Think emailing your divorce lawyer is the “cheapest” way to communicate? Think again.
In this episode of How Not to Suck at Divorce, Morgan (yes, Morgan is solo because Andrea has the flu 😷) breaks down one of the most expensive mistakes people make during divorce: sending emotional, scattered emails instead of getting real strategy.
We’re talking about when to email, when to call, when a face-to-face meeting is worth every penny, and how to show up prepared so you’re not paying for chaos. Plus: switching attorneys (when it’s time and when it’s not), pre-divorce “move smarter” tips, how to protect evidence, what to know about non-marital assets, beneficiary red flags, and why tax implications can become negotiation leverage.
Bottom line: you need a plan—and you don’t get one by spiraling in your inbox.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Why a phone call or face-to-face attorney meeting can be more cost-effective than emails
How to stop reacting to your ex’s “urgent” messages and start operating with divorce strategy
The best way to prep for billable time: bullet points, goals, and an objective
When it makes sense to consult another attorney (without immediately switching)
What “collect evidence” actually means—and where to store it safely
Why you should document what you entered the marriage with (non-marital assets)
The red flag nobody thinks about: beneficiary changes during divorce
How divorce-related tax implications can become powerful negotiation points
Episode Highlights (Key Moments)
00:00 Why face-to-face meetings can be more valuable (and cost-effective) than email
Our Family Wizard is another fantasitc resource for those who need help navigating the "fun" world of coparenting. Head to this landing page to see how we work closely with them to support our listeners! http://www.ourfamilywizard.com/notsuck20
Friends, slide into our dms, we love love love hearing from you. We are always here to listen and help in any way we can. You've got this and we've got you.
a face-to-face meeting with your attorney is going to be much more valuable and much more cost effective than doing an email, which people think email is always going to be the best way to communicate.
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If you're trying to save dollars, which I completely understand, the fact of the matter is you're probably not going to be very trustworthy of your lawyer. And you're probably not going to feel very comfortable because you may not have that strategy and that white glove service that you need to get you through this horrible time.
How Not To Suck At Divorce (:
If you're going through a divorce or you're thinking about going through a divorce, then this is the podcast that you've been waiting for. Hosted by Morgan Stogsdill, the head of family law at the largest family law firm in the country, and comedian Andrea Rappaport, we are gonna help you avoid the biggest divorce mistakes with our expert guidance, So let's go.
This is How Not to Suck at Divorce.
Morgan L. Stogsdill (:
You know, Andrea, the biggest takeaway I hope that people get from listening to this podcast is that they make better decisions, but being proactive and not reactive.
How Not To Suck At Divorce (:
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Morgan L. Stogsdill (:
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Morgan L. Stogsdill (:
So this is a first time for me. We've had so many episodes, or not so many, but enough, where Andrea unfortunately has had to take the brunt of the podcast by herself But today, my friends, it's my turn. because Andrea is unfortunately faced down with the flu. And her cough is something you do not want to hear. She actually asked if she should just get on and help me record this.
after she blew her nose on the phone with me, I decided this was an absolute hard pass. So you get me, my friends. So today, we were supposed to record a new topic, something that we will bring to you shortly when she's back up and running, but instead we decided to give her a little break and rerun an episode that did so well because it hits on so many topics of divorce and big mistakes that you can make. I'm gonna share one story before we get into the episode that I actually dealt with today.
And this episode that you're going to hear is going to talk you through how to handle this issue. So I have a client who we have a hearing coming up and the client is very upset, nervous for good reason about what's going to happen. Her ex, it's a woman, her ex is filing a lot of motions. A lot of them make no sense whatsoever, but obviously when you get those things, you're agitated.
We set a call with her and we said, don't worry, we'll get on the phone with you, we'll talk it through, don't worry about it. But instead of just waiting, putting her thoughts into a format that we can address on the call, I think we received over the last few days about like nine emails. And I'm not going to give away what you should do because that's going to be in this episode, but there's definitely a better way to handle your emotions.
handle your concerns with your lawyer so you're not getting charged for every emotional email. And listen, We know you are highly emotional and we as lawyers are here to get you through it. And this episode is going to tell you exactly how to do that.
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Okay, so this weekend, I want to tell you a story because it kind of goes right into what we're talking about. So it was Sunday of the weekend, I was at my children's sporting events and I got kind of an urgent message from a friend who I know who is going through a divorce. He is not using me because I usually don't take close friends. I think it's a little too close for comfort, but he's using somebody who's reputable.
And he was very frantic. He wanted to speak with me, which I always think is a little dangerous in general as a divorce lawyer, because we're not involved. If you're not involved directly in the case, it's pretty hard to see what's going on. And it's pretty hard to understand the whole exact case without having a full meeting or a few meetings to really dive into it. But anyway, could tell he was struggling. So I said, of course, let's talk.
And he called me and some background on this gentleman. He's a business owner. He is super smart, very analytical, but this divorce is paralyzing him. And, you know, if you're out there listening and you're feeling the same way, we feel you. And the conversation was related to the fact that he couldn't quite wrap his head around strategy of his divorce. And he was doing things. I said, what are you doing right now? And he said, well, you know, we got these requests for documents from my ex and
I'm putting together all the responses and he's like, and one of the questions is asking for like, you know, a million years back and all these minutiae details. And I said, hold on a second. Let me ask you something. Have you met with your attorney or talked to your attorney about these requests? Well, no. And I said, then why are you compiling all of these responses? You have no strategy. This is not you doing your own lawyer work. You need to take a step back.
You need to understand that you have a professional on your side. And the reason you're stressed is because you're not speaking to your lawyer enough about what the strategy is, and you're just out there doing your own legal work. And so we kind of had to come to Jesus meeting, for lack of a better term, because I think some people just say, okay, well, this was sent to me and I have to fill it out. And so I'm going to spend all day Sunday, you know, going through all this paperwork. And that's nonsense a lot of the time, because a lot of the time there could be objections to the discovery.
And we could save you a lot of time. What I said to him and where I left it is, listen, I know you're a businessman. I know you think lawyers cost a lot of money and we do. But when you don't call your lawyer enough or communicate with your lawyer enough, you're going to cost yourself more money. It's cheaper to get on the phone, get a strategy together and not have yourself ruining every weekend with your head spinning and you running around like in a rat race. So.
It kind of goes exactly with what we're talking about today. And I know I wanted to share this story with you, Andrew. You haven't heard this story yet. But when we were talking about what were actually the topic of today's podcast, I'm like, my gosh, this goes right into kind of what we're saying.
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I have a thought. I want to take a stab at what I think somebody in your friend's position should do. Okay? Because I think what this first best kept secret is, it's a few things wrapped into one. Number one, it's that you don't have to respond yourself to every single request you get from your soon to be ex.
that you're gonna have a lot of things thrown your way and they could say things like, need a response by end of day today. If anything seems, if it's like, you know, something that's like, do you have our daughter's blue jacket? That's something you can probably respond to by the end of the day today. But if this is like a major decision, right? And something where the stakes are high. Number one, you don't have to do something just because.
You know, they want it. can, you don't ignore them just to ignore them. But if this is a big decision, you got to talk to your attorney. And number two, by not involving your attorney and taking on all of these things, because you think you're problem solving, you think that you're saving money, you're actually going to spend a lot more money. So what I think you do is.
We've talked about this at the very end of last season and we've reiterated it in this season. This idea that actually calling your attorney could be more cost effective than sending an email. An unpopular opinion, because a lot of people think, well, getting on the phone with this person is going to cost me a ton of money. Well, we've already debunked that. We've explained it to you many times that you're going to be able to get a lot more done.
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Mmm.
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with the caveat of call them with notes, right? As if you're sending them an email, and this is what I would do. I would have bullet points written down of everything that I want to cover with this attorney knowing that this is precious billable hours on the phone. So, bada bing, bada boom, bada bum, bada bum. This is what I need to know. And you have to have an objective. Your objective is to have a strategy, right?
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⁓ Absolutely, Andrea, you're sounding like me now. Yes, you're the winner, winner, chicken dinner over there. what I left him with was, okay, a few things that you need to convey to your lawyer. One, I need you, this was like a lot of things he was throwing at me. said, this is a sit down meeting, first of all. This is more than a phone call. It's a sit down meeting. Go in and talk to her.
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Wait, what I'm telling you, what makes it, because that's an interesting point, what makes it a sit down face to face as opposed to a whole call?
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I think when you're feeling like you don't have a plan, you don't have a strategy, and you also are almost losing a little bit of trust in your lawyer, it could be the lack of the face-to-face strategizing. so give them a time to sit down with them and then evaluate how you feel.
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that. I think that is such an important thing and I think that makes me think that we should do another episode at some point Morgan where we can play game where it's like email, phone call, face-to-face. think that that would really help people. Okay so I'm sorry for interrupting but I think that that was an important part to distinguish of okay why a face-to-face now versus a phone
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I love it. I love it.
Yeah, so and I kind of left out parts of the story so I'm going to tell you what some background is and then I'm going to tell you what I told him. So he had a bunch of issues. Number one is lots of children related issues with the ex-high conflict, lots of kind of spamming emails back and forth, both trying to get each other in trouble. And I point blanks at him. I said, what are your goals in your case? What are your goals? And he kind of stopped and he
He was kind all over the map. So I said, all right, here's the first thing you're going to think about and fill out before your attorney meeting. What are your goals related to your children? I want three goals related to your children and the parenting time. The second thing I said, he said, well, you know, I just don't know what's important. I think that my ex is lying. I think that...
My attorney doesn't know all the minutia or all the details. if I, know, before I go pulling all these crazy text messages and emails that prove my point that she's a liar and all this stuff, I need to know if it matters. I said, here's what we're going to do. I get it. That is overwhelming. What I want you to do is make a bullet point sheet on the parenting issues where you need to know whether it matters or not, whether you go down that rabbit hole. So what does it look like? A bullet point saying,
You know, my ex lied in these circumstances. Here are the pieces of evidence I have that can prove that lie. That's one bullet point. And you sit down with your lawyer and you say, does this matter for my goals? What does this look like? Should I go down the rabbit hole? Like he said, it would take him a few hours to try to go pull these text messages. I said, stop it. It's Sunday. You don't even know if this matters.
So that's the bullet point sheet I'm saying to him to prepare for the attorney. Same thing with the financials. So he's got all these discovery requests. He's asking me whether he should make these different investments. And I said, bullet point it. These are questions to sit down with. So in my mind, he would come into the meeting just based upon his case and where he was at with three documents, the goal sheet, the bullet points on the parenting issues, and maybe the
different evidence pieces that we could or could not prove, and then all the questions on the financials. That's where I left him, and he felt so much better after I told him to put down the paperwork and please go outside and take a walk.
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Hey, the, mean, number two best kept secret is when you are overwhelmed, move your body, move your body. We talk about this all the time, but when you feel like you're about to explode, that is not the time to make a decision. That is the time to give yourself a break. And it doesn't have to be the rest of the day break. A break doesn't mean, you know,
cut out of work and go, you know, hang out at the bar for the rest of the day getting sloshed. A break could literally just mean take seven minutes and walk around the block. You meet your brain sometimes has to come back and like get back to like focusing and you can't focus when you're so emotionally charged. One last thing that you said, you mentioned that he was starting to feel
frustrated that his attorney didn't know all of the details. And I'm wondering, is that on him? Because was he judging his case and thinking, well, my attorney doesn't need to know this. And then on the other flip side, he's feeling frustrated that his attorney didn't know everything.
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think it's a little bit of both. He doesn't know what's important for his attorney to know. I'm sure that the attorney in the first few intake meetings for strategy, know, when clients kind of do vomit at the mouth and say, you know, this is what's been happening, my ex is a liar, here's some things that, you know, proves that. The lawyers basically are the way our brains work is we are taking the pieces of information that matter to us and we're writing it down.
The ones that were like, this probably doesn't matter. We're kind of putting it off to the side and we're letting the client talk. what I'm saying to him is the reason you're feeling uncomfortable with your attorney likely is because you don't have enough FaceTime with the attorney. You haven't had enough conversations to build that trust. Remember, it's like any relationship. An attorney-client relationship is like a friendship, like a dating relationship, whatever. The more you meet, the more you talk, the more you trust. And so
If you're trying to save dollars, which I completely understand, the fact of the matter is you're probably not going to be very trustworthy of your lawyer. And you're probably not going to feel very comfortable because you may not have that strategy and that white glove service that you need to get you through this horrible time.
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So this brings me to another secret that I think that we should talk about for a minute here. Secret number three, if things aren't working out with your attorney, you don't have to stay with this attorney. So let's say you have this face-to-face and you do everything we're telling you to do, right? And you walk away from that meeting and you're like, I don't think we can. I'm not feeling good about this. What we are not recommending is that you immediately fire them.
You don't, because again, that if you're upset, take a walk, calm yourself down before you decide to switch counsel. You have every right to pay for an hour of somebody else's time, another reputable attorney in your area and run the situation by them to see if their strategy makes you feel more comfortable. Morgan, and cons in doing this. And let's kind of elaborate on why this is another best kept secret.
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Yep. So pro is it's nice to, you know, kind of get other ideas. Lawyers are like doctors. We're creative. We're trying to find solutions. But every professional is different. Every professional will look at things a little bit differently. So you might gain some knowledge, even if you're not ready to switch lawyers. If you want to talk to somebody else because you're worried about the strategy in your case, that's something that you absolutely could do. And you might come out with some other ideas. That's a pro. The con?
I have to be honest that, you know, depending on the type of law firm or lawyer that you're interviewing, it's still a business. They're trying to get you in the door. So at the end of the day, you might meet somebody who may say, you know, one, negative things about your lawyer, which I don't like at all, and I never do with other lawyers. I think it's bad business and it just feels awful. Two, they might try to sell you a bill of goods, a little bit of what they can do. So you have to be kind of cognizant of that.
what I would suggest to parse through everything to see if it's really the good fit for you, figure out if their strategy makes more sense than your current attorneys. And then ask them what it looks like to execute that strategy and how many times they've done that. Something to know, you're going to feel, if you feel really good with them, that might be an indicator to move on over. And maybe not if you're like, I'm not quite sure. I don't think anything could do better than what I'm doing right now as my lawyer.
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I think that, I know that there is a chance that you're going to become more confused if someone's just trying to sell you on services. But again, this would be another place where if you're looking to speak to another one reputable in your area, you can message us and we can help you to somebody. It's good because I did this while I was actually going through my divorce.
And the attorney that whom I consulted said, you know what? I know that this totally sucks, but there's nothing different that your current counsel can do. It's just a total shit situation.
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You know, it's funny you say that because that's what I say a lot of times. I say, listen, number one, I can't do anything different for you. Could I maybe be a little bit better of a hand holder, maybe tell you the strategy a little bit more, maybe you're not getting what you need in that regard? Probably. Would it cost you potentially a lot more to switch over at this plan or part of the case? Yeah. And I usually say to clients in that situation, kind of similar to yours, Andrea, happy to take you.
You know, I think I can either fix it or I can't, but we can do better with communication. And if that's worth it to you financially, come on over, happy to have you. But I try to never, in my practice, I don't try to sell the goods that I can't deliver because I think it's really bad business.
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I think that last thing that we should say about this secret number three, that you don't have to stay with your attorney if it's not working. And that even if you don't jump ship, that you might feel better about your current counsel if you have a consult with someone else and hear somebody else say, there's really nothing different. It's just a shit situation.
It depends on where you're at too, in your process. If you're near the tail end, then it might not make sense to switch at that point if you're just like wrapping things up. You also have to look at what do you have to gain here? Is it really worth it?
Does it really make sense for you to pay someone that has more of that white glove approach, which you are going to pay more for if you are just at the end of like wrapping things up? Whereas if you're still not even halfway through or maybe halfway through and you know your personality and you know that you will sleep better at night and you will be a better person for having that level of attention, then that should help you make that decision.
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And please, all I will say to you is if your case is a complete mess and you feel it in your gut and you're just getting hammered every which way, whether it be in court or wherever you're at in your case, but things are not going well, just know that you need to probably look and see what else is out there. Because a lot of times when people come to me and their case is so messed up, I say, yes, we will do what we can to fix it. But there may be at times that I can't fix it.
So just know that.
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So this next secret, secret number four, is for all my girlies and boyies who haven't yet filed for divorce. So you are thinking about getting a divorce and you're also thinking about maybe getting your boobs done. Or maybe you want to buy a boat or a kitchen or something. Secret number four.
if you might want to consider making that large purchase before you file.
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this is one where I kind of cringe because I see what you're saying. I see people do it all the time and I hate to give this advice, but this is the reality because if you file for divorce and you really want those, you know, that new kitchen or you really want, you know, a facelift or whatever you're looking for, the boat,
can you imagine that your spouse after you file for divorce or they do and you go to them and say, just really want some new boobs for the next man I'm dating. Like, how is that going to go over? It's not, it's not. what you have to think about is if you start the divorce, is there a way that potentially you could pay for those types of items post
you know, That's a funny secret, Andrea. Thank you for
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next segment brought to you by Jones Plastic Surgery. Hey there, couple. Are you looking to get a facelift? Well, call now. Okay, let's stay in the realm of pre-divorce.
number five.
start collecting evidence prior to filing. Now, I don't know what people mean by evidence. I always start thinking of like a criminal case and I know that
not what we're doing here. So what does this mean? Collect evidence.
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You know, when I'm thinking about this, makes me kind of, you know, it's another cringe-worthy secret. But I think what we mean by that is, look, if you, let's just say you're going into potentially a custody fight or the other parent you're saying is not like a fit parent, though the collection of evidence could be any text messages that they've sent, you store it in a safe place, any letters or, you know, emails they've written you to show what's happening. Maybe there's videos.
Whatever you have, you want to store it in a safe place because I can tell you so many more times than not, there have been so many people erasing people's phones, iClouds, computers, et cetera. So where's a safe place?
Give it to a friend, put it in a safety deposit box, put it somewhere outside of the house that your spouse has no ability to get at.
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Couldn't you also, I mean, we tell people this all the time, to set up a new email account. Couldn't they also set up just a new email account and put it in like the Google Drive associated with that email account? Or you're saying if that's not so safe, somebody could still go in and erase stuff.
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so I've had it where the new email works beautifully and I've also had it where somebody can still get in a little bit and I don't know if it is iCloud related. iClouds really create a big problem for couples and it's usually the family iCloud. If you're on a family iCloud system, just know that your spouse, there's so many people caught cheating with the family iCloud system and what do I mean by that? You know, we could have a wife cheating on a husband and sending side messages and then deleting them or whatever.
But guess what? Because the family iCloud account, they're uploading onto your daughter's computer or your daughter's iPad and then the other spouse sees it. So the family iCloud account is really tricky. I think if you want to be very, very careful, you would go and get a brand new iCloud account and disable your phone from the family one. And that would be the best way to do it. Plus a new email.
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here's a bonus secret to everybody out there who's, engaging in extra marital, affairs. Just know, friends, that all of your communication, even if you think that it's private
even these apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, these other things that you think it's like, no one can see this because it's been deleted now. People can get into any of that stuff. It's nothing to say, don't make dumb decisions because that will come back to bite you. And of course,
If you reside in a state where it's a no-fault state, yeah, no one can accuse you of committing adultery. That's not going to do anything. But comments about things that you might've spent on this person can come up if we're talking about dividing money and you spent marital sons on whatever. And it could just cause you a big headache because your spouse is not going to want to play ball with you if they know that you've been shooping the neighbor.
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sh-tup. Yeah, not to mention the fact that if you have an issue with parenting time or custody or things like that, and all these messages come out, even if you're in a no-fault state and you're taking all this parenting or your time away from your kids to be with this significant other, it's not going to look very good. So I'm just saying be careful. There's a lot of people digging into other people's things lately and
it's becoming easier to do, especially with the facial recognition on your phone and all the other fun things that we deal with these days.
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Secret, I think we're on number six, if you haven't filed yet, or not even, this is something that really anybody can take into account. But we're gonna talk about typically everything can be divided with the exception, and there's always gonna be a caveat here of what you entered the marriage with.
So it's very important that you know what you came into the marriage with. So Morgan, let's elaborate on what does that mean because we're not talking about, I entered the marriage with anxiety and herpes. We're talking about other things,
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Okay, so I have to clarify a few things. One, certain things, at least depending on what state you're in, can be divided or should be divided in a divorce. And certain things should not. And there are different carve-outs, at least where I practice in Chicago, Illinois, about what is marital and what is not marital and what that looks like. So what I'm saying to you here is if you came into marriage with a 401k or a retirement plan or maybe
you came into marriage with an investment account, you want to get that last statement before marriage, that's something you want to pull for your lawyer, and you want to talk to them about the fact that that might be what's called your non-marital account. And there's different ways to commingle it and different problems that can happen, but at minimum, if you want to be really on top of things, grab that last statement or at least alert your attorney to what accounts might have your non-marital assets in them.
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Let's talk a possible red flag. I think we're on number seven, which is look out for changing a beneficiary of a life insurance policy.
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about.
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while you are still technically married.
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Yes, this is one that isn't fun. If you are married and about to go through a divorce, check the beneficiary designations on all your life insurance, your retirement accounts, or your spouses if you can get access to it. You don't want them changing you off as a beneficiary. And the court usually, if you're in a divorce process and they do that during the divorce, that's something that the court will sometimes come down on. They don't like it.
because God forbid your spouse dies in the middle of the divorce and then you're not the beneficiary of the life insurance, but maybe the girlfriend is or the boyfriend is. And then we have a big mess on our hands and the insurance companies are pretty tough on that. They go with whatever the beneficiary is. So you wanna be really careful about what designations were before the divorce and whether they are changed during the divorce. So keep in mind that.
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If you notice that something's changed and you feel uncomfy about it, you do what?
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Call your attorney right away. you have the paperwork that shows the change, send it in.
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we're on secret number eight. Every time I say secret, I keep thinking about that dumb book. there are tax implications when you go through a divorce because of all of the different, you know, there's so much money stuff going on. But here's the secret. Not only do you need to be aware of this stuff, but by being
as knowledgeable as you can be about possible tax implication. You can use this to your advantage because it can be a negotiation point. So let's explain this one.
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Okay. So first, it's good to know that usually any assets transferred in a divorce are not subject to tax because you're getting divorced. Okay. So for instance, let me give you an example. If you divide an investment account in kind, which means your investment advisor tries to at least divide it up where everybody's taking the similar assets and similar taxable assets. So it's not like
I'm going to take all the Apple stock because I know it's going to kill it and I'll leave you with you know, Costco, which is going under, which is not true either. regardless, you get where I'm going here. You can't do that. We make sure that that doesn't happen. But what can happen is number one, you know, when you get divorced, the year that you're divorced, you're unable to file as a joint married couple. You have to file singly.
So you're filing single, maybe head of household as in your tax or your income taxes. And so what I'm seeing happening is a lot of people maybe getting, they're married, they're filing jointly. Let's just say they have a big refund due to them and you can see it on your tax return. And then they elect the box that will just push that to next year's taxes. But then you get divorced and next year you can't file together.
What happens with that huge refund? That's something that you want to talk to your accountant about, something that you want to flag for your lawyer if they haven't already caught it.
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how often do accountants and lawyers communicate directly? Do they ever communicate directly or is it basically just you that relaying information between the two?
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It depends on how complex the state is. If it's complex or we have a tax issue like this, I would love to talk to an accountant. Where it gets a little tricky is let's just say husband and wife are married, husband's made all the money, wife is now starting to kind of perk up, understand what's going on, sees that husband's kind of playing games, and the tax accountant has always dealt with the husband. And so now there's kind of a little bit of a conflict. In those situations,
I would generally recommend that the wife probably seek alternate tax counsel to just give us a kind of start from scratch, non-conflictual opinion. And then I can discuss with them different tax issues and go that route rather than trying to talk to their joint person who already feels like they're in a bind.
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Does the joint accountant then communicate with, let's just say the wife's new accountant? Do they ever communicate? Like if there's questions and things like that, or does that not really ever happen?
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Not usually, at least in my experience, what we could do is we could subpoena the accountant, get all the old accountant's information and hand it over to the new one and say, what do you think? That's in really kind of detailed financial cases that we would even think about doing that because it's a lot of work for the accountant.
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let's go over these secrets. So we started off, we were talking about your friend whom you consulted over the weekend, who was in a bind because he felt like there was this information that he had to rush around and do. And you were like, no, no, no, you don't need to do this. So the first secret is that just because you get an email saying you got to do this, this, and this, and this, it doesn't mean that you necessarily have to do that on
your ex's timeline that you can take a breath, take a beat, especially if the stakes are really high. We then went into my groundbreaking secret of taking a walk,
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it was don't you make financial decisions when you're super emotional that's why you were talking about taking that walk right?
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Number three was getting on a phone call or as Morgan pointed out, sometimes
a face-to-face meeting with your attorney is going to be much more valuable and much more cost effective than doing an email, which people think email is always going to be the best way to
communicate. But
you're not able to get the tone of somebody's voice.
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I cannot agree more. It makes me crazy.
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You could think my attorney is really talking down to me, right? Like they could say that they can type the phrase Andrea, that's just not going to work. Right. And I could read that as like Andrea, that's not going to work. And I'm like, fuck you. What's what do mean? It's not going to work. Where the phone, they can say Andrea, it's just not going to work. That is totally different. that is
(:
You
had three tones. You just had three tones saying the same thing.
(:
Right. And then imagine you're looking face to face and they say, Andrea.
and they write something down and they may look at you and say, it's just not going to work. Which then shows you they're looking at their notes, they're trying to figure something out. Yes. And then they're communicating, right? So you go from an email, which feels kind of curt, a little dismissive, and that you could feel like it's condescending, to hearing somebody's voice, to then hearing their voice and looking at them.
(:
I could not agree more. And I think that we have gotten into this horrible place in our society and life, whether it's in divorce or working with a lawyer or professional, whatever, where it's just so easy to shoot off a text, shoot off an email, but you miss completely that personality. You miss the peer-to-peer interaction where you can read somebody and gain that trust that you need to get you through this divorce process.
And it's really a failure on everybody's part. So I really preach to my team, get on the phone, invite people into the office. I don't care if you're on Zoom, face to face, look at them in the eye. There's no reason that face to face should not be the gold standard, but if Zoom has to be it, that's fine too. But at least you're reading each other.
(:
I cannot tell you, mean, and like, yeah, I know you pay for it, but you also pay for your mental health. You're gonna pay therapy bills, you're going to be a disaster, and if you are a disaster, you will make major mistakes. Now, this dovetails into number four, secret number four. If you are not being treated this way and you've done the face-to-face meeting and you've done the phone calls with your attorney and you're like, I don't...
I just don't think he's that into me. Like, this is not working out. You can switch attorneys and not only just switch an attorney, you can, if you might want to pay the money for an hour of somebody else's time to have their fresh set of eyes and ears on your case.
number five.
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Yes, we're at five. I'm going to keep you honest on your numbering.
(:
Thank you. Okay, number five. Oh, this was get your boobs done, Get your boobs done, girl. Buy a boat guy. What else would a guy do besides buying a boat? I don't want to put men in a boat category. There you go. I mean, like, mean, whatever it is that you want to do, you might want to do it before you file. Just because.
(:
Golf membership.
This is coming from Andrea, not the divorce lawyer, because I'm sitting over here cringing, but regardless.
(:
You know what? it is something that is done and there are reasons why. I... Well, my ex will tell you that I redecorated my office, which is true, but it's not like I did that because I knew I was going to get divorced. I just needed to redecorate an office, but you know, potato.
(:
Next number is six,
(:
Okay.
Thank you, I feel like the count from Sesame Street. One, two, three. yes, number six. This is about having the documentation about what you entered the marriage with. And again, it doesn't mean your anxiety and your venereal disease.
(:
talking about any non-marital assets, and this would also include any gifts from inheritance, gifts from parents, those kind of things. You want to have the documentation to actually make a case, or at least try to make a case, if you do have non-marital problems.
(:
property.
Secret number seven. Look out for the red flags, the SUS activity, which would be one of the big ones is changing a beneficiary during the divorce process. And we're not talking because somebody wants to go Dateline here and murder you while you get divorced. We're just talking about inheriting the money.
And finally, number eight, and this one, maybe one of the more complicated ones because it takes a little bit of work, but it could really be used to your advantage, which is know the tax implications that could arise during your divorce and realize that you can use this to your advantage. This could be a point of negotiation. You can even have that in your back pocket.
for something that you might be willing to give up or whatever, absorb if you guys are arguing over who gets the boat that Chad got or maybe Chad wants Brenda's boobs. You know I mean? And then they're like, okay, I'll give you that. But then I get all of this refund. So.
(:
Yeah, I think it's a little hard. I've never actually been able to divide up boobs yet, but you know, there's a first for everything.
(:
never say never. You know, we should, I would love to do an episode sometime on like divorce and plastics. Like I bet, like I wonder if anyone's just done like plastic surgery just for like revenge.
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I've seen it in my office. I've seen it in my office.
(:
They've had the surgeries out in your office? ⁓
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⁓
No, we are not providing that service in addition to divorce and prenups.
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Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean?
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⁓ you know, they come in looking one way right before the divorce and by the end or even post divorce, they are completely redone and they're living, you know, their best life, their best new life.
(:
one of the reasons why we wanted to bring you this episode is because feeling like you have something that you can focus on that gives you that slightest little edge of empowerment can really, as we started this conversation,
tee you up for a more positive week. If you feel like everything is bad and scary and overwhelming, you're gonna behave like a caged animal, right? Who's like, I'm being attacked, I'm being attacked, let me out of this cage, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle. But if you've been given these tools and this knowledge and you know, like, I can go and speak to another attorney to get an opinion on this or, ⁓ I don't.
I have to respond to this email by the end of the day today and then sign this here and blah blah blah blah blah. I can take a breath. I can take a walk. ⁓ this text stuff or all this money, I could actually use this to my advantage. it's just important that you are armed with this knowledge because our goal
is to help you feel a little bit calmer, a little bit better.
Morgan L. Stogsdill (:
So after listening, I hope you received some really good tips on what to do better in your divorce process. Because remember this, the reason we're doing this show is to give you action steps, something that you can actually do. Because when two people are talking at you the whole time and don't give you actionable steps, to me, it's kind of a waste of a podcast and it's a waste of a trip down to podcast lane. If you need more community,
We have our private community online. It's free to join. You would be absolutely amazed at the fabulous community that we've put together. Additionally, if you need more information, go on our website. We have attorney guides. We have the DCC guide. We have additional information if you need it. We're there for you. Remember this divorce is a marathon. It is not a sprint. Every day might not be a good day. And some days, it's not just day by day, it's hour by hour.
But guess what? You are doing this. And so remember this, my friends, on your worst days, you have got this and we have got you.
How Not To Suck At Divorce (:
The How Not to Suck a Divorce podcast shall not be copied or rebroadcast without consent. This podcast does not contain legal advice. The information heard on this show shall not and should not be used as legal advice.
