Eric Eugene Skidmore

The Akron law firm of Skidmore & Associates has had an AV Martindale-Hubbell peer rating [highest ethical standards/highest professional ability] for decades. I am the middle son of firm founder Akron attorney Archie W. Skidmore. My father has been practicing law since 1955. He is 92 years old and still comes to work every day. I have an older brother Brian and younger brother Thomas also Akron attorneys. My brothers and I were born and raised in Akron, Ohio. We all attended universities and colleges out-of-town, but all of us returned to Akron to practice law. An old high school friend Spiros Vasilatos,Jr. joined the law firm in the mid-1980s. I am a family law attorney practicing since 1989. As a law firm, we have a cohesive, cerebral, ethical approach to the practice of law-identify legal problems and solve them! I aspire to represent my clients zealously and attempt to bring civility and professionaiism to the divorce or dissolution process. My philosophy: Ending a marital relationship will be the hardest experience a spouse will have in a lifetime, especially when children are involved. The ending of a relationship should be mourned, however, the process does not have to descend spiraling down ultimately ending in the destruction of all relationships and bonds between mother, father, and children. Mom and dad may not be wife and husband anymore, but they will always remain mother and father to their children. The family unit, albeit divided, does not have to be destroyed. It is absolutely necessary that parental family bonds survive. You can taper future bitterness at future children's events [graduations, weddings, grandchildren], by how you conduct yourself during the divorce process.  The 'why' and 'how'?: I view the divorce process as a "new beginning"! After a spouse is involved in a divorce it is natural to be emotionally wounded and bruised. It will take time to get past the emotional trauma -but you will get past this difficult time! Each spouse gives up individual charactersitics to form a matrimonial union, and it can be devastating when the relationship and dreams fail. If a relationship cannot be reconciled, divorce is an opportunity for a spouse to return to an identity they used to have before becoming married. A divorced spouse has the chance to regain the individuality and independence they once had, that they rightfully gave up for marriage. A divorced spouse can go back in time and become the individual they once were the day before they were married. You can become you again! So divorce can have a silver lining -for every end, there is a new beginning! I try to guide and reinforce a client's new quest for individualism, independence, and self-improvement! Believe it or not, divorce is an opportunity to get better as a person. I tell my clients to have the strength and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and toxicity toward the other spouse. Hate distorts the personality of the hater. Venting hate toward the other spouse is damaging toward the other spouse, but, it is even more ruinous to the person who hates. The more you hate the other, the more you are thinking of them and not yourself. When one hates the other spouse ,it delays one's own "new beginning". If you continue to hate the other spouse, you begin to do irrational things distorting your own vision. For the spouse who hates, beautiful becomes ugly and ugly becomes beautiful. The true becomes false and the false becomes true. Hate causes a spouse to lose all objectivity. You cannot concentrate on the math of divorce, if you continue to hate the other spouse.  Hate destroys the very structure of the personalty of the hater. By cutting off the cycle of hate toward the other spouse, you begin rebuilding your own self-confidence, self-reliance, individuality and independence. You become emotionally redemptive and rejuvenated! You can start a new life. Future bitterness at life events of your children will taper. You become a better parent to your children! It is time to start a new beginning! When this is discovered you will be able to make an old world new again!