Trends in Divorce 2020 and Implications for Family Law Practice

A few months into the new decade, some significant trends in both marriage and divorce are worth considering for family law practitioners who want to successfully adapt to changing market conditions which will affect their practice.

The list of trends first and then the family law practice implications.

The trends:

Online dating sites displace work as the venue where most couples meet and start dating.

Millennials continue to postpone both getting married and having children.

Social media, and especially video on social media, far outpaces traditional media and other sources as the primary source of news, information, and social connection.

In this decade, more couples will first make contact online than in person. While meeting at work, or at a bar, will still be the venue where many couples first meet, this trend toward online introductions will likely accelerate throughout the 2020's. Both the Millennials and the Gen Zs have grown up with iPads and Facebook/Snapchat/TikTok/Instagram as the way to connect with their social worlds, and many of them would prefer to work remotely, at home or at Starbucks, rather than in a traditional office.  

In addition, both men and women in these numerically large social groups believe that financial security and financial independence is important to achieve before marriage. These factors will make later marriage, later childbirth,  and prenuptial agreements the new normal.

The implications for the business of family law are clear: Fewer marriages means fewer divorces, divorce at later ages, and more premarital estate planning.

Discovery in divorce cases already includes routine scraping of social media and texts/email for potentially admissible evidence, and the volume of this evidence will grow dramatically for these people who have lived their lives online since they were teenagers. Teenage decisions and questionable judgment and behavior, much which is normal but has been largely invisible (and therefore deniable) before the Internet Age, will now be discoverable and part of the public record with unpredictable effects on divorce litigants and THEIR children. 

In case you haven’t been watching, over 6 billion videos are viewed on YouTube every month. That’s almost an hour for every person on Earth. (And for the record, they’re not all cat videos). Recent surveys found that more than 85% of Millennials and GenZs say they get information, news, and social confirmation of their attitudes and beliefs from watching social media. "Cord cutting" isn't a fad, it's a fact, and it's accelerating. This change to nontraditional media channels in these groups of young people (the first Millennials just turned 40) is accompanied by a "wired in" skepticism of traditional sources of truth and authority (like lawyers and judges). "Fake news" resonates with these denizens of the Internet.

Consequently, in order to persuade these young people who are now hiring lawyers as well as serving on juries, successful trial attorneys will use video as a standard part of their client marketing and trial presentations because video is literally the language of this generation. Videos are a valuable, powerful way to tell your firm (or your client's) story, to showcase your practice and unique expertise, and to engage with your potential clients. We’re not talking infomercials here, we’re talking about compelling, interesting, and emotionally engaging storytelling that can make your family law practice come to life online and in court.

A quick example from my recent professional experience as a litigation consultant will demonstrate my point. A Millennial mom who had endured years of emotional abuse finally had enough and filed for divorce. Attempts are reconciliation failed, and the abuse continued. She took the three children and fled out of state, without a court order or dad's permission, to her home state to live near her parents. Mediation failed (dad as a narcissist, so this wasn't a surprise). The case went to trial in Dallas county.

As a part of our trial presentation, we prepared a 5 minute video using mom's iPhone photos and videos, taken in the normal course of her life with the kids, showing the kids' life with mom, the grandparents, the school, and the new community (which was breathtakingly beautiful). Mom's attorney was able to get a jury verdict giving mom sole managing conservatorship, despite her moving away in violation of the court's order. Interviews of the jurors afterward found that the video had turned the tide in this very challenging case because they could see for themselves how well the kids were doing in their new environment away from the abuse.

The demographics of marriage and divorce are changing, and family law professionals must adapt to these changes in their potential clients and jurors. Video is a central feature in the lives of these young people, and successful lawyers will use video effectively to appeal to new clients and to persuade judges and juries at trial.