Lisa Brooks explains how her own life experiences inform her practice of family law.

THE DINNER

6:00 p.m.

Lisa’s home

Crackers with Black Olive Tapinade, Spaghetti with Tomato and Basil, Tossed Salad with Cynthia’s dressing

THE DISCUSSION

Lisa Brooks has always had a plan.  When she moved to Uxbridge at the age of 5, she had already decided that she would practice law.  Before she finished high school she met the man she would marry.

She never planned to be making dinner in her own home and she is self conscious despite the fact that she has grown the tomatoes she boils down into sauce and has made her own salad dressing.  Downplaying the fact that this is a truly home cooked meal she says, “I’ve also learned how to open jars. This is about survival now. I tell myself that if you want what is in that jar, you have to get it open.  I visualize it open. You have to want it badly enough. I wouldn’t have known that.”

Lisa is ridiculously funny and increasingly wise.  She is not just talking about jars.  She says that her own divorce “is not that unusual. [She] sees more and more relatively civilized arrangements” through her family law practice. She recognizes that “there are so many normal people who want their matters resolved as quickly and as amicably and as inexpensively as possible so that they can get on with their lives.”

Lisa is certainly getting on with hers.  She is an active member of the Uxbridge Rotary Club because she has “a humanitarian side.” Considering the state of the world, she asks herself, “how can I have this much space and this much stuff? Even the fact that I have clean water freaks me out. I can just go to a tap all day and have a glass of water. That will probably always trouble me. It’s appreciating the small stuff, but that’s big stuff: clean water, food and shelter.”   She credits her choice to live simply as being thrifty, but her sense of justice is a more apparent explanation.

It took Lisa about five years to realize that she “didn’t love the litigation. [She] thought that was what [she] should do.”  She is now a lawyer who does not go to court, explaining that “it’s very negative. It doesn’t seem productive. It feels like you’re putting a lot of effort into moving the clients’ positions further apart.”  She is quick to caution that, “of course that doesn’t include family violence.”  Those cases often go to court because of the need to address the power imbalance.

She knows that “the overwhelming majority of cases don’t go to court. An even smaller percentage goes to trial.”  Lisa’s decision to work exclusively on collaborative cases that do not involve litigation is consistent with her desire “to practice in a way that fits with [her] personality. [She] doesn’t want to go to the office and have to be a different person.”

Lisa can suffer few illusions about herself in such a small community.  She explains that when she walks down the street she basically knows everyone. This is intentional; part of her “perfect life plan is to have everyone who’s important in a twenty minute radius.”

As for other plans, Lisa has learned to be flexible. “I totally had my life all planned out. It gives you a sense of security. You have all the time in the world. Then it’s taken away. I don’t want to plan anymore. I’m not planning the future, I’m just doing really tangible things.”

For now the tangible things involve practicing law on her own terms, working weekends on the farm with her former husband, renovating her own home, doting on her nieces, and enjoying some dear friends.  She probably could not have planned it any better.

THE DISCUSSION

Lisa made two requests.  The first was that I identify her cat Marlow by name.  She thought it was important that she “sound like a crazy cat lady”.  She is so far from that stereotype that people would be wise to check their assumptions about a woman living on her own, with or without a cat.  Lisa’s enthusiasm for life is something she has earned through careful self examination and it is clear that she would not trade all she has learned since her marriage ended.

The second request was that I mention the generous leftovers she packed up for me. Lisa is proud to be taking care of herself. She can laugh that she wanted to be a lawyer because she knew that they had information and people went to them for help.  The information she has now makes her helpful in a different way.  And she has decided to be very happy with what is left of the plans she made so long ago.