In this episode of the Her Empowered Divorce Expert Series podcast, Beverly Price interviews Jaime Davis Esq. and we talk about Drama Free Divorce

Key Interview Questions that Beverly Asks Jaime:

1.   You wrote a book entitled A Year and a Day: Divorce Without Destruction and a podcast with the same name. What inspired you to write the book and start your podcast?

2.   Once a person has made the decision to reach out to a family lawyer and has scheduled their initial consultation with the lawyer, what should they do to ensure they get the most out of their consultation?

3.   What tips do you have for women to help maintain their sanity during what can seem a never ending and frustrating process?

4.   Why is taking of your emotional health during a divorce so important?

5.   What is the best way to make sure that you continue to take care of yourself during the divorce process?

6.What 3 actionable takeaways can you give women that they can do to enhance their journey from beginning to end and recovery from the divorce process

a.   Assemble your team of professionals to help you- lawyer, coach/therapist, CPA, financial planner, valuation experts

b.   Practice self-care

c.   Take baby steps

ABOUT JAIME DAVIS Esq.:

Jaime Humphries Davis joined Gailor Hunt Davis Taylor & Gibbs, PLLC in 2001. Jaime is a Board Certified Family Law Specialist and was selected to Super Lawyers in 2019. She was named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2013 – 2016. Jaime was also named to Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite in Family Law in 2018 and 2019.

Jaime’s practice incorporates all areas of family law, with a concentration in complex equitable distribution and child custody matters, including relocation and interstate cases. Jaime also focuses on family law contracts, including Premarital, Postnuptial, and Separation and Property Settlement Agreements. Jaime is a member of our appellate advocacy group, and she is a Certified Parenting Coordinator. Jaime is also certified by the North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission as a Family Financial Mediator and often serves as a volunteer mediator for Wake County Family Court.

Jaime’s background in domestic law and research enables the firm to stay on the cutting edge of developments in family law. She is a member of the Wake County and North Carolina Bar Associations and hosts the podcast A Year and a Day: Divorce Without Destruction. Jaime recently contributed to the following articles: How to Prepare for Divorce, According to Lawyers and What Divorce Attorneys Tell Their Clients Will Totally Change The Way You Look At Love.

Jaime received both a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in political science and English, and her Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an undergraduate, Jaime received the James M. Johnston and Hugh Morson Memorial scholarships

Jaime formerly served as Chair of the Wake County Bar Association’s Poverty Issues Committee. She currently serves as an attorney volunteer for the UNC-CH Community Legal Project and The Child’s Advocate.

CONNECT WITH JAIME DAVIS –

-Website: https://www.divorceistough.com/ 

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/divorceistough

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DivorceisTough

- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/gailor-hunt-jenkins-davis-and-taylor-pllc

- My personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davisjaime/

CONNECT WITH PODCAST HOST AND DIVORCE AND EMPOWERMENT COACH, BEVERLY PRICE:

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About Host, Beverly Price:

 Beverly Price, certified Divorce and Empowerment coach, combines divorce and empowerment coaching to provide education, support, and insight to guide women along the entire divorce process, and to conquer its emotional, technical, financial and logistical challenges.

Her coaching stresses self-awareness, conflict resolution, communication skills, organization, and clarity. She provides one-on-one custom designed coaching to help women through the ups and downs and grow from self-doubt to self-love quicker, with less pain, more knowledge than she did.

She serves women in three phases of divorce:

1) those contemplating divorce and wanting clarity in their decision process,

2) those in the complex and confusing legal and financial process, and

3) those who are divorced and unhappy, but want a happier, more fulfilling life. 

Other episodes of the Her Empowered Divorce podcast and the Divorce Expert Series, information about Beverly’s coaching, blogs and more can be found at https://www.herempowereddivorce.com

Sign up for a free consultation with Beverly to find out there is someone who can educate, advocate and guide you through all phases of divorce so you can reach an empowered and happy new life! Click on the link https://Beverly-Price.as.me/Consultation

hi beautiful greetings and welcome to her empowered divorce podcast i'm beverly price a divorce and empowerment coach and in this episode i'll bring you a fabulous woman guest like my guest today to share with you your stories their advice and to help you on your divorce journey whether you are soon to be separated separated divorcing or divorced woman this podcast was created for you

i am thrilled to say that my guest today is jamie davis co-managing partner at gaylor hunt and the host of a year and a day divorce without destruction podcast i so love that title i would love every divorce to be without destruction so our topic today again is divorced without destruction and i wanted to tell you a little bit about jamie she's a board certified attorney and family

law and an n c d r c certified family financial mediator and a certified parent and coordinator and i've got some questions that i want to ask jamie but first i want to say and welcome jamie thanks so much for being my guest today it's so good to have you

beverly thank you for having me i'm excited to be here

or so I was certified by the north Carolina dispute resolution commission to be a mediator um and what that means is in family financial cases in north Carolina we have equitable distribution which is the division of property between separated people I can serve as a mediator in those cases and help folks try to reach a settlement of their property and financial cases

is that different from the c p m I think that's another mediator um set of initials that I’ve seen on some mediators are you familiar with that

I am not familiar with that designation mine is specific to north Carolina and so perhaps that could be the difference

okay yeah absolutely okay and I love that you are also a parent and co ordinator I think that's fabulous that's wonderful so you wrote a book entitled a year and a day divorced without destruction and a podcast with the same name so what inspired you to write the book and then I always love to know what motivated you to start your podcast

I am

so, in my case the podcast actually came first at the end of twenty seventeen I had started noticing that there was this belief that divorce had to be nasty had to be contentious and I had also discovered that there was a real lack of resources about divorce in north Carolina I would have folks come into initial consultations with me and they really didn't have much of a background in the subject at all

okay

yes

so, I decided to develop the podcast as a way to get information out there um to people who might be going through separation divorce having child custody issues just as a way to get some basic knowledge, I really wanted to arm them with the information that they would need to have good discussion with their divorce lawyer

that's wonderful and so then what inspired you to write the book I’m always fascinated at people who write books

yeah, that was a really great process is probably one of the most fun things I’ve ever done and talking with the varies guests that were on the podcast I speak with other lawyers’ mediator’s um divorce coach’s therapist you know if you’re a divorce related professional, I’ve probably talked to you on the podcast at some point and just noticed that the information that they had shared with me was so great that I wanted to try to turn

the podcast into a book that I could get the resource yeah, I wanted to get that resource out there to as many individuals as I could sort of as a guide for divorce related professionals in one sense and also as a reference book for regular people just experiencing divorce

now you've given me an idea to write a book absolutely was it difficult was it was it difficult was it expensive you know tell me about the process

you should

or so I started by going through past episodes of the podcast to figure out which ones I thought would go well together in a book um and I had those transcribed and I just read through them and from there I tried to see you know if there are any holes in the subject matter that I need to fill in you know there's some big topic that I haven't touched on and so then a few of the chapters I had to just write completely from scratch because I had not recorded an episode on those I believe it took me

about a year start to finish from kind of brain storming the idea to having the book in my hand the only unfortunate thing that happened I got my book in early twenty twenty and book launch was march twelfth of twenty twenty and as you may recall that's right when covid was hitting this area so put a little bit of a damper on the party but

and yeah

right but it launched right an awesome wow that's wonderful I always love to see women connect with a passionate topic in a passionate activity in their life think it brings out almost electricity in us and I think it's one of my real passions is women helping women so I think the fact excuse me that you're doing this

it did it did and it's been great ever since

just is marvelous

thank you so much you know I care so much about this topic and making sure that women understand what their rights are when they're going through divorce and they understand some of the other needs they may have and the other professionals that are out there such as yourself Beverly that can help them address those needs

if a woman isn't in north Carolina is there a place she can go beside your podcast I mean for example, can she turn to the bar association for some basic questions before she sees an attorney particularly, I see women in what I call the contemplation phase where they're not sure if they want to get a divorce or not but they also need to check out a few things like um you know

they're always concerned about the finances what is the method of assessing finances in that state what are there any rules about child custody that type of thing are there any resources without first having to go to an attorney or a mediator kind of the preliminary check

that's a great question yeah sure so I would say you could start with a basic google search um you know matrimonial law is very state specific as I’m sure you know and so you know depending on whatever state they're in I would just recommend doing some of those basic searches on google first a lot of the family law firms around the country have great websites that have a lot of information on them and so as long as you find some firms that are specific to your state I think that can be a

great first step before actually scheduling the consultation you could also reach out to the bar association; they may have some resources as well local library there should be some books on the topic in the area and I think that's a great way to start

so, thank you so much I know we talk a lot about when a woman seas an attorney or when a woman goes to a mediator what about again the woman who is thinking about it who's not sure who still has to weigh kind of the pros and cons of a divorce and assess her marriage do you have any thoughts for her as to

is to help her one in her thought process and two then if she decides to pursue a divorce what are some of the things she should think about

so if a woman like that ended up in my office for a consultation I would ask her a few questions m one of the first ones would be do you have a coach do you have a therapist and if not I would suggest that she get one especially if she's not sure if she wants to take that step to actually become separated I would also ask if she and her spouse have tried marriage counseling you know if she's not sure and she wants to be sure marriage counseling can be a great way to do that just to make sure you

done everything that you can within your control before you take that step to separate and then throughout that consultation what I would do is to make sure that she understood the legal concepts if she did in fact decide she wanted to pursue a separation

great thoughts great thoughts so once a person has then made a decision to reach out to an attorney or a mediator and they've scheduled their initial well first let's step back before that should a woman should a woman see an attorney or a mediator

so I would recommend that she see an attorney and in north Carolina there's a very specific reason why I would say that here in our state the mediator can't give either spouse legal advice and so if the woman has not reached out to a lawyer first and she's going into a mediation you know I would say blind not knowing what she could be entitled to you know that's not to say she might not be willing to accept less or maybe she wants more than what the law would provide for her

but she should at least know if her case went to court what would a judge likely do for her

excellent okay great absolute great advice and then from that point how does she make the decision does she continue with an attorney one for litigation or two with the attorney to support her mediation and three mediations without an attorney how does she make that decision

um so I don't know that she necessarily has to make that decision per se I think that there is a mis perception that when women hire lawyers that their case is automatically headed for court, I will tell you in my practice the vast majority of the cases that we handle settle at some point in the process may be not right at the very beginning but the vast majority end up settling before they end up in a court room and so in a typical case

if someone comes in and she says we're fairly amicable my husband and I would like to try to resolve this outside of court we'd say great and we would participate in a voluntary document exchange with the other side to make sure both parties have all of the financial information they need and then if the lawyers could attempt to negotiate the case without mediation and might save the mediation expense for the client but if not we would you know steer the parties into mediation and try to get the case resolved that

way um again in north Carolina I think it's important to have a lawyer in mediation because the mediator cannot draft the final settlement document for two prose parties and so in that case even if they reached a deal the husband and wife would not walk away from the mediation with a signed agreement one or the other of them would have to hire a lawyer to draft that document

yah and I think some people don't understand that the mediator is a neutral party right so having an attorney there for you also helps look out for your interests right okay

that's right

oh absolutely you have your advocate there advocating for your interest in what you might be entitled to

so, um so let's say once a person has made the decision to reach out to a lawyer again what should they do to really ensure that they get the most out of the consultation

so, I think it's important to be prepared for the consultation and that's not as hard as it sounds really what that means is have your time line together of things that have happened in the marriage of there are very specific reasons you're going to see the attorney maybe it's infidelity maybe it's domestic violence maybe it's m child custody issues whatever the main issues are that have steered you into the consultation make sure you have a time line of those and things that have happened

um if you have access to the financial information that can also be helpful if you can get together some tax returns or if you have a basic idea of what your household budget is and how much money you need each month to pay your bills those sorts of things can be helpful um I think it can also be helpful to take a look at the law firms website check out the bios of the lawyer that you're going to meet with um see if they seem like they're a good fit for you on the front end

consultation how can they really get the most out of that consultation so that they learn the most they use the time effectively they don't use so much extra time that they get build extra those kinds of things and one more question are the initial consultations usually do they cost or are they free

those are all lots of great questions i think yeah no worries i think that's great so the biggest piece of advice i can give is to be prepared for that initial consultation and it's not as hard as it sounds really you just want to put together a time line of the events that have happened in your marriage that have led you to the point that you think you need a consultation with a divorce lawyer um for example if infidelity is an issue you may want to have a time line together

of the evidence that you have of why you think your spouse is cheated if domestic violence is an issue again have a time line of some of those big incidents that have occurred um same with child custody if things have happened with the children and you know there's something negative about the other spouses parenting make sure that you bring those to the attention of the lawyer during the consultation and you made a great point about using your time effectively during the consultation typically consultations are

fairly limited in scope usually i'd say about an hour and a half as a typical consultation length and the goal at least for my office is that you walk away from that consultation with a plan you might not be able to get all of your questions answered because the time is somewhat limited but you can use that consultation to number one determine if the lawyer is a good fit for you i always say to my clients you trust your lawyer like you trust your doctor and if you don't

go have another consultation with somebody else that's okay you know shop around make sure it's a good fit um and you also want to make sure that you leave the consultation having an understanding of what your next steps are um the lawyer may give you a little bit of home work if you came into the consultation not having a good idea about the finances you know your lawyer may ask you to do a little digging see if you can figure out your monthly budget if you have a joint checking a

maybe take a look at that if you're not sure what the expenses are um so that's really i think the purpose of the consultation and some ways that you can maximize your time with the lawyer during that meeting

from time to time well also i had one thought is sometimes i've heard from attorneys that the woman comes to them and uses them more as an opportunity to vent their emotions as opposed to specifically talking about legal facts and one of the things i do when i'm coaching a client is help them work on emotions

support them so that when they go to the attorney they are they are much more factual one of the things that that i suggest and that i believe is that one of the worst mistakes you can make in divorce is to let your emotions high jack you so you can't think clearly what have you seen what advise would you give to women or what do you say to a woman when she starts to do that

absolutely

so i think initially it is very important for especially women who are going through a divorce to have the opportunity to vent and to tell their story um but you're right it gets to a point where it can interfere with the legal advice that were there to give them and so i always suggest if they don't have a coach or a therapist that they find one um everyone in my opinion can benefit from a coach and from therapy when they're going thru

separations probably one of the hardest things they've ever had to deal with in their life and my job as the lawyer is to tell them the legal implications of their actions of their case what the law will do for them but i can't make life decisions for them i can't tell them whether or not they're willing to accept a certain custody schedule i don't know what will work best for their particular family i can't tell them whether or not to

up a property settlement and so they need to be in a really healthy good head space so that they can make good decisions for their futures

excellent advice i'm going to pause right there i want to make sure yeah it's the screen is going to go off and come back on i want to go take off my wife and go to my either net connection so i'll be right back

okay sure

did it do that without blinking off i guess it did cool want to make sure we get the best signal sorry um okay well i love i absolutely love that answer and i just love the way you answer questions because i think they're so on point helping women as opposed to just talking about the process so

i love it when you offer tips so what tips do you have for women to help them maintain their sanity excuse me during what's really and absolutely seemingly never ending and very frustrating process

it's frustrating to say the least and i have lots of ideas and tips for trying to stay saying through that process the most important tip that i can give is to take care of yourself you need to be in that healthy head space that i spoke about earlier self care can look like lots of different things for different people you know maybe it's taking a walk maybe it's meditating maybe it's hanging out with your girlfriends maybe it's getting some medication prescribed

the important thing to remember though is don't self-medicate and don't resort to destructive behaviors because those can be detrimental to the legal aspects of your case um i also think it's important to take baby steps when you're going through this process divorce can be overwhelming your life can feel like it is just being upended and trying to look at the big picture in the way your life might be five years from now is going to overwhelm you and you're going to become paralyzed in the process and so

i encourage people especially women to just baby step it through that process and think about you know tomorrow do i have my custody schedule figured out for tomorrow do i know how this month's bills are going to be paid um take it step by step um i mentioned this earlier also find a therapist i think it's really important that you have that extra support

some so you talked a little bit about self care and emotional health why do you think it so important to take care of those during a divorce

because if you're not taking care of yourself you're not going to be able to make good decisions for your future and we are dealing with the two most important things to women their children and their money and they need to be healthy so that they can make good decisions about how their property is going to be divided and how their children are going to be taken care of moving forward

i see some women that kind of throw up their hands and just say i want this over with i'll give him everything i don't care and i see many women that look back and regret how they handled their divorce and wish they had done it differently do you have any advice to the women that just wants to throw up her hands and say i just want this to be over. you mentioned a little bit earlier about self-care and emotional health so why do you think taking care of your emotional health during a divorce is so important

i think taking care of your emotional health during a divorce is very important because we are dealing with the two things that are usually the most important to women their children and their money and they need to be in a good head space to make good decisions about how their property will be divided how their bills will be paid and how their children will be taken care of moving forward especially for the stay at home mom this may be all the money that she's going to get until

s able to find employment if she decides that's the path she's going to go down and she needs to make sure that she is not giving up more than she is entitled to just be done with the process she needs to have enough money to take care of herself and the kids into the future

ah i think so many times a woman can look at this as this is just you know something to get over as opposed to this is going to affect me for the rest of my life and affect my children for the rest of my life so yeah i think again you know trying to work on your emotions and keep them in check is so important so

what do you think she needs to do to continue to take care of herself during the process

i think that she needs to find support and that can look different for different people self care means different things to different people you know some folks they want to go for a walk they want to meditate they want to do some yoga other folks may need to have some medication prescribed for some women it's as simple as making time for your girl friends and being around your support system having people to talk to and to lean on

and when you need that little extra push um what's most important is just not resorting to self medication and destructive behaviors because those can have negative implications especially on a custody case you know there can be a tendency to drink more to go out and party a little bit more but you need to be very mindful that you're not doing those things in a way that could be destructive to your custody case

i just i just experienced a woman that i know that from her separation began drinking and using opioids she had two small children and rather than making it through her divorce she died because she abused those so much it's terrible so we've talked about so much we've talked about so much

that's terrible

ways ask my guests to bring three actionable take aways for women that they can do right away to enhance their journey whether they're at the contemplation stage at the separation stage or divorcing stage or after what would your three actionable steps be

i think the first one would be to assemble your team of professionals to help you through the process your coach your therapist your lawyer a financial advisor and account if you need one you may need some valuation experts but just make sure you get that team together they're going to provide the support that you need to get through this process i would also say practice self care i've talked a lot about self care i think it's really important so make sure you're taking care of yourself

f and number three i would say take baby steps you don't have to solve your whole divorce in a day you know your marriage lasted for loss of years your separation and divorce will likely take at least a year so just baby step it through the process and it will be much easier to manage

what would you say to a woman that i run into this question that thinks a coach is a luxury rather than a necessity

in the process

i would i would encourage her to get a coach because she needs that emotional support so that she can make good decisions about the legal aspect of her case this is a really tough time to go through alone and women can use all the extra support they can get

awesome jamie you have been such a fabulous guest with so much information how can my listeners find you

my law form website i work at galer hunt its divorce is tough dot com and my yeah and my email is j davis at divorces tough dot com

i like that topic

beautiful do you have anything else you like to share that i haven't covered or asked you

i think that we have covered a lot of ground today but the one thing that i would like to say is if you decide that a separation is in your future you will get through it it's going to get harder before it gets easier but there is light at the end of the tunnel and you will get through it with the right support and help

wonderful jamie thank you so much for being my guest today you are truly amazing and i really believe that how you suggested women can move from overwhelm and pain can be a spring board to a new life thank you thank you

thank you thank you beverly for having me

all of jamie's information will be available in the show notes along with mine and you can find them at her empower divorce dot com on the podcast page or wherever you listen to podcasts i believe that women helping women is our super power that's why i'm bringing incredible professional women to discuss topics critical to you and your divorce we all struggle and we can all thrive if we stick together it's time

walk the talk of helping other women to get help from women to help other women to do business with women and most of all to raise up other women while you may be able to pull yourself up by the boot straps to get through a divorce and afterwards many women can't reach out to them and pull them along to recovery with you after my journey of ups and downs without this kind of support that's available this podcast is my way of giving giving back to women just like you thank you for being with jamie and myself on this episode of her empowered divorce join me in the next episode where i'll be diving deep into other issues that can help you on your separation and divorce journey remember you can find more podcast episodes and information about my divorce and empowerment coaching at her empowered divorce dot com thank you for joining us today and take care