Carlton Marcyan Discusses High-Stakes Divorce Cases and the Role of Mediation

Hi, Stephen. Thank you very much. Carlton Marcyan, and I’m an attorney and CPA. I’ve been practising law for, my God, it’s about 42 years at this point. And hard to believe, it goes by, the first 30 years, it go by very slowly, and the last 10 have been, it goes by like lightning. But primarily, I’ve been practising law in the area of family law namely divorce law. And it’s, I began in 83 with my former firm and was there for about 40 years. And then decided to take on a bit different pace and a different focus on my practice. And with a firm in the Chicago area called Buckley Jackson, probably JACKSON BUCKLEY & PFANENSTIEL.

And we do primarily family law and I’ve, I’m still litigating to some extent and I’ve been establishing a mediation practice over the past five or six years. And it handled both sides of divorce cases, whether they be husband or wife. And, it’s been, it’s never a dull moment. Let’s put it that way. It’s always different and always challenging. And, you never know what tricks the other side is trying to pull over you. So it’s a big puzzle that you’re constantly trying to figure out.

Well, you know, when I was in college, I went to a small school in Michigan called Kalamazoo College. And my major then was health science, pre-med. And after a couple of years, I just realised it was, I really wasn’t enthused about the subject matter. So I decided to change my majors and I had to switch schools because I switched into accounting. I had the advice of a good friend of mine who said, you know, accounting might, you might like that. It’s a good basic bit of a skill set they have and you can use it in a lot of different ways. So, okay. So I started taking classes at DePaul University in Chicago. Used to be a basketball powerhouse back in the day, back in the late seventies, but they had a very good, still do a very excellent accounting program and

Graduated from there in 1976 and then actually went to work for an international accounting firm. Back then it was called Cooper’s and Library and now its Price Waterhouse Cooper’s. They merged together some years ago and did that. But I knew I wanted to practise law after Cooper’s and Library and after a little bit more than a year, I started law school in the Chicago area. School is now known as University of Illinois Chicago School of Law.

Then after law school, went back to Coopersen Library and did tax law for another year, year and a and decided I really wanted to litigate. And at that time, and like anything with opportunities, you’re sometimes channelled into particular areas of what’s available, not necessarily what you want to go into. But I’d never taken any domestic relation classes in law school, but an opportunity came up with this firm, it was relatively new, but really on the cutting edge with some great partners, Phil named Joe Ducanto, Don Schiller, Charlie Fleck. And, was a great place to learn and spent the bulk of my career over there. So how did, you know, how did I decide to go into it? I just liked the idea of practising law and representing people.

He had some, some uncles and other close friends that were attorneys and thought the work would be intriguing. Like I said before, I, you know, it’s just trying to figure out answers to puzzles. And I enjoy trying to figure those things out and taking a look at the complex and trying to make it simple so people can understand it and work through it. And, you know, the rest is history. So 43 years or 44 years later, still doing it.

And the nice thing about practising law is that it’s something that you can do ongoingly. You know, most jobs in corporate America, you get to a certain age and, you know, when they’re done with you, they’re done. You got to go. You’re retired and you’re left kind of high and dry. And as long as you enjoy your work and like practising, the law is a great place to go to because they keep on doing it until, you know, physically or mentally you’re incapable of it. Nobody’s going to tell you to stop doing it if you’re capable of practising. You know, he’s hanging out a shingle too, if you want to. So, and you meet a lot of interesting people, not only the clients, but other lawyers and judges. And it’s a challenging environment, but never boring.

Well, you know, that kind of changes during your career in terms of the optimal target audience, so to speak. You know, I think because of the work I do in the financial background, typically I am involved with those that are entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs and C level executives and other professional athletes I’ve represented as well. you know, the holdings and payments and payouts are a little more complicated, retirement planning and retirement plans to figure out stock options, RSUs, all of those things. So, the typical client is either the client who’s involved in those types of levels of occupations or their spouses.

Because then the challenge is when you’re representing the spouses to figure all of that out, when you’re representing the employee, so to speak, then you can get the answers a little more readily. But that’s the target audience. it’s, again, it ties in with my skillset with the accounting. While I was in law school, I also worked for the IRS for a year doing research for them. So with a combination of the tax experience and the accounting, it has come to prove very, very helpful and beneficial in representing clients in high-state financial divorce cases.

Well, I think the heavy duty financial background makes me unique. I also, I’m kind of a fan of staying educated and as a hobby, acquired an MBA from one of our schools, so Lake Forest Graduate School of Management in the area. And then a few years ago, was awarded another master’s degree in conflict resolution. Because that’s basically what I do on a daily basis is conflict resolution. And this allowed me to kind of drill down into the psychology of it. So those types of bits of background are things that keep me unique from the others.

You never know People look at your resume because you’ve got a certain academic background or you’ve got a degree in a particular area that may be appealing to them. In addition to being a CPA and certified in Illinois, I’m also a certified financial planner. And although I don’t strictly do that, as part of my day-to-day job, having that ability, having those skills helps me with analysis. And then with clients that want to know and have direction about what do they do after the divorce, those skills are appealing to them as well because they can set them up in a pathway to where they need to go after the case is over with.

Well, you know, it’s the field of divorce is very, very challenging. You’re not only dealing with the technical issues in the state laws, because every state has got its own divorce law. So you have to become an expert in those. But you have to be knowledgeable about the financial issues. And there’s always something new going on tax wise or some different type of compensation plan that people are being provided with. But the hardest part is that these cases are so personality driven. So you’re spending a lot of time getting to know your client, getting to understand the other side of the case, the other party, and dealing with lawyers that aren’t necessarily easy to deal with.

And then coupling all of that together with the fact that if you’ve got a case that’s in court, you’re also dealing with a judge. And so it’s a lot of personalities and you’ve got to be able to pick up on how to deal with people and try not to be as a lawyer. Sometimes, you know, you’re by definition, you can be offensive. Just goes with the territory. But you need to know when to turn it on and turn it off. And many times you can attain a resolution in a case by working in a cooperative manner or a collaborative manner, a manner rather than in a combative manner in the courthouse.

You it’s, you can get to a great result by lawyers opposing each other that are working together for the common good of both their clients, realising that they’re certain if you do things in a certain way, the tax benefits available to them or the splitting of retirements that can be done in an educated and informative way that help both sides. So it’s, it’s really a law professor once described the practice of law, specifically family law. It’s a three -dimensional chess game. And it’s happening at all levels, both in terms of personality, substantive law. If you go to court, you’ve got to the rules of evidence. You have to know how to try a case, how to make objections. And it takes a long time to become adept at this. Not only learning the law of divorce, learning related laws that go along with corporate law, tax law, real estate law, learning how to, learning the nuances of the rules of evidence, which are part of the law, learning how to try a case, how to deal with people, how to argue. Usually that’s going to take you at least a dozen to 12 years to get to a point where you are getting pretty good at it.

And it’s a constant learning experience. And it’s in keeping up to date because the laws change constantly. The local state laws as they apply to divorce are constantly being modified and amended. So you have to keep up to date on all of it as well. And then the ultimate issue is can you get clients? Because you can be the world’s best lawyer, but unless you are able to gather clients in the following, you’re just going to be an employee for somebody else at their whim.

So most lawyers want to be able to establish their own quality book of business where they’ve got referral sources and they can rely upon cases coming in, either from police clients from prior cases or from other referral sources, such as other lawyers, accountants, mental health professionals, you name it. And your task is a 24 seven endeavour. When you make a decision to be a lawyer, especially in the family law area,

This is not something that you, you’re a dilettante. It’s not something you can kind of just go in and go out of. It becomes part of your life. And, you know, things happen. Clients call you in the middle of the night. Problems occur. People get arrested. You got to help them out. Weekends that you plan and maybe being with your family. Sometimes it doesn’t happen because you’re going to spend Saturday and Sunday getting ready for a trial or working on a project that requires your total attention. You can’t be, you know, interrupted, which you are on Monday through Friday with telephone calls and hundreds of emails you get. So it’s challenging. So it’s not for everybody, but people that are high energy, that are a personality type, that enjoy to learn, that enjoy challenges and that can learn how to smartly fight with the other side physically, but mentally in terms of their arguments.

Although I’ve had some cases where some things get a little hairy over the years. But it’s a real challenge to learn all of this. And when I look at looking back over my 40 years plus experience, there’s a lot of stuff that went on.

I started putting together and writing a book about my experiences. It’s going to have to be done more of a change the names to protect the guilty type of thing. When I went sort of doing that, and that was a year long project, it’s amazing how much you become exposed to. But every experience you learn from and you learn how to become a better lawyer as a result. And it’s something that I enjoy.

And at this stage in my career, I mentioned mediation before, that gives me the ability not to represent either side. I become a neutral, a person in the middle that helps them and their lawyers get to a resolution. And at this stage in my career, I’m also finding that to be really, fun, fun is a weird word to use in the circumstance, but it’s very fulfilling to be able to get people through this process and help their lawyers get through the process of winning court because court is very costly, very time consuming. So I like it. It’s a challenge. So if you’ve got, if there’s people out in the audience that want to become lawyers, specifically family law lawyers, that’s the world. That’s the expectation. So you got to put on your seatbelt and commit. It’s not a specialised area for the weak of heart.

Well, number one is to do the best job possible for your clients and to be involved with them. Understand them, take the time to listen to them. They will be your best referral sources. Then the other way to get clients is to establish relationships with other lawyers that have other areas of expertise. you’ve got an instant network because when you go to law school you’re there with you know 100 or 200 other students in your class and You want to become friendly with as many of these people as possible? Because they’re going to be referral sources for you down the line you can refer matters to them. So it’s a sort of a cross pollination and then

For lawyers especially, join bar associations, your local bar association, your state bar association, your city bar association, the national bar association. You’re going to be able to make friends and you’re going to get referrals from those people as well. So you want to be very, very active and do a good job in their committees and subcommittees. But when you do commit to be involved in these things, make sure you actually do it because you can develop a bad reputation if you say, I’m going to help out, don’t do it, people get turned off and they’re going to look to you as a reliable source. So those types of involvements and then in the community. Very important to be involved in community matters whether it’s your Lions Club or local Rotary, whatever the case may be, be involved in your community because it gets your name out. Also it doesn’t hurt to become somewhat of an expert at marketing, you know.

Websites have been the, you everybody’s got to have a website nowadays. And it’s, you can be a solo practitioner. It looks like you’re working for the biggest law firm in the world, depending on how the website is set up. So you’ve got a mechanism to be able to, to toot your own horn. So it’s be involved. So that goes part, you know, part of this 24 seven activity. So not only are you going to court and representing clients, but you are also actively involved in many, many things in the community the other legal community or or the just community at large

Well, future plan is to do move my practice to be primarily as a mediator. And I’m at that stage of my career, as I said before, where I really enjoy helping people get through tough times. And as a mediator, I get to see both sides of the case. I get to find out in a confidential manner what the goals and needs and wants are of each of the clients and then be able to figure out where these parties are in agreement. Because many times parties are, there’s things they agree upon, they just don’t communicate to each other properly. And I’m that conduit to be able to let them communicate with each other in a protected environment that’s confidential in nature when you’re doing mediation, know, another methodology is called collaborative law, and we do that as well.

That’s where the lawyers agree and write, we’re not going to go to court. We’re going to do it in a series of conferences or meetings. We’ll bring in other experts. If it’s a child custody issue, bring in a child expert. If it’s a financial issue, evaluation issue, we’re bringing people in. But you agree not to go to court. And it actually is very, very powerful because if the parties say, you know what, we’re tired of this, we’re going to go to court, then all the lawyers are fired. And it’s a great disincentive for people to want to just say, hey, I’m just going to go to court and fight about it.

Because most people aren’t going to want to pay a new set of lawyers to start all over again. So collaborative practice is also a very good methodology. But for me, I think moving it towards mediation as a mediator is going to be where I’m going, developing that and the fact of having some specialised knowledge with a master’s in conflict resolution, it gives me pretty good insight and great tools to work with to help people. you’re knocked out, Stephen. I can’t hear you.

Sure, no, it’s a pleasure to meet you and it was a lot of fun. Thank you.