David Morneau: How to Advocate for Yourself With Your Own Lawyer

Some people walk out of a meeting with their own attorney feeling as small as their ex used to make them feel. David Morneau has heard it from clients for years, and he is a lawyer himself. You hired this person to be in your corner, and instead you brace every time you have to talk to them.

David Morneau is a Canadian family lawyer who practices in Waterloo, Ontario, and goes by the recovering litigator. He spent about two decades in hard courtroom litigation before stepping away and rebuilding his practice around mediation, collaborative law, and treating clients like people. He is also a longtime friend and collaborator of Been There Got Out, and wrote the foreword to Lisa and Chris's book.

In this conversation, David walks Lisa through his list of eleven ways to advocate for yourself with your own lawyer. It starts with a basic expectation people forget they are entitled to, being treated like a human being, and moves through how to research and interview a lawyer, why to interview more than one, and why the aggressive attorney you think you need usually just runs up the bill and the conflict. He makes the case that a lawyer's job is legal, and that the ones who play the savior tend to do real damage.

David and Lisa also talk about what family court can and cannot give you, why the wish to be heard by a judge so rarely comes true, and how naming the unmet need underneath your own anger changes the way you respond. They close on the tool that actually addresses post-separation abuse, which is not another filing, but strategic communication.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• The first thing to expect from your own lawyer: to be treated like a person, not a case number
• How to vet an attorney instead of hiring the first name that comes up online
• Why the pitbull or shark usually slows your case down instead of speeding it up
• Why a good lawyer stays in the legal lane, and the danger of the one who tries to save you
• How to find the unmet need underneath your own reaction before you fire back
• Why wanting the judge to hear your story is rarely a realistic goal, and what feeling heard can do instead
• How to steer your own case while a team handles the parts you can't
• Why strategic communication, not another motion, is the real answer to post-separation conflict

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Catching up, and the "client as consumer" idea
5:00 Rule one: you're a human being, and lawyers who forget it
9:00 What "winning" actually means, and litigation abuse
17:00 Doing your research and interviewing more than one lawyer
23:00 Why your lawyer's lane is legal, not saving you
27:00 The savior complex, and building your own foundation first
35:00 Need-to-be-right vs. need-to-get-it-right
37:00 Finding the unmet need under your own reaction
45:00 Your values, your objectives, and staying out of the muck
51:00 Steering your own ship, and strategic communication after separation

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 David Morneau (the recovering litigator) on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therecoveringlitigator/
🔗 David Morneau at Morneau Family Law & Legal Innovation: https://davidmorneau.com/

🎧 More with David Morneau on this podcast
Ep 5: What to Ask Before Hiring an Attorney
Ep 6: The Client as Consumer, Part 2
Ep 10: Taking Your Power Back in Family Court
Ep 100: How a Child's Voice Reaches the Judge
Ep 219: Fear, Emotion, and the Family Law System

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.