Ep. 50 – Life, Law, and Living Boca

Hey, my beautiful friends. How are you doing? I hope you’re doing okay. So listen, today’s gonna be a little different. We’re gonna have some fun. It’s not gonna be so much about coaching. It’s going to be about me being interviewed on a podcast. So I was at an event where they had several podcasters that were doing their episodes live, and I was interviewed on a podcast called Living Boca.

So Living Boca basically is a podcast. That interviews people in Boca Raton, I guess, uh, that, you know, our dynamic personalities, favorite businesses, unique stories to Boca Raton. And so they asked me if I would be on, of course I said yes. And so that’s. The episode that we’re gonna hear today. So have some fun with it and we’ll circle back next week with another coaching episode.

All right, my friend. Have a great time and enjoy.

Are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaa and Jeff Wilson, and we are here. View 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.

It is time for a living. Boca, let me tell you, living Boca is the podcast that features some of the most dynamic personalities, favorite businesses and unique stories that really make Boca Raton such as Special South Florida community. And tonight we are spotlighting. The host of your, uh, very popular podcast called Your Amazing Divorce, miss Doen Yaa.

Woo,

how you Get Me Again? Welcome back to Living Boca. Like, uh, Janine said, we feature all the most prominent personalities before I bring up the guest. How many people here are divorced? Woo. How many people here would like to be divorced? There we go. All right. Well, we have somebody who’s gonna help you out with that.

She’s the founder of Yaha Family Law Group. She’s got a big resume. She’s a mom of four. She’s a child of divorce. She’s divorced herself. She’s remarri. She’s a divorced lawyer and what she does is she brings her own life experiences and passion as a family lawyer to her podcast called Your Amazing Divorce, which we are simulcasting this for tonight.

And she wants you to move past the pain and the hurt not to make the same mistakes. And create the life you’ve always wanted. In the next chapter that follows your amazing divorce, doen Yaha,

welcome. Hey everybody. Let’s try this again. Hey, everybody. Divorced people out there, . I asked Doreen this question once and she kind of laughed, but then she gave me the answer. I said, are too many people divorced or not enough? And the answer was, she said, just the right amount, but they might not be the right ones.

Right? Divorce is a very painful thing. It is something that, you know, obviously pulls families apart. You have a lot of layers to it. There’s finances, there’s children, there’s emotion. What made you wanna get involved in. Such a sorted mess like divorce. Well, like you said, I came from divorce and I was divorced.

Um, I have three kids from my first marriage and I’m remarried. I met my husband Jeff, who’s here, husband in the house. Let me tell you, if you think you’re not gonna get remarried, Guess what? We got married in four months. We’ve been married almost 13 years. So it happens. Yeah, it happens. But I’m also a life coach.

So what I do is I bring my life coaching to the people that are going through divorce and post divorce, so they can create the life they want. What’s the most, uh, common misconception? Misconception about going through the process of divorce? A lot of people, Stay unhappily married for years because of the fear of what divorce entails.

Well, you know what? Why do we sometimes think that divorce is a failure? You know, the way I look at it is sometimes people just outgrow each other. Does that have to be a horrible thing or can it just be that that’s the time you spent, you have beautiful kids together, you had great memories, and it’s time to move on.

It doesn’t have to be horrible. I am best friends with my ex. We have three kids together and we’re really good friends, so it can happen Our. Our, you know, we always hear the headlines of the contentious divorces. Yeah. Do most, um, by the time they get you to you or shortly after they get to you, What percentage are sort of relatively amicable?

Well, um, Richie’s here, one of the lawyers in my office, , are, do you say Richie are most fairly amicable or are most not a, not amicable? And then I would say most are not. But then they get there, like, look at it. Only 3% of the cases on average go to trial. So if you think about that, Somewhere along the line, they get it together and they figure it out.

Right. So you settle it. You settle it. Is the biggest point of contention usually money or custody? Both. Both, yeah. I think more money nowadays. I think custody issues. Parents are really trying to do the right things nowadays. They are. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Mo, regardless of how contentious the relationship is, most people want some degree of shared custody.

Absolutely, they do. And it’s our jobs as lawyers to kind of help them see that it really is. What would somebody be surprised about in the field of divorce law? What, what would these people be like? Huh. I didn’t realize that. It’s really not that complicated really. It’s really not. But you get paid the big bucks cuz it is complicated.

Well, no. Yes and no. I get paid. We get paid the big bucks because people don’t see that. It’s not that complicated. Oh, that’s true. They complicated and you have to unravel it. And it’s our job to show them. It’s really not that hard. Right. You. It’s hard emotionally, I get that. But from a legal standpoint, it’s not that, it’s not that difficult.

Do you, how often do you have a couple that are, you’re like, I know it’s your job to get them divorced. Have you encountered like, you guys really should work this out? No. Our first job, and I’ll ask the lawyers that do family in the audience, our first job is to make sure that the marriage truly is irreconcilable.

Oh, okay. That’s our first job. That’s your, that’s your duty. So if you can make it work, What we try to do, right? You know, we try to figure out can they make it work, but most can’t. When they come to see a lawyer, they’re pretty much there. Is the, um, expiration date on a marriage, is that the legal term? Uh, is it seven to 10 years?

Is that about right? For most? Um, I think that would be probably the prime, you know, prime years that they’re coming to see us. I think you told me once you had somebody come to you after, what, like 40 or 50 years of marriage. We had people, we had recent divorces. They were in their eighties. They’re, and they’re like, yeah.

And what she said, she’s like, I need a second actor here. No, what she said is, I will not die married to this man, . I will die. A single lady, and she is single, are long-term marriages harder to divorce. I’ll use as a verb or somebody who’s been together. 18 months and it really never worked. Uh, long term.

Usually more complicated? I think so, yeah. Because there’s more stock, there’s, there’s more assets and more history. Well, there’s know, there’s more issues and more history and more emotion and children and blah, blah, blah. Um, Do you have to ask the reason why they’re getting divorced? Do you say, why do you wanna divorce this person?

Well, the court really doesn’t care so much about it. We’re a no fault state, but we ask And what’s the the craziest reason you’ve heard? Oh boy. Craziest. We’re not naming names here, but it’s just like, wait, what? The reason they wanna get divorced? The craziest, I don’t know. I mean, I’m trying to think of some crazy, I mean, we have, we have some cases where, You caught him on the floor with a guy.

Yeah. I mean, that’s a good reason. Oh, you followed that. I dunno if that’s crazy. Yeah, that, oh, she caught him on the phone with a guy. Oh yeah. That’s grounds for divorce in most states, . Yeah. Um, here’s a question that I have. Somebody brought it up to me when I told them that I was gonna be talking to you tonight.

It was very famously happened in the case. Um, With Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney, where they threw the word fraud in there and people freaked out. What? What does that mean? Is that just a legal term or did somebody really, or you’re not familiar with what happened in that case? Yeah, I think in that case they were claiming that someone, one of the parties misrepresented something that enticed the other party to get married.

Is that criminal in any way? No. No, no, no. It couldn’t be, but you could. You could ask the court for what we call an annulment. As if the marriage never happened, but those never happened. If somebody get, so that’s doesn’t happen. That’s not actual. So you can’t, it’s never criminal if somebody, uh, hid their past or anything.

That’s just, no, that’s between the parties. You take your chances might be a civil action, maybe, but happily ever after. Happily ever after. What does that mean, ? Uh, I don’t know. Still trying to figure that one out. Um, certain states are more complicated and take longer to get divorced than other states.

How is Florida unique in the process? Florida’s pretty fast, I think, compared to other states. Rishi, my, one of our lawyers, Rishi goes 10 days. Yeah, I know. He is just telling me about, uh, one of the agree, one of the administrative orders is something today that say they have to happen within a certain period of time, but yeah, they don’t take so long.

If somebody wants to get divorced and the other person doesn’t want to get divorced, how long can that drag out? Same. Takes one person. Really? Yeah. That’s it. They can, you don’t have to serve. They can. No. What if one person left the country? Can you do it sort of in absentia? Yeah. I mean, , you’re gonna have to find them and serve them or post service, you know, do constructive service.

But yeah, so cuz this is South Floridas. Somebody gets married, they get the American Express card, they decide to travel the world . He’s like, what happened to my beautiful bride? Yeah. Well, your job is to get him divorced. My job is to get the divorce done as quick as possible. , how big a, how big a issue is discovery of assets.

How much hiding of the money is there? It’s a big issue. Yeah. It’s a big issue. If one person controls the assets and the other person wants to get divorced, it obviously costs money to get divorced. Sure. How, how should that person go about it? Well, you’re saying if they’re hiding the assets? Yeah, so, so somebody like they got an allowance or they just, without them finding out.

Suddenly you’re putting, um, Yaha law firm legal bills on the, on the Visa card. He’s gonna be like, what are you doing? Yeah, well you probably won’t, don’t wanna do that . Right. So if somebody’s like, I don’t have access to that kind of money, cuz there are a lot of, you know, people that are one, one income families down here.

What, how do they go about it? So you can ask the court for temporary support and part of that will be temporary fees. And you ask the other person to pay. Can you be like, oh, there’s money here on the back end. You as a lawyer, like, I’ll get mine. You. We don’t do that, but, and I don’t know, I don’t know many family lawyers that do.

Look, the job is to get them through the process as quick as possible, and that’s, that’s what we strive to do. Somebody who wants to get divorced, the first thing they should do is call you. And you, you find out really the state of the marriage or you don’t care about that. You’re gonna walk them through the process.

No, no, no. They call us for a consult and figure it out. Have a game plan, have a strategy. That’s it. Um, How many are, and again, how many are people usually mad? And you have to calm them down and get them to focus on what you need to get them at. Take the emotion outta it. It’s called client control. . Client control.

That’s it. Every once in a while, nobody in the room here. You must represent somebody who’d be like, Oh my God, I would divorce you 10 years ago. Yeah. Right. I can’t believe she stuck with you or he stuck with her. No, but part of what I do is the coaching part of it. Right. You know, really working on their thoughts and their brain to get them through it.

So when they come in like that, I got, I gotta work on it. Um, what piece of advice can you give somebody who’s sort of at that fork in the road, in a marriage as both a coach and an attorney? Well, I think the first thing to do is really figure out what you’re thinking and why you’re thinking. Like, why do you have those thoughts?

Where are they coming from? Right. And then, um, try to save it, for sure. Try to save the marriage. If it doesn’t work, then it’s okay to leave and just try to do it with dignity and respect. The best thing about getting divorced is what the other side, the next chapter, look, all these people that are in here today that have been divorced, let me ask you a question.

Where are my divorced people? How’s your life? How many are happier? How many of you are happier than you were when you were going through that divorce? Right? Every single person. That’s why it’s called your Amazing divorce. That’s why it’s called your Amazing Divorce. A lot of people treat it like a game of musical chairs, and if they don’t have a seat, they’re gonna miss out.

There’s other seats. They’re more comfortable, they’re better. Tell everybody about where they can find you and your amazing divorce. Okay, so your amazing. You can find us online on our podcast and Yaha Family Law Group. We’re right down the street. (561) 276-3880. Call us if you need us during yaha.

Everybody listen. Thank you. This has been Living Boca, where we feature all the most prominent personalities, businesses, and brands. Follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, and I hope that you have my friend, a most amazing week. Be kind and loving to yourself. Love others, and until next time, bye.

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. Your life and want to find out more about our coaching, visit [email protected]. That’s l a d as in life after divorce-coaching.com. Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day.

And remember, yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce.