How do you know when it is time to settle?

Most lawyers worth their salt can get a feel for a case and instinctively know when they have gone as far as possible. At this juncture the lawyer will counsel her client that it is time to settle. This conversation with the client can sometimes be a very difficult matter. Most clients harbor anger and resentment toward their soon to be ex spouse and the general consensus is that they want to see them suffer. Suffering however, works both ways. Most clients fail to realize that the pursuant of the "impossible dream" of justice for the righteous is very costly. Clients are quick to chastise their attorney for over billing but will generally give that same attorney a difficult time on the road to settlement but placing high if not impossible expectations on their matter. Cutting the best deal you can as quickly as possible and bailing out of the legal system is always the best approach. There comes a time when one has to let go of the fight and begin to live their lives. The client who deins to say that I am running from a fight is unrealistic at best and delusional at worst. I make my money by prolonging litigation in that I work hourly. However, I do not like to make my money that way. Prolonged litigation does not benefit the client at all in my opinion. Where is the justice? I am constantly asked, to which I respond: How much justice can you afford? This is not a light quip I toss out. I never recommend settlement if I do not feel I have cut a good deal for the client. So what happens when I recommend that we have come to the end of the line? Well when I am working for a woman, usually I get yelled at and told that I do not understand how difficult life will be for her under the terms I have negotiated. Of course I know, I was a single mother once myself, almost losing my home. I didn't always own my own lawfirm and I didn't always make a good living. When I represent a man, I usually hear that I must have a soft spot for women and children being a woman myself. The attorney never wins here. Even when I cut what I consider the "deal of the century" the client is not happy. I wonder are they ever? Not on my watch.