Discussing a braggadocios future opponent’s ideas on how to he was going to defeat the heretofore undefeated Mike Tyson, Tyson noted, “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Tyson’s point was that people can plan for things they have never encountered (in this case Mike Tyson’s strength and skill) but those plans are a chimera that disappears when actual experience intrudes.
I often use this quote to educate my clients about the limitations of their and the opposing party’s knowledge. I quote this so often that a client recently gifted me a boxing glove autographed by Tyson.
I educate my clients using that phrase when they are not taking litigation preparation as seriously as I would like them to. Like Tyson’s benighted opponent, my clients sometimes believe they know what they need to do to prepare for court and fail to heed my advice for different, more, and sooner. I want clients concerned that their plan will lead to a proverbial punch in the face (horrible result) from a family court judge and that they need to follow my plan. Some clients listen; some get punched. Clients who have been through trial once are rarely hard to motivate the second time because they understand my experience is more informed than their plan.
I use that phrase to describe opposing parties when my clients raise concerns about that parties’ apparent willingness to violate court orders with apparent impunity or act in a manner the family court would find disturbing. The opposing party’s “plan” in such situations is often to explain their way out of the consequences of their bad behavior or violations of the court order. Inexperienced clients stress-out from a fear this plan will succeed. But the plan of justifying bad behavior or violations of a court order is not a good plan. I often counter such behavior by filing a contempt or modification petition. The punch in the face is a contempt finding (the courts are increasingly willing to put a parent in jail for denied visitation or violations of visitation restraints) or that other parent having reduced custody or visitation.
Your attorney likely knows law and procedure better than you do. Heed his or her plan so the opposing party, and not you, is the one getting punched in the face.
