Jeff 00:00
Hello everybody out there. Today we’re going to be talking about why you should seek a consultation with a lawyer and what to ask. So if you’re ready for Episode 155, let’s get started.
Doreen 00:24
Are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaffa and Jeff Wilson and we are here to give you the strategies you need to create the life after divorce that you deserve, and desire. As partners, both in marriage and coaching. We use our expertise as well as our own personal experiences to help you make the next chapter of your life, the best chapter.
Doreen 00:57
Hey, Jeff.
Jeff 00:58
Hey, Doreen. How are you?
Doreen 01:01
I’m good.
Jeff 01:01
Why do you laugh?
01:02
Because you always ask how I am and I’m always gonna say I’m good.
Jeff 01:09
Okay. Well, I’m gonna let the listeners know how are you.
Doreen 01:12
I’m good. How are you?
Jeff 01:14
Fantastic.
Doreen 01:15
So what’s going on?
Jeff 01:16
What is going on?
Doreen 01:18
We are getting ready for a trip coming up.
Jeff 01:20
Yeah, we have a couple of trips coming up. Yeah, real excited about going down to the keys and getting out of the United States and going to Italy.
Doreen 01:29
Yes. And then over to France. We’re going to be spending some time in Positano. So if anybody has any tips or restaurants or places to visit, please send us we would love to hear from you on that. And then we have a cruise around Italy and France.
Jeff 01:45
Don’t forget your strategic coaching seminar coming up.
Doreen 01:48
Oh, in Chicago. Yes, yes.
Jeff 01:51
That’s always great to come pick your brain a little bit when you come back.
Doreen 01:55
It’s interesting in Florida, where we live, this time a year, it’s July, middle of July right now. And it’s quiet. It’s hot and quiet, meaning the snowbirds have gone. Most of them or restaurants are now open. Meaning that we can get reservations relatively easy or walk in and get a table. And the roads are a lot less busy people are you know, they go home, they go back to their well home, I guess here is home for them too, right? A lot of people have told resonances between here and somewhere else, and they go somewhere else. And then they come back.
Jeff 02:30
It’s funny how because we have you know, hurricane season and we have the heat season, in the cooler season. But we also have this season of open roads and no kneading of reservations. And not nothing is as crowded as it usually is. So it’s kind of a nice time of year if you can deal with the heat.
Doreen 02:49
Yeah, we were supposed to be actually in Blowing Rock North Carolina, we go there in the summer, and rent a cabin with the kids and their their boyfriends and we go there and didn’t happen this year, because we’re dealing with some family issues. That took priority. But you know, we’re still, they’re here. They came by and spent some time with them on Fourth of July and all that that was nice.
Jeff 03:16
There is next year. So we’re gonna be there next year.
Doreen 03:18
There is next year. As a matter of fact, that cabin is intact for next year. So it’s something to look forward to. So let’s talk today about consultations with a lawyer and what to ask. So the first thing I wanted to mention is that there are many lawyers that do family law. And there are many lawyers that do a consultation for even no charge, some charge, some don’t. And maybe I need to go back and and clarify, I shouldn’t say many lawyers, but there’s many options of lawyers. So the first thing you want to do before you even set a consultation, or get into that consultation is do your homework, ask around, check out the lawyer. You know, how long have they been practicing? Are they in good standing with the Florida Bar? I mean with the I said Florida of course but with the bar there bar that just it’s a quick check with that. Asked family as friends, as professionals, if you know trusted people that you can talk to and get get some advice. I always think it’s important to consult with at least two lawyers. Now there are times of course, if you come see me, you’re going to love me so much. You’re never going to want to see another lawyer. Right? And what we do at our firm, right, but I think it’s a good idea to see different lawyers, at least two and make make a decision right? But do your homework. So when you go to see a lawyer for a consultation, you want to first of all know how much time you have. So how much time do you have with this with this lawyer? Right? Mostly they’re gonna give you at least, you know, an hour’s worth of time. We do a complimentary consultation for half an hour, but it always goes into an hour. So I don’t even know why we say half an hour.
Jeff 05:11
Because if you say an hour, it’ll be an hour and a half.
Doreen 05:13
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, it’s true. But if you run your consultations efficiently, which we do, and you really get through the issues, keep everybody focused.
Jeff 05:21
And I don’t think that I don’t think that it’s because it goes longer. I think because you have such a big heart and you you go into the, almost like the coaching as well as trying to make them feel your feel comfortable. I think that’s a lot of the time when you’re talking about what to do. And then the consultation.
Doreen 05:38
Yeah, for sure. I mean, for me personally, and for my team, we are very much about that part of making sure you’re okay, emotionally, but also folk, but the main focus is legal issues, okay, we really try to keep you focus there. So education on legal issues, is one of the reasons that you want to consult, right, you want to understand the issues, and get an understanding advice from the lawyer on each of them. So the general issues and topics are the distribution of the assets and liabilities, alimony support, children issues, which usually involve what they call parental responsibility, and access or visitation. Child Support and related child expenses, such as private school, and things above child support, and attorneys fees and costs. Now from those issues, things stem, so there’s sub issues. So you should be getting from your, in your consultation, a general what I call 101, the basics, at least, about each of the issues and what you can expect, I will tell you that nine times out of 10, at least as to my experience, and I want to say more, that the ratio is even higher than that, you’re gonna feel a lot better after you speak to a lawyer, because I don’t, from my perspective, that legal issues are not generally overly complicated. Most of the states have laws and rules in place to simplify the issues of divorce. And it becomes a business decision, right? So it’s the distribution of the assets and liabilities is looking at each party getting 50% of it, it’s a balance sheet, it’s a determining numbers and figuring out who gets what. And then at the end of the day, it’s a balance sheet, you know, and I can go through each of those. But generally, that’s what you should walk away from. So you want to be prepared. When you go to these consultations. You want to have your questions written down, make a note issues, you know, and then write down distribution of assets and liabilities, support all the things that I just said, write them down, fill in the blanks, right. So you want to be prepared. Any thoughts on that?
Jeff 08:11
Well, I know that last week we had talked about, about filing first and the benefits of that. So if you’re a listener out there that hasn’t heard episode 153 yet, I mean, excuse me, 154 last week, it might be a good idea to go back and listen to why filing first. And then before you go into your consultation.
Doreen 08:35
Yeah. Because I think that’s one of the things you want to ask. Yeah, if the divorce hasn’t been filed, write this down, ask the question, should I file first? What are the benefits? And what are the advantages or disadvantages? Okay. Next thing. You want to ask lawyers, some direct questions, I cannot tell you how many times I have a consultation throughout my 30 years with people and they don’t ask me anything. Now maybe they did their research online. Maybe they got you know, looked at my profile, my bio, my LinkedIn and all the things, but ask the questions asked them. How much of your practice is family law? In my practice, it’s 99.9% of my cases are family law. Right? You want a lawyer that the most most of their practice, most of their focus is on family law is on divorce. Ask them how many divorces do you do? Right? How many clients do you service? How many trials, not just hearings. How many trials have you done in divorces ask these questions. I hope you’re all taking notes.
Jeff 09:51
Yeah, I was just gonna say that. I think that they don’t ask the questions because they don’t know what questions to ask.
Doreen 09:57
That’s the purpose of this episode.
Jeff 09:58
What we’re doing this up is sewed. So, you know, please make sure you’re taking notes. And if you have any questions from the questions from the podcast, yeah, either reach out to Doreen directly or send her an email, whatever you want to do, but this is important stuff.
Doreen 10:14
Yeah. So how many cases have they tried? What is their success rate? Okay. Ask them how? How they things even like, how are they billing? Right? You want to understand their billing, you want to understand? Are they billing for every single email? Are they billing for each conversation? How do they build like we build point one, oh, which is six minute minimum increments? That is how we bill. When do you get the invoices, right? So you can start to think about how am I going to afford this? How am I going to budget for this? You know, what does it look like? What happens if you don’t have the dollars? Are there ways to get your spouse to pay? Are there ways to ask if he’s or she is not willing to do so voluntarily? What is the process for getting fees paid? Most states like in Florida, we have a need and ability to pay standard meaning I don’t have access to funds. I need funds to litigate, my spouse has funds to provide either through income or maybe controlling the assets. I need the court to award me fees. So I can have representation. Asked ask the lawyer. Are you willing to wait? If that is a circumstance you are in? Meaning, will you wait to get paid? Some of them offer financing? Will you offer financing? If they don’t, do you know if there’s any one that can assist with this? Because there are certain companies out there that do assist with financing? Right. What else?
Jeff 12:03
I know one of the most popular questions you get is how long is this going to take?
Doreen 12:07
Yeah, how much is it going to cost me? And how long is it going to take? Good questions. Those are must questions. You want to know how long it’s going to take now? The I will tell you that the lawyers do not have crystal balls. So what I mean by that is they don’t know what the case is going to look like. Is your spouse going to agree? Is this going to be a difficult case.? Because there’s a lot of emotions going on that tend to delay cases. What are the assets and the liabilities that need to be valued, those types of things. Is there a business evaluation? Do we have to hire experts? The lawyers will give you a general understanding. But they’re going to have to ask you facts first. Right? So you’ll present those facts. She’ll talk about things and then they should tell you how long it’s going to take. Ask them if they say well, I can’t tell you because I don’t know say well tell me what my worst case scenario is? And what my best case scenario is, as far as the time, how much is it going to cost me? Again, the lawyers are likely going to tell you they don’t know. But they can give you a range. And look, the numbers are going to be a little overwhelming when you hear them because going to trial is expensive. So if they’re giving you the worst case scenario, which is going all the way through trial, know what that number is it can be in the hundreds of 1000s. Truly, it can depending on the issues and if experts are needed and all of this right. But most cases don’t set, don’t go to trial. Most cases settle. Right? So ask them worst case scenario, that best case scenario on what do you expect this to cost? Right?
Jeff 13:50
What about the the teams that are involved? Whether you know, your firm has a team? The spouse is lawyer do you know, usually we’ll know them and work together with them? Or even who are the judges involved?
Doreen 14:06
Well, those are a lot of questions. Let’s break it down. Okay, so ask your lawyer who’s who would be on my legal team? Who would be my direct contact? Would it be you? Would it be another lawyer? How does your firm operate? What are the operations of the case? In our firm, for example, at Yaffa Family Law Group, I am the overall CEO right of your case. So I’m looking at big strategy. And I based on my years of experience, I’m also board certified as marital family lawyer question you want to ask them, you should know if they’re board certified. But you know, some cases really require a board certified or should have a board certified lawyer, but know how the team operates. I’m overall big strategy. I’m available to my clients at any time, but I’m running the bigger strategy than I have a litigation lawyer I have several litigation lawyers, those are your next in line. Right? Those are the people that do more of the high, high lift geared by my strategy with them, than we have associate lawyers that that’s my day to day contact. Right, and then paralegals, and sometimes legal assistants, and so they’re going to be doing certain aspects of the case ask like my paralegals a person that’s going to be working with you on getting your discovery together your financials, why would you want to spend, you know what I charge which is over $500 an hour for me to do that? You don’t, you know, so what we do in our firm is we try to bring it down to the lowest level of the team member who can do it at the least expense to the client, ask them, if you have a sole practitioner, they’re going to be doing everything, that may not be the best place for you, because it costs a lot more. Um, you asked another question.
Jeff 15:54
There’s probably in most cases, because it’s such a small town, that you’re going to know the lawyer on the other side, right, the benefits of that?
Doreen 16:02
Well, I think that a good question askers, who might be the lawyer that my spouse might get? Because it’s a handful of people? Okay, generally, very rarely do we get lawyers that we don’t have experience with, right. So there’s usually a handful of the bigger players or the medium players, whatever, you know, the ABC lawyers, and depending on the size of your case, we can pretty much tell you maybe on the other side, and you probably want to have some insight on that. Now there are lawyers that will tell you to go take them out, meaning go have a console with certain lawyers, because they’re a problem lawyers. And once you have a console, they can’t be hired by your your soon to be ex. I generally don’t like to do that. I think that the clients can make decisions or sell themselves and but it’s something to talk about. Another question, though, that you want to ask is, what judges who are the judges that would be in my court? Right? Not that you’re going to have the ability to pick and choose your judges you don’t that’s called forum stop shopping. And that’s not a good thing. And that doesn’t happen. But you know, who are my judges? In our courts here? I know, for example, in South County, in Palm Beach County, there are three judges, right have experienced with all of them, what can I expect with each one? May not have time for that question, but certainly you could get some insight on it. What else do you got?
Jeff 17:25
You had talked about? Or do you bill by the email? Do you bill by phone call? I know you how’s the best way to communicate with your lawyer?
Doreen 17:34
Oh, that’s a good question. Now I will tell you that what happens is, yeah, because billing is a question you want to ask. And depending on how emotional you are in the case, generally, it’s emotions. There are clients that need more hand holding, we call it hand holding, and they need to talk to you on a regular basis and communicate with you through emails and text messaging conversations. All of that costs you money. Unless you’re in a flat fee situation, which most family lawyers, at least, the level I’m talking about, do not do flat fees, we do it SplytUp because it’s an uncontested case. But in general family law case, you know, you’re paying for all the acts. So you know, if you think you’re going to be someone who needs more hand holding, maybe you want to ask the lawyer at the consultation, will you set up maybe a weekly meeting with me? Because if you can bring all your questions and your emotional issues and your thoughts to a once a meeting, once a week meeting, that’s a lot less expensive than touching an email every day, back and forth, back and forth, when you’re doing a minimum billing on each one. Plus, it’s more efficient, right? I do that with certain clients, I have a weekly meeting with them, because I know that they need that. And then it can pan out eventually. Let us do our job, right, as lawyers, like, we know, if you’ve got the right lawyer, we know what to do. Okay, we’ve been doing this a long time. And so you while you want touch points, and you want to communicate and you certainly are going to be involved in decision making on how to run the case. That constant communication is expensive.
Jeff 19:13
Yeah, I think it’s probably a lot less expensive if we try to keep the emotions out of it. Right. And can you stick with the legal issues?
Doreen 19:22
Yes, absolutely. That’s where coaching can help right? Author and or therapist because look, charging $500 plus an hour. You don’t want to come to me as a lawyer to talk about coaching issues and emotional issues. That’s where you need me as a coach or you need Jeff or someone like this. That’s where the This is best handled, right? We deal with it a lot as lawyers and we’re not qualified with our lawyer hat. Now I am as a certified life coach, but that’s unique. But hire me as a coach then, right don’t don’t pay 500 plus dollars. dollars an hour. Hire me as a coach, which is less expensive. For that part of it. The other things you think you should ask is? What documents do I need to start preparing? There are generally disclosure documents like a financial affidavit in Florida mandatory disclosure that you want to get a jumpstart on, ask them if they could send you that list and send you that financial affidavit. So you can get started. In fact, if you have a consultation scheduled, and it’s a ways out, if you bring at least a net worth statement, your assets and liabilities in a document, send it in advance. Okay, that is going to streamline a lot of the conversation, because we can look at it and consume it quickly in advance of the consult. And then we’ll be able to really focus in as opposed to going through all that what assets do you have everything in a consultation? But you want to start gathering records right away?
Jeff 21:05
Well, what happens? Okay, you, you’re in the consultation, what happens now pending the divorce?
Doreen 21:12
I think that’s a good question to ask. Right? Yeah, a good question is to ask will tell me the procedures. There’s the law, which we talked about, you’re going to ask those questions that I discussed earlier, the one on one of divorce. But you also want to ask, what are the various procedures, ways I can get through the divorce? So there’s two parts of that. One is, what are the various ways to get divorced in Florida as an example, with those traditional litigation, there’s Collaborative Law. There’s something that I term cooperative law where maybe you’re not going through the litigation process, you might have filed and then you basically pull back to try to settle in in a non litigation forum, where you’re trying to get the case resolved. There’s uncontested divorces, you know where you’re going, basically, with the hope of getting right to a settlement quickly, because there aren’t a lot of issues to discuss. Or maybe there are issues, but you’ve resolved them. So there’s various ways to get through. And you need to understand what those options are. For example, collaborative law, I am also trained as a collaborative lawyer, you want to know about that process? Right? You want to know that then there’s the person, there’s how do I get through the divorce the actual process the procedure, but then there’s the the the procedure itself as now I’m in the divorce? Okay, what can I expect on a temporary basis? Right? What does it look like? How long is it going to take me to get him out of the house? Or to get support for the children? And how long is it going to take me to get the custody arrangement set up on a temporary basis? What does it look like on a temporary status quo? In Florida, for example, you have to first in certain jurisdictions go to mediation first. And then you can have a temporary relief hearing, but you’re looking months down the line to get a hearing. Generally, you want to ask these questions.
Jeff 23:18
These are all great questions.
Doreen 23:19
Yeah. Anything else?
Jeff 23:21
I think that’s it.
Doreen 23:22
I think you need to take this episode, go back, listen to it. Slow it down if you need to, and then just write out your list of questions, and then just check them off. Yeah, when you get to your consultation, right? I will tell you that having understandings, getting the advice from a lawyer is going to really relieve a lot of your anxiety for most people. Because like I said, the practice of law, the 101 of law isn’t overly complicated. And the courts in all jurisdictions are looking for two, four, I was gonna say quality, but they want to make sure that both of the parties leave the divorce. As, you know, with financial, financially, okay, stability, that they’re getting their fair share, that there is support being paid if it’s relevant, that the children’s custody arrangements, we call it a parenting plan or is in place and everything is operational for both parties to move on to their next life.
Jeff 24:39
I think that the reason most people have the anxiety, of getting ready for divorce or going through the divorce, is that lack of knowledge, the lack of understanding how the procedure works, the processes work, and I think that what we’re trying to do here with with this episode and actually, again, 150, for the last episode about filing for divorce is giving you an education because once you have that education or a little bit more knowledge.
Jeff 25:16
A lot more. Yeah, I mean, you have to start somewhere
Doreen 26:13
Not a little bit, hopefully a lot more.
Jeff 26:16
Okay, great episode.
Jeff 26:42
Knowledge is empowering.
Doreen 26:42
It’s empowering. And like I said, I can’t tell you the number of times because it’s happened so often that after a consultation, which we do, like I said, a free consultation, They thank me and they say, you know what? Thank you so much. I feel so much better. That’s awesome so go get your consultations. Go get it and they’re done, you know with attorney-client privilege meaning that no one else needs to know this should be between you and your lawyer if you choose to tell someone else you’re seeing a lawyer great, that’s on you, but be careful who you tell that per tell but this is really for you to have a safe place to talk with a lawyer and to get the advice you need.
Doreen 26:42
You should leave that consultation knowing the answers to your questions, right? And if the lawyer needs more time to give you an answer, circle back with the lawyer, right? The purpose of the consultation is to advise you. The purpose of the consultation is to give you the answers. The purpose of the consultation is for you to understand what you’re entitled to and how you’re going to get there and what’s going to happen between now when you file and the end, what that looks like and how you’re going to pay for it and what the team over there looks like generally, right? So the answers that you get should provide you a level of clarity so you can start to make decisions, right?
Doreen 26:46
Perfect. All right, everybody. And listen, if you’re in Florida and you want a consultation, if it’s an uncontested court case, go see us at SplytUp law firm and its SplytUp. And then if you’re in Florida because we handle all Florida, Yaffa Family Law Group if it’s more of a streamlined or higher end boutique type of divorce case.
Jeff 27:09
That’s Yaffa.
Doreen 27:13
Alright everybody have an amazing week.
Jeff 27:15
Have a great week, bye bye.
Jeff 27:25
You have the vision of what you want your life to look like after divorce, but maybe you just don’t know how to get there. So if you’re ready to take control of your life and want to find out more about our coaching, visit us at lad-coaching.com. That’s LAD as in lad-coaching.com.
Doreen 27:47
Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day. And remember, yes you can have an amazing life after divorce.
