how earthquakes work (which as a sidenote, actually happened this morning early in the Salt Lake Valley, so maybe those folks are glad they bought up all the water…more about THAT here.).
Anyway. The beauty of my job is that I really CAN do it anywhere there’s an internet connection, and on Monday, I dragged my desktop home from my day job, and got myself set up to work from home for the next few weeks. I love working from home. As an anxious depressive, getting out of bed in the morning is excruciating, especially knowing I’ll have to, like, put on pants and makeup and not look like a slob and stuff. These past couple of days, I have literally dragged myself out of bed, put on my bathrobe, and sat down at my computer at 8am. No makeup required. No pants required. That’s straight up perfection, my friends.
It’s also really fantastic that most of us really DO have technology literally at our fingertips that allows for all kinds of communication without having to be WITH anyone. My smartphone has face to face calling (Facetime because it’s an Apple, but Skype and Facebook Messenger do the same thing). I can text if I don’t feel like talking. I can receive and send email from my phone as well. And so can 95% of the world’s population (that’s totally a guess. I have no data to support that percentage.)
The population that I’M speaking to now, though, you folks in Utah, you who are scared or confused about the legal system, who are afraid to leave your homes, but afraid to not be able to leave your homes, I’m still here for you. I’ve been doing a lot of family law legal consulting. For those who would qualify for CAPSA’s services, I do it for free. For those of you who actually CAN pay some legal fees, I charge $75/hr, which I can take through Venmo or Paypal or Square on a credit card. You CAN still talk to a lawyer–I can Facetime/etc with you. Or you can email.
The point here is this: Don’t feel like you’re stuck in a situation that you don’t want to be in because you don’t have access to any legal counsel. I’m available virtually by appointment (which you can make by emailing me–see my About tab at the top of this page). Or you can just email if you have a specific question. A lot of your FAQ’s are already answered on my blog here…just go to the “search” box at the top right of the page, and type in a keyword you need info on, and everything I’ve written about that topic will come up. Hell, if push came to shove, the courts are still open, and I can e-file any case documents for a legal case I’m working on, without having to leave my home office. (I actually HAVE completed entire cases without ever traveling to a courthouse.)
So keep that in mind. Don’t panic. It may be the End of the World as We Know It, but You Can Still Feel Fine ;).
Family and Child Legal Advocacy Clinic: Impacting Lives Inside and Outside the Courtroom
The clinics at UW Law Rock! More news from their neck o’ the woods…
Students in the Family and Child Legal Advocacy Clinic have been hard at work throughout the academic year, navigating the daily grind. While the perception that many cases are not always glamorous, for the people whose lives they are affecting, they are everything. Students in the clinic have thrived under the high stakes, high-pressure issues for their clients, and proven that they can hold their own both inside and outside the courtroom.
Some stand out student performances in the clinic have covered bench trials, settlements, and everything in-between.
In September of 2019, third-year law student Heidi Reeves-Messner, who serves the student director of the clinic, tackled two bench trials back to back, and achieved positive verdicts in both cases.
The first trial was argued in the District Court of Wyoming for the First Judicial District in front of the Honorable Catherine Rogers (J.D. ’97). Reeves-Messner argued in a Guardian…
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Mental Illness and Working on a “Broken” Brain.
I haven’t posted for a very long time. And it’s not for lack of ideas for blog posts. I’ve actually got a sticky note attached to my computer with a couple of awesome ideas…I just haven’t had the capacity to put words together. Or maybe I just couldn’t muster the massive amount of energy it takes to put words together.
I’ve written before about my anxiety and depression. The last few months it’s gotten really bad–worse than it was when I closed my law practice just about 5 years ago now. But a lawyer can’t just drop out of life and crawl into a hole and sleep, even when that feels like the best possible solution (I’ve got BILLS, ya’ll). Especially when that lawyer has a regular 9-5 corporate gig. So I decided I needed to be proactive and get on top of it. Back in October I went to my primary medical care provider and discussed options, but had also looked into TMS therapy. At my appointment with my primary care, we decided I’d bump up the dosage on my anti anxiety maintenance medication, and bump up the dosage on the benzo I was taking as needed when I’m in a bad place, but hold off on trying another antidepressant. I wanted to wait and see what happened with TMS.
TMS stands for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. You can read more about it here: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/about/pac-20384625. It’s not necessarily covered by insurance. There was some hoop jumping to get my insurance to cover it, but they did end up doing so on a one-off basis. My treatment protocol is 20-30 minutes at a time; I’ve been going during my lunch hour at work, every weekday less holidays, since the beginning of December. The clinic I’ve been doing it through shows excellent results in most people. Like, 86% respond favorably, 66% go into complete remission of their depressive symptoms.
Sadly, my depression is really secondary to my anxiety and panic disorders…and TMS is less effective for people like me. In my case, I’m in that 14% that it’s not been effective for at all, and I only have 5 treatments left out of 36. However, going through TMS DID put me under the care of an awesome psychiatrist I wouldn’t have gotten into otherwise. I started new medications (there actually ARE meds I hadn’t tried before!!) just over a week ago. And thankfully, the new anxiety med has completely knocked my anxiety down. Which means that my depression is now manifesting more than the anxiety, because it takes at least a month for antidepressants to reach therapeutic levels in the brain.
So now I feel like Nothing. Flat. I have little to no interest in anything, and I’m exhausted. But after being in a state of near constant panic for the past 4 months, it’s kind of a relief to have my brain not revved in fear 24 hours a day. Because that’s what anxiety feels like to me–my brain is in a continuous state of dread, worry, panic, and stress, like I’m hanging on by my fingernails, and constantly on the verge of tears. I don’t sleep well, and when I do sleep, I wake up in the middle of the night for no reason at all and can’t go back to sleep, or because I’m having horribly graphic violent nightmares that have scared me awake and then I can’t go back to sleep. To say it’s exhausting and distressing is an understatement similar to those warning signs that say “Warning: 900 degrees Fahrenheit is Hot. It will burn you.” Duh.
I was thinking about this this morning and remembered an incident from way back in the day, when my Grandpa Tanner was still alive, but was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease. He’d fallen and broken his hip, but kept trying to get out of bed. Alzheimer’s causes its sufferers to “time travel,” if you will, and hallucinate that they are living at some time in their past. My grandpa regressed to his younger years when he was a cowboy in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and had to go feed and herd cows. He kept trying to get out of bed because, in his mind, he needed to go to work. The nurses didn’t know what to do with him, so they called my folks to help. My dad was talking to him, trying to convince him he needed to stay in bed with his broken hip. Finally, Daddy said to Grandpa, “Dad, you wouldn’t make a horse work on a broken leg, wouldja?” And Grandpa thought about it for a beat and said, “No. I wouldn’t.” And he calmed down, and quit trying to get out of bed.
And so it is with those of us with broken minds–because mental illness IS all in my head, just like asthma is all is the lungs, and scoliosis is all in the spine. I have a chemical imbalance. I likely always will. I’m going to be realistic about what I can do, and do all that I can, but not beat myself up over what I can’t do but think I “should” (terrible word, that “Should”). I’m going to treat my mental illnesses, and stay on top of them, but stop expecting myself to “work on a broken leg”…because even an old cowboy will tell you that you don’t work anyone on a broken leg. You gotta get that thing healed.
I can be taught.
UW College of Named Top Law School for Family Law
I worked in this clinic (then the Domestic Violence Legal Assistance Project) my last 2 semesters in law school. It was a fantastic practical experience, as well as an honor to work with Dona Playton at that time. I could not be more proud of her and the University of Wyoming College of Law, my alma mater, and the best law school I could have gone to.
The University of Wyoming College of Law was recently recognized by PreLaw Magazine and the National Jurist as a Best Law School for Family Law. This accolade comes after the recent, permanent hire of Dona Playton as an Associate Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Family & Child Legal Advocacy Clinic.
Graduating for the UW College of Law herself in 1993, Professor Playton returns to the College of Law in a tenure-track position. Playton began teaching at the College of Law in 2002 as a Senior Lecturer after serving as a Supervising Attorney at the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. It was then that she founded the Family and Child Legal Advocacy Clinic.
Playton briefly left the College of Law when she served as Director of the Honoring Families Initiative at the University of Denver Institute for the Advancement of the American…
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PTA Mom to Lady Lawyer 