Workplace affairs are standard operating procedure in the divorce lawyer’s office, right? I mean, we deal with clients sleeping with their coworkers, superiors and subordinates all day long. It’s pretty unusual to get through a day without dealing with at least one person that is involved in a workplace relationship turned romantic.

But what about your office? Is it somehow immune from the office romance? What about you? Is that something that would “never” happen?

Is it remotely possible? Maybe you’ve been spending time with a paralegal working on a complicated case. The trial date approaches. It’s going to take four days to try the case. It’s in a distant county. A hotel stay will be required.

You’ve worked hard together. You’ve traded stories about your families. You’re suddenly closer than you thought. It snuck up on you.

Are you just like so many of your clients? Have you learned the lessons of your clients’ failed marriages?

Don’t assume it can’t happen to you. And if it does, be prepared for a couple of lawsuits. One from your spouse. Another from the employee. Maybe one from the spouse of the employee, depending on your state law.

Visualize, for a moment, the embarrassment of having one, two or all three of your trials in the county where you practice. Imagine your colleagues watching as the case is heard by a judge you’ve known for years. Or, more likely, a judge is brought in from another county due to your relationship with the local bench. You know how that goes. The judge goes home after the trial and all the lawyers in that county are dying to hear how it went. You’ll be the talk of the judge’s hometown as well.

Maybe you’ll get really lucky and your case will hit the local papers. Ironic situations are especially appealing to the media. They say “no press is bad press.” Congratulations on your new found celebrity.

Oh, and your assets will be divided if your marriage goes down the tubes. You’ll be on the hook for some support. You’ll be seeing less of your kids. And of course, you’ll lose the paralegal and have to find a new staff member and, as we all know, the relationship with the paralegal won’t work out.

I mention the fallout simply to remind you of what you have to lose. We’ve seen it all before. We wonder how people make such bad decisions when it happens to them. Sometimes taking a minute to feel the pain, now, rather that after we make a mistake, can drive us to avoid the mistake.

Don’t let it happen to you.