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Jody Stahancyk laughs easily and doesn't mind telling stories about herself. This one really makes her chuckle: A client called her office and said, "I want to speak to Jody the Barracuda."
If you're considered to be the top divorce lawyer in town-representing many of the rich and well-placed-you can't be a pussycat, that's for sure.
But her ace in the hole is not meanness, it's handholding her clients-right down to"dressing all my friends" for divorce. She calls the process "a business reorganization with tears" She's also saved marriages, utilizing her coaching technique as a way to mend tender human feelings.
Too often, says Stahancyk, lawyers who specialize in domestic relations aren't user-friendly enough. She does what she was advise against-she gives out her home phone number, her cell phone, her night line and (now) her phone number at her new office in Bend, Ore. She tries to listen for what her clients need to help them reach a positive outcome. "Sometimes they don't need a divorce, they need counseling on a new view of how to resolve their differences," she says. "I've saved a lot of marriages. Our staff has a very low divorce rate." She's been married to the same man since 1974 "and wouldn't consider divorce for one minute. I know how lucky I am." Her husband, John Crawford, is a business lawyer specializing in bankruptcy and works for another firm. They have two children, Seth, 19, and Kate, 16.
People who are divorcing are suffering from a sense of failure, she says. "I've never seen anyone happy to have a relationship end, even a bad one. A marriage doesn't start out with people expecting things to go bad.
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When it happens, the experience puts you way back to how you felt in high school when you break up with the boy or girl you were going with. It's intense loneliness in the pit of you stomach and something you didn't think you would experience again. It's terrifying to feel you're not going to be with that person anymore. And if you want the divorce, you feel cornered, that you can't get away from them. Even heads of big companies feel it, the hurt that they thought they'd gotten beyond feeling."
The barracuda image, she says, comes from the fact that she stays calm and is focused on what's right and fair, and doesn't become emotional on the issues. In a women, she pointed out, that can seem domineering and scary, although her height (over six feet) and her quarterback size alone could accomplish that.
For some women, getting through a divorce allows for personal growth and it shows them how to be a grown-up., She says. The reason she empathizes with her clients, she feels, is because she had to knock on every door in town, and people told her she couldn't become a domestic relations lawyer. She also knows what it's like to be the tallest girl in high school. (She grew up on a ranch in Prineville.)
"I was always one of those people who believed they could do what they weren't supposed to be able to do," she says. "If I didn't accomplish it the first time, I'd figure out why and try again." She says listening to clients is encouraging to the people, even if
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they're acting out of control. "What you do is take a person who's afraid and you educate and help them solve their own problems. I really like people, I'm not afraid of people who are emotionally upset."
She says too many lawyers are too focused on the fiscal issues of the divorce and not on the personal needs. She believes the personal and the shouldn't run a parallel course. "I've got the deepest dimples," says Stahancyk. "I'm not a tough nut. My calmness confuses people who think my comfort is a sign that I'm mean. I'm kind but very firm." She adds: "When's the last time you yelled at your kids and felt in control?"
Her goal is the "right deal," which she described as meeting both parties needs, realizing that "some people complain if they were hung on a new rope." She helps her clients clarify what they need and why, and then find a fit. Some clients don't know what they want or need and "some lawyers don't sit and take the time to really listen," she says. "I always ask the question, what's waking you up in the middle of the night that you're ashamed of worrying about the next morning? "People divorcing are frightened. Being alone is terrifying to people. It reminds them of when they were sent to their room as a little children, because we punish people by removing them from society." Fright has no limit as to income. Millionaires are as frightened as people of limited means, she says. People are even frightened when they find their net worth is substantially more than they thought, because they fear the responsibility that goes with it.
According to Stahancyk, "Men leave women for another woman, women leave men for other ways of life. Women want to be in control but think
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