McElnea, Brenda S

When you trust an attorney to represent you in the most critical matters in your life, it’s important to know that you can rely on experience, discretion, integrity, good judgment, and a respectful sense of who you are and what you value. That’s why it’s critical to learn as much as you can about a family lawyer before you make a choice.

Your voice in the legal process
Thomas McCormack brings thirty years of successful representation to his solo practice dedicated to family law, divorce, child custody and related matters. What is successful representation? It’s not simply winning battles. It’s identifying the issues that count and getting to the right solutions—the ones that work out in the long run. Tom McCormack’s method for doing this is based on a few basic beliefs:

• Every client deserves the opportunity to participate in the legal processes for resolving issues, attending all meetings and conferences to the extent that the law, the court, and ethical practice permit. That is how you truly get your day in court.
• Every client deserves a strong advocate for his or her reasonable interests and a knowledgeable, forthright advisor to clarify what those interests are in the framework of the law. That is why you hire a lawyer.
• Every client deserves an attorney dedicated to resolving issues without resorting to drawn-out and expensive legal proceedings. The goal is to solve problems and help you get to your future, not promote issues that keep conflict alive. (See how costly high-conflict cases really are.)
• Every client deserves a responsive legal representative who is timely about returning phone calls and answering emails that make reasonable requests for help, advice or information.
• Every client deserves to emerge from the often difficult process of resolving marital and family issues with dignity and privacy still intact. That is why discretion and creative, alternative dispute resolution are so important in family law, especially divorce.

Tom has tested these principles throughout three decades of working with people from many backgrounds, in diverse situations, with varied family interests at stake. He talks about his general approach in this video.

In his practice, Tom serves people in the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Portage, Summit, Trumbull and Ashtabula. To benefit his community, he volunteers in the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association’s Legal Aid Divorce Clinic and its noted 3Rs program, which educates City of Cleveland high school students about the Bill of Rights.

Family law experience matters
During more than seven years as a domestic relations trial magistrate hearing and resolving thousands of matters related to child custody and support, spousal support, property and pension division, and divorce, Tom

• Created unique courtroom procedures for litigant participation in pretrials and conferences that made the legal process more transparent and led to more positive and lasting settlements;
• Excelled at working out practical parenting plans, especially for special needs children (read more about parenting plans here);
• Participated in designing and implementing cutting-edge parenting programs aimed to preserve families when marriages end;
• Built up a sophisticated understanding of systems of control over and forms of violence against women;
• Successfully resolved complex property division and tax issues.

Experience on the bench brings with it not only detailed knowledge of how family law and domestic relations courts work but also a practical sense of how cases need to be presented to judges and magistrates.

This high level of understanding is especially valuable if you are a divorcing parent. In that case, you will need to understand the ‘best interest’ standard that guides Ohio courts in allocating parental rights and responsibilities in child custody and child support decisions. Tom can speak from experience about what that means and about why shared parenting has become the standard in Ohio. As an engaged father and grandfather, his interest in children’s issues is longstanding and comprehensive. His ‘Turning Points’ blog is one place where he discusses matters of children and divorce.

Financial and pension expertise makes a difference
In his twenty years in private practice before he was a magistrate, Tom McCormack developed a unique grasp of the financial aspects of divorce, particularly the division of pension benefits. As general counsel to several of Ohio’s largest multi-employer pension and welfare funds with assets in excess of $500,000,000, he designed plans and administrative programs, guided long-term planning, and accomplished 100 percent compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.

Tom applies his deep knowledge of this very specialized field to family law. When either party –or both—has a pension plan, the dissolution or divorce decree will always spell out if and how pension benefits are to be divided. It is an area where small miscalculations and misunderstandings can make a big financial difference.

A decade ago, Tom won on appeal a case that helped establish that an Ohio court’s DRO (Domestic Relations Order) can be modified retroactively to correct the division of pension benefits. He has provided continuing legal education to judges and magistrates through his presentation before the Ohio Supreme Court’s Judicial College, ‘Right the first time: writing pension benefits into domestic relations decisions.’ Just as important, this knowledge serves his clients in divorce and dissolution proceedings as well as post-decree litigation involving

• Pension valuation;
• Dividing pension benefits;
• Drafting orders for private pensions (QDROs), state pensions, (DOPOs), federal pensions (COAPS), and military pensions.

Preparing for the initial consultation
Like many family law practitioners, Tom offers an initial consultation at no charge. This initial meeting is not time-limited. It lasts as long as it takes for you to describe your situation fully and get answers to the basic questions you have about what legal action is possible and what range of outcomes might be foreseeable in light of the law and the usual practices of the court that will hear your case.

Before you interview any family lawyer, however, take the time to think about what matters to you. If reputation counts, start with an internet search for disciplinary action or findings of misconduct for any attorney you may want to interview. Look in Martindale-Hubbell to see if she has a peer review rating and what it is (Thomas A. McCormack is AV, the highest rating) and look for other professional recognition.

Then think more specifically about your case. What kind of experience does your lawyer really need to represent you well? What level of service do you expect from him or her? If you anticipate a divorce, for instance, prepare specific questions that enable you to find out what you want to know, such as:

• In a group practice, who will actually work on your case, draft documents, and represent you in court;
• If the attorney is a sole practitioner, who will back her/him up in case of an emergency;
• What special knowledge or specific experience s/he may need to deal with the major issues you foresee;
• What different approaches to settling disputes s/he has experience with and recommends;
• What kinds of issues s/he has recently been able to settle out of court;
• What input (yours?) the attorney uses to decide what strategy to pursue on any given issue;
• Whether s/he has strong convictions about how certain things should go— such as custody arrangements, alimony awards, property division, etc.
• If you think your case may attract media attention, whether s/he has experience managing high-profile cases;
• When the lawyer is generally available to talk or to correspond by email and what their standard is for response time;
• Whether s/he is connected in any way to family and friends of the other party;
• How familiar the attorney is with the court where your case will be heard;
• If cost is important to you, how the attorney controls expenses.

There are many ethical, capable attorneys practicing family law. Planning good interview questions will enable you to select the one whose demeanor, ways of listening to and interacting with you, and approach to your most important concerns harmonizes with your general outlook. Often, there is no objectively best lawyer—just the qualified one who is the best lawyer for you.

The right lawyer is not necessarily the one who tells you everything you want to hear. Or the one who promises to fight to the bitter end for every single thing you want. More often, she is the attorney who tells you what the law says and what you can reasonably expect the court to do-- and why. He is the one who gives you a realistic idea of the time, stress, and cost you’re likely to invest in trying for an outcome you want—and lets you make the decision about whether the issue is worth it. Then, the best lawyer for you pursues your considered, realistic goals with a choice of strategies you both agree on.

Once you decide to retain an attorney, take the time to review the representation agreement. Make sure you are clear on the court fees and expenses you will be expected to pay, on the retainer and the hourly rate and billing practices of the lawyer. Make sure the agreement spells out how you can withdraw from representation and, likewise, under what circumstances your attorney may do so.

You have choices
If you are thinking about ending your marriage, you have two kinds of choices. Who will represent you is just one. How you want to go about it is the other. Tom McCormack prepares agreements for many people who decide to try a legal separation while they consider the next step. Here’s why legal separation works well for many people.

When the next step does turn out to be ending the marriage, the good news is that the law offers a number of ways to do it. Read about them here. Once you know the options, you can explore them with your lawyer and pursue the one that makes sense for your situation. Tom is an advocate of the many creative, out-of-court alternatives for settling issues in ways that reduce stress and cost for all members of your family.