It was only a quarter of a century ago that a floodgate of states followed suit when the then California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the first No Fault divorce law. Yet, today legislators in more than a dozen states have before them legislation that would put fault back into divorce.

You will recall that just a few years ago Dan Quayle was pilloried for suggesting that traditional family values were generally superior to any of their alternatives (particularly the fictional ones Murphy Brown apotheosized). Yet in this election year, Bill Clinton, unarguably a voice for the artistic and intellectual left, found himself asseverating that the number one problem facing children growing up in America today is that most are doing so in a fatherless home. In other words, even the cultural revolutionaries have become fluent in fam-speak. It appears that we may be witnessing the cultural counterpart of a solar eclipse - a rare but occasional intersection of liberal and conservative opinion. Americans of all ideological stripes have begun to debate the merit of that heretofore sacred safeguard of radical individualism, the No Fault divorce. How might our cultural astronomers explain this?

The fact is that our society is imploding from the myriad problems, direct and indirect, that flow from its high divorce rate. As a combatant on the front lines, you witness first-hand many of these casualties: fathers deprived, fathers disappearing, moms struggling, moms manipulating, kids torn, kids exploited, and everyone suffering financially.

Paradoxically, at its inception, No Fault divorce was intended to liberate us from an oppressive Victorian institution. Particularly targeted beneficiaries were the distaff oppressed whose bellicose leadership trumpeted the sexual and familial emancipation waiting on the other side of the cultural divide - a sort of Ms. Moses en route to the promised land. Well, so much for the certitude of revolutionaries and their passionately envisioned utopias. Perhaps as practitioners we could debate the relative harm enjoyed by each gender under this new regime. It is this author's opinion that the brunt of marital liquidity has fallen on women. But that debate we can take up in a subsequent article.

Suffice it for the present to assert that divorce, like the amputation of a limb or the bankruptcy of an estate, is never "good" in the sense we often use that word, rather it is merely in some cases "less bad" than its alternatives.

With this distinction in mind, do we as family law practitioners have an ethical (dare I impolitically suggest "moral"?) responsibility to employ all the resources available to us to preserve whenever practical the marriage relationship? Or are we instead highly skilled technicians clinically discharging an assigned task however benighted and tentative its conception in the mind of our principal? (Wait, before you object as leading and argumentative, I make no pretensions to dialectical balance here!) Do we serve the best interests of our clients when we fail adequately to prepare them for the consequences that are inherent in a dissolution of marriage - especially when children are involved?

Let me be more direct: I am convinced that we do have an obligation to apprise our clients of the realities of divorce along with informing them of juridical and extra-judicial alternatives to divorce. I think that our clients pay us for the totality of our knowledge, skill and experience. To impassively deprive our clients of creative applications of that database is to deny them a portion of the services for which they have paid. To define our clients' interests in tactical rather than strategic terms disservices their interest in much the same fashion that diplomacy so executed triggers needless and destructive warfare.

It is not necessary to deal in-depth here with the various instruments available to us. Extra-juridical helps might include referrals to competent marriage counselors. Additionally, where both spouses have deeply held religious beliefs, it may be appropriate to suggest that their pastor, priest or rabbi be consulted.

The judicial devices available to us, of course, vary from state to state. Most states have tools such as legal separations, orders of protection and separate maintenance provisions which can often provide the necessary protection for a spouse needing to separate but mindful of the practical issues such dual habitation may create. You are doubtlessly familiar with these already. But I will venture a guess that you, like I, do not consistently, or at least fairly, present these to your clients as potential alternatives to divorce.

In conclusion, the point is not that clients should be pressured to stay married. As competent adults they must make this call. Rather, both we and our clients should in all cases be deeply respectful of the solemn covenants accompanying the marital relationship and treat with commensurate consideration any proceeding to void those covenants. Furthermore, family law practitioners, like doctors, should predicate their advice on the doctrine of "informed consent". As professionals, it is incumbent upon us to provide our clients with comprehensive analyses which distinguish us from technicians whose horizon is the task at hand. The bulk of our clients are adrift in what is for them uncharted waters. Our experience is arguably the most indispensable service we can provide them. We should talk candidly and humanly about probably conditions if they go forward. Only then can our clients intelligently decide if they prefer the shore ahead or the shore behind.

Finally, if a client expresses a desire to avoid divorce, we should suppress our cynical impulses and be prepared to give names of competent counselors while not neglecting in the process any legal steps necessary to protect the clients' interests. In my opinion, it is only by adopting the aforementioned principles that we can elevate ourselves from divorce lawyer to family law practitioner. The appellation "family law practitioner" should be an honorable one, it is up to us however to endow it with substance. Until then, it is a euphemism steeped in an irony that only a lawyer would dare disclaim.