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The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
Dads face unique issues during and after divorce. We identify and address the issues relevant to divorced/divorcing dads and create an action plan to survive and thrive!
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DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this podcast is to inform not influence. It is not a substitute for professional care or advice by a qualified professional. The host as well as guests who speak on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions, and The Divorced Dadvocate Podcast & Website neither endorses or opposes any particular views discussed here.
The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
250 - How Divorced Dads Can Communicate More Effectively With Their Attorney
If you're a divorced dad navigating custody or support issues, your attorney is one of your most important allies. But they’re not a mind reader. To get the best possible results, you need to communicate clearly, efficiently, and with purpose.
Here’s how to make that happen—and why it matters.
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That is Stephan, craig Fotis and Ryan. Welcome to the community. If you're not part of it yet, check out the website at thedivorcedadvocatecom. There are all kinds of resources for you, from free to paid, that will help you through this difficult and challenging time. Become a member of the community. There are expanded resources and some benefits to doing that as well. So we hope to see you behind the paywall or even just on the website checking things out like the divorce quiz or the blog.
Speaker 1:All right, we've done one or two other episodes on how to select your attorney and talking with attorneys, about communicating with attorneys. I wanted to just reiterate that I had a couple of guys in the group this week that are working with one specific law firm that have had varying experiences with them. So I thought it would be pertinent because in in look, some of it has nothing to do with the attorney. Some of it has nothing to do with how you are communicating with them or how you're showing up. Some of it is just that to the family law court is a challenge for dads in general, and you just never know what your outcome is. So that is just to say that if you can stay out of court, that is the best way to go about it, and you've heard me talk about it and say it before. If you can get to 80, 85% of what you feel comfortable with in a settlement, then go for it, because it can be much worse than that sometimes. But anyway, if you're a divorced dad, you know, if you're in the middle of this, that navigating custody and support issues is challenging, and your attorney is going to be if you don't have one yet or is, one of your most important allies, like I talk about. It is one of the people on your divorce team. You're the coach of this team. You're going to be running it, you're going to be calling the shots. The attorney might be a quarterback or a running back one of the more important positions there but they're also not a mind reader, okay.
Speaker 1:So, to get the best possible results, you need to be able to communicate clearly, effectively and this last one is important with specific purpose, and that falls into figuring out what you want and how you want to get there prior to meeting with them, and one of the things that you've if you've listened to enough episodes, particularly the ones early on the five-step process creating your vision and direction of where you want to go during and through and post-divorce is really, really important, so that you can effectively communicate that, so you can effectively implement that in general, but communicate that specifically with your attorney, and so with purpose. So you're going to need to be able to communicate clearly, efficiently, but also with purpose, and you don't want the attorney to be telling you what your purpose is or what they've seen before in court or what they. You can ask their opinion, but you need to drive this bus. You need to be the ones that's in charge. So you got to have your purpose. You got to know what direction you want to move. You want to know what your outcomes are in mind before you meet with them, before you hire one. So let's talk a little bit about how you can make that happen and then also in communicating why it matters that you need to communicate, the first thing you need to do is you need to know the law. Even if you're not a lawyer, you don't need a law degree, you don't need to know all the statutes, but if you're walking into conversations with your attorney without a basic understanding of the relevant statutes, especially those ones related to custody and parenting time and child support, you're starting from behind.
Speaker 1:The biggest mistake I made it and so many do is that we just depend upon them to tell us what is happening, what the statutes are, what they think and oftentimes this is just their experience, their opinion, and not necessarily what can happen or what should happen based upon what is best for your circumstances and your family. No attorney is going to know completely and wholly what is best for your family. You're going to have to make that decision. And when I started to learn that and when I started to figure that out and when I started to take charge and move things in the direction, I even had attorneys say, hey, I would have never done that, but it seemed to work out for you. So again, that is just to say that you need to be in charge, and when you understand the legal framework, you're better equipped to do things like ask the right questions, challenge assumptions when needed, like I said, understand what your attorney is telling you. And here's another big one, because it's very expensive, you're going to avoid wasting time and money on irrelevant details, and then the other thing that you'll be able to do is you're going to be able to strategize yourself. That you'll be able to do is you're going to be able to strategize yourself.
Speaker 1:Here is a common misconception about attorneys is that they are great strategists. In your case, they are not. There may be some attorneys and we've got a guy in our group that talks about attorneys that are good in court and are good litigators, and attorneys who are good in settling and facilitating things and getting things done. He kind of just draws the dichotomy between the two and I think generally that is pretty fair and accurate assessment. So they're not going to, and especially the ones that are the ones that are good at settling and facilitating and just getting the process done are not going to be very good in court and they're not going to be very good at strategy, especially if you have a high conflict situation and you it's like a chess game with a lot of moving pieces or it's high conflict and you have somebody with some mental, emotional issues or a personality disorder.
Speaker 1:There is so much more that goes into it than just knowing the law and just knowing the process. Basically, you got to take this from the mindset of they know the law, they know the process, that's what they're going to help you with, but you need to know what that process looks like. You need to generally know the statute so that you can have intelligent conversations. Now, each state has its own set of family law statutes, but you can find oftentimes in many of the places. You can find these online and then you can focus on the sections that apply to the parenting time, the legal decision making and modifications. But knowing even the basics is going to give you a lot of leverage and then allow you to work that strategy.
Speaker 1:The next thing you need to be is clear and direct. Attorneys are trained to process facts right. That's what I just described. They don't need a full emotional download. One of the biggest mistakes that men sometimes make dads sometimes make is that they're talking emotionally. Now I feel like it's not From the attorneys that I talked to. It's not as much the case with dads and men as much, but still, oftentimes we will and I have let our emotions get involved in it, and so you know they don't need an emotional download. Save that for your therapist or your support group. Save that for your therapist or your support group. Instead, focus on delivering specifics specifics like dates and incidents.
Speaker 1:I've talked about how to document the importance of documentation, how to structure files and documentation through this whole process. You're going to have to do it. If you haven't started it, start doing it and paying attention to it. Also, any documented communications like texts and emails. Your goals realistic ones. So when you sit down in the beginning, if they're not asking you what the goals are, if they're not going through that with you which some of the good ones will, but not all of them will you want to lay out specifically what it is that you want, what you're looking at for parenting time, what you're thinking about for how you're going to divide assets, et cetera. You're going to lay that all out.
Speaker 1:So that's why it's also good to sit down, talk with a coach or at least somebody who's been through the process, to help you kind of refine what it is that you want to do and that you want to present to your attorney. And then it's also, depending upon the situation, good to have that person then to bounce things back and forth with and strategize with as well, so that you can then make changes. You know where to push, you know where to agree, etc. Changes, you know where to push, you know where to set, you know where to agree, etc. It just helps you to have somebody in your corner that has a global perspective of what's going on. That's why working with a divorce coach is really, really huge. I don't think I've ever heard somebody who's worked with one say that was not worth my time or my money especially the money because you're going to save potentially tens of thousands of dollars, depending upon your situation and depending upon the outcome in court, if you work with somebody that can help you to mitigate that process and at the very least, you're going to save time and money with your attorney and not having to ask them the questions that you could get answered by a coach.
Speaker 1:So the long and short of that be clear and direct is get to the point, stay organized and leave out what doesn't serve your case, which is a bunch of emotional stuff. Talk to your therapist about that stuff, okay. The next one is stay on top of communication. Don't ghost your attorney or wait until a deadline to respond. I hear this lots of times from guys that are just whatever the mental, emotional issue that they're going through are ignoring things or hoping things work out or just burying their head in the sand like an ostrich. Just make sure that you pay attention to stuff. It's not going to go away and it's not going to get better unless you take charge of this. If you take charge of it and you move it in the direction that you'd like to see it, it might not go exactly how you want and you might not get exactly what it is that you desire, but you're going to be moving it in a direction that is potentially more beneficial for yourself, because the other direction means is that you're going to be moving it in a direction that is potentially more beneficial for yourself, because the other direction means is that you're just accepting what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Now. The flip side of that is avoid constant unnecessary check-ins with attorneys. So it's a balance. You don't want to be trading emails with them every hour, every single day, because that's costly and expensive. But if you know what the deadlines are and they should be letting you know what those are and you have them on your calendar and you have responsibilities, like your financial statements or anything else that you need to get done, stay organized. Stay organized with a calendar, stay organized with files whether those are physical or digital that help you to facilitate that communication. And if something changes, like your work schedule, your co-parent's behavior, your child's needs, update your attorney right away. They can't advocate for you if they're in the dark or if it's too late.
Speaker 1:So if you find something that's alarming or worrisome, even if you just want to document it I did this oftentimes and I recommend it highly is you can just put an email that says I want to document this and want to give you an update on what's going on. Sometimes it's going to be beneficial for them to be able to utilize in courts. Sometimes it's not going to be, but it might just at least help them to kind of see and understand what might be transpiring in your family's circumstances and environment through this process. Because, again, look, they're not thinking about you and your family and your kids all the time or after work, because a couple of things. One is they just have too many clients to be doing that, and the second part is that that they're just. That is their job. Their job is to think about you during the billable time that they're working on your case. So if you can give them brief updates on stuff like this, that can help them to get some context around, maybe some things that are happening, you can. You can just tell that I don't need a response like in big letters in the beginning, but I wanted to give you an update on this or this is what's happened, or this circumstance or situation occurred, and I just want you to know so that they can read it, document it and then have it in the back of their mind.
Speaker 1:The next one is ask for clarification Another way to effectively communicate with them. If you don't understand something, your attorney says ask, ask, why, ask, how, ask when, ask them to clarify for you, and if they are not patient with you and explaining these to you, then find another attorney. There is no shame in asking because, look, none of us, hopefully, have been through this more than one time. If we have, it's only a couple of times. Anytime you've done something once or twice or three times, you're never gonna know, you're never gonna be good at it. It's going to be disconcerting, it's going to be uncertain, it's going to be something that you're not comfortable with.
Speaker 1:So legal language can get very dense and, again, a good attorney is going to explain it in very plain terms to you, and your job is to speak up when you need clarity. So make sure to do that. Do not absolutely positively, do not hesitate to ask what that means. Or, and look, if you don't get the answer that you like the first time, ask again and ask again, and if it doesn't make sense, say I don't quite understand that it doesn't make sense until they can figure out how to explain it to you or they can find somebody that can. So do not stay in the dark. There are too many important I's that need to be dotted and T's that need to be crossed that you will need to make decisions on, you'll need to be aware of, and that you'll be needing to move in the direction that you need to move, that you need to know and be clear about all of what's going on in your situation. Okay, so those are some ways that are important and better ways to communicate with your attorney. Let's talk about the benefits and why that's important when you're informed and clear.
Speaker 1:Here are four good things that can happen. I mentioned it before, but the number one good thing is and we all love this in general in life, but particularly when we're going through a divorce is that you're going to save money. Less back and forth means fewer billable hours. It is just the nature of how the system is designed. Whether they win or lose, or you think that they've done well or not well, they are going to get paid. So if you are effectively and clearly communicating with your attorney, you are going to limit the back and forth and limit those billable hours and limit the amount of money that you are spending.
Speaker 1:The next one is you're going to build trust, and this is a big one also with attorneys. Your attorney will see you're serious, prepared and proactive. Look, we all have some problems. I guess it would be a conscious or unconscious bias around different things People who are prepared, who seem serious, who are on point in communications, who are proactive in doing stuff we much prefer to work with because we know that things are going to happen and get done. That's going to be the same for your attorney. So if they have a choice of focusing more energy or time or thought or whatever it might be, on one or another, if you are the one that is prepared, you are the one that is knowledgeable, you're the one that is serious, you're the ones proactive. They're going to put that effort towards you. It just has nothing to do with them. It just you've built that trust and they're going to want to do for you what they can to assist, because they know and they see that you're serious about what's going on. So that's another benefit.
Speaker 1:The next one is you're going to get better outcomes. Clear communication in all circumstances in life leads to stronger strategy and fewer mistakes. So you're going to have a better outcome. And keep in mind fellas burying your head in the sand on this, it's not going to go away. You are tied to this situation and whatever outcome and whatever circumstances stem from the agreement or going to court and the outcome in court so and this could be, depending on the age of your children for decades so you want the most positive outcome. You want to position yourself to garner the most positive outcome. Clear and effective and concise communication is going to get you a better outcome.
Speaker 1:The last one is it'll reduce your stress. When you know what's happening and why, the whole process feels less overwhelming. Now I hope that you never get to the point where I'm at, which is I've been in court so many times that I don't get stressed about it. I know what's going to go on. I know what's happening. I don't ever know what the outcome is, because that's just a crapshoot literally. But I don't get stressed because I know the process and that's just a matter of having been there, done that so many times, have been in court, been in front of judge, been cross-examined, been everything. So hopefully you're never going to get that, but the knowledge is going to give you some peace of mind and reduce your stress.
Speaker 1:So, clearly, communicating with your attorney and knowing what's going on because you've asked the questions, because they've clearly explained to you, because they've helped you to understand what it might be or where you're at in the case, etc. It might be or where you're at in the case, et cetera, is going to help reduce your stress. And, look, the whole thing is an incredibly stressful situation and circumstance. So anything that we can do to control that is going to help. So there's things that we can control in this process. There's things that we can't control. We can't control the outcomes, we can't control our Xs, our soon-to-be exes, but we can control how we communicate effectively and that will, in turn, reduce our stress. All right, being a divorced dad is dad in the legal system can feel like it doesn't feel like it is an uphill battle, but one of the most effective tools you have is how you communicate Know the law, know what you want, speak clearly, stay engaged. That's how you help your attorney, help you and, in turn, help your kiddos.
Speaker 1:I hope you found some value in that today. If you did, I would really appreciate if you would share this far and wide. Share it on social media. We are coming up on five years. We're going to have an anniversary podcast here five years of this podcast, 260 episodes, very soon. So it's all a credit to you sharing this.
Speaker 1:We are listened to all over the world, in more than a hundred countries and hundreds of different cities as well. So please continue to share this so that everybody can, every dad can get the help that he deserves and that he needs. And if you can take it one step further, this would help. I saw some on Spotify this week. I appreciate it Is a star rating and even more a just a brief comment or just something that is encouraging about an episode, some kind of brief comment somewhere on whatever podcast platform you're listening to. It just encourages other dads that are maybe looking for an episode or just looking to listen to tune in and get a little bit of help. So thank you, I sincerely appreciate you. Have a good week, a terrific week, as good a week as you can, and God bless.
