Episode 8: Preparing for Divorce: Emotional, Financial, and Legal Clarity Before the First Call
Divorce doesn't start when you file the paperwork. It starts the moment you realize your marriage might end, and what you do in that space between realization and action can determine if you move through the process with clarity or chaos.
In this episode, Linda Weiksnar, a seasoned family law attorney, walks through exactly what someone should be doing before they ever schedule that first consultation. She covers getting your emotional house in order, understanding your finances, and managing expectations about custody. Listen in to get a rare look at what actually matters in court, how preparation (both practical and psychological) shapes everything that follows, and why the work you do before filing determines the outcome more than most people realize.
What You’ll Learn:
The most overlooked step before divorce.
How to gather financial information even if you never handled the bills.
What a financial affidavit requires and how to prepare ahead of time.
Why courts don’t consider fault or heartbreak (and what they do consider).
How Florida’s 50-50 time-sharing presumption changes custody expectations.
What dissipation of assets means and when infidelity actually matters.
Why friends, family, and non-family-law attorneys aren’t reliable guides.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“The court can't fix your heartache. I can't fix your heartache. I can probably counsel you pretty well after a bajillion years of doing family law, but that's not what I'm trained for.” - Linda Weiksnar
“Divorce is similar [to marriage] because you can't come out of it thinking, ‘Okay, I'm divorced now, I'm healed, I'm ready to move on.’” - Linda Weiksnar
“You want your money to send your kids to college, not send my kids to college.” - Linda Weiksnar
Resources:
Linda Weiksnar: LinkedIn
About Our Guest:
Linda Weiksnar is a trial lawyer specializing in family law with a background that includes earning million-dollar verdicts at a nationally recognized firm. A cum laude graduate of Duke University and holder of dual degrees from Georgetown University (J.D. and M.S. in Foreign Service), Linda has practiced in Martin County since 1994. She is a four-time Paul Harris Fellow Rotarian, the 2020 Soroptimist International Woman of Distinction, and brings both sharp litigation skills and genuine compassion to one of life's most difficult transitions.
Connect with Us:
If you're ready to stop avoiding your finances and start building the future you deserve, schedule a free call with me at pelicanfinancialplanning.com and let’s create your personalized financial plan together.
And if you want ongoing guidance, clarity, and confidence as you grow your wealth, subscribe to our newsletter for financial insights delivered right to your inbox.
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Read the Transcript:
Linda Weiksnar: When we work people through their dissolution, it really is like dissolving a business. The court can't fix your heartache. I can't fix your heartache. I can probably counsel you pretty well after a bajillion years of doing family law, but that's not what I'm trained for. To use me at my highest and best is to use me for my legal skills.
Welcome to The Wealth Development Studio. I'm your host, Genevieve George, Senior Financial Advisor and Founder of Pelican Financial Planning & Wealth. Our goal for this episode is to provide clarity about today's financial topic, inspire you to be brave with your questions, and gain confidence in your financial future. So take a deep breath, grab your favorite cup of coffee, and step into the studio. Your dose of financial empowerment begins now.
Genevieve George: Divorce is one of the most emotionally and financially impactful transitions a person can experience, and often the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. Today I'm joined by a family law attorney to talk about what someone can do before they ever pick up the phone and call an attorney. We'll discuss how preparation, both emotionally and financially, can lead to better outcomes, clearer conversations, and fewer surprises down the road.
If you're considering divorce, supporting someone who is, or simply want to be more informed, this episode is designed to help you feel a little more grounded and a little less overwhelmed. Today's guest, Linda Weiksnar, a seasoned family law attorney. She has built a distinguished career guiding clients through complex divorce, custody, mediation, and family law matters with practical insight and compassionate clarity.
With a career built on decades of advising individuals and families through major life transitions, Linda brings both sharp litigation skills and real world perspective on what individuals and families should know before taking the first step in the divorce process. So Linda, thank you so much for being here.
Linda Weiksnar: Always a pleasure.
Genevieve George: Yeah. So let's just lay the groundwork here. What should people be thinking about as they're considering divorce on their end?
Linda Weiksnar: Well, I’m so glad that you mentioned in the opening the part about emotional preparation because that is so, so, so important and people overlook it.
People say, “I'm fine. It's just the other party's fault. If that party would just go away, everything will be great.” But everybody could stand to have some neutral input from a counselor or a therapist. I don't usually advise laying it all out for your friends, because your friends wanna help you.
They want you to feel better, so they're not necessarily gonna tell you the truth or say, “Have you tried this thing?” Whereas a third party person is certainly gonna say, “That sounds like you've made a decision,” or “Have you thought about your own role in this?” Because it is such a difficult transition for everybody going through it.
Nobody on their wedding day says, “God, I can't wait till I get divorced. That's gonna be the greatest day.” So people tend to not think about it and so they get to the day and they're terrified, or they're heartbroken. They're combination. Some are happy that they're gonna be divorced, but they're not at all prepped to get there.
So thing number one is to make sure you're in a good emotional mental place. You're healthy-ish because your therapist can't work wonders in three days, but it's good to have an ongoing support system there that what I find is people talk to friends, pastors, bartenders—always a big hit. Whoever will listen—sisters, parents—those people, unless they are family lawyers, are not gonna give you the right kind of advice about how to move forward and what to look for. If you’re daddy's little girl, he's gonna say, “Take 'em for all he's got.”
And sometimes we see mothers who say, “Oh, but she's such a lovely girl. I really like her. You should figure it out.” That's not always possible, and those people don't necessarily need to be in the middle of your marriage, whether it's gonna go forward or whether it's gonna end. One of the things that we have to ask, in fact, the important question that we have to ask when people are getting their final judgment is, “Is your marriage irretrievably broken?”
And a lot of judges will add onto the end of that sentence, by which I mean there is nothing that you or the court can do to save your marriage. And so we encourage people to really think about that on the front end. Is it a thousand little paper cuts that have led you to this point? Is it one big thing that you can't get over?
I have seen people get past issues like infidelity and children outside the marriage, but not be able to get past the fact that, “He doesn't like my best friend. And he says bad things about her all the time.” So that's so important to just figure out what it is that's going on and why you guys can't get past it.
And certainly not every marriage is gonna survive. It's hard work, and I think people really forget that. And one of the things I see is that they have these big lavish weddings, which are lovely. I'm not saying that's not a thing you should do, but then they think, “Oh, I got the paper. The hard work is over.”
And as you know, marriage is hard work every day. It's not easy to have a good marriage. You have to stay in touch with your partner. When kids come into the picture, that is often a stressor on a marriage. If somebody loses a job or somebody's really unhappy in their job, those are stressors on their marriage.
So it takes hard work. And so divorce is similar because you can't come out of it thinking, “Okay, I'm divorced now, I'm healed, I'm ready to move on to my next whatever.” Because if you haven't dealt with the stuff that gets you where you need to be, your next whatever's not gonna be successful either.
So that's thing number one for everybody. And an example of that, I had a client a couple of years ago, she's one of my favorite all time clients. She's just this delightful lady. And she came in and she really cried through the entire consult, just sobbed. She was not prepared emotionally or financially to move forward.
And I said, “Look, I can see you're in a lot of pain. I would really suggest that you talk to somebody and then when you're ready to move forward, come back and talk to me.” And she came back about three months later, delighted with that advice because she felt empowered. She recognized that things that happened in marriage were not entirely her fault, which the husband had been telling her for years.
So it really does work, and I think it really does put people in a better place because ultimately when we work people through their dissolution, it really is like dissolving a business. The court can't fix your heartache. I can't fix your heartache. I can probably counsel you pretty well after a bajillion years of doing family law, but that's not what I'm trained for.
And so to use me at my highest and best is to use me for my legal skills and to actually have somebody who's trained to be a therapist to do their therapy skills. I tell people all the time in the consult, crying time is built the same as legal time because they need to understand that what I have is my time to give you and my legal skill.
So time that we spend on your file is time that is charged to you as the client, and they tend to forget that. So a reminder upfront is really helpful.
Genevieve George: Well, I think that part of that, it's easy to forget that when you're talking to you, right? Because you do have such a comforting way of approaching people and coming to them with the emotional side first, trying to help them get counseling and all of that.
And they forget, like they're still paying hourly.
Linda Weiksnar: Right. They do. So we remind them not to be rude or heartbreaking about it to them, but because their money's only gonna go so far. And my preference is always for them to come out of this, at best for them. I tell people all the time, “You want your money to send your kids to college.
Not send my kids to college.” Now my kids are outta college, so I had to come up with a different thing, but.
Genevieve George: Right.
Linda Weiksnar: But really it's so far. The last thing you need is to feel at the end that “I gave all my money to my lawyer and what I get from it?” So our goal here is always to try and get you across the finish line cost effectively.
We remind you all the time, make good business decisions because I have literally never seen a judge say, “You know what, man? You are right. Your husband is the worst human I have ever seen. And it's good for you to be rid of him.” Or conversely, “Sir, everything you said about your wife being a harpy, that is correct.” They don't say that. That's not their role.
Their role is just to divide your stuff equitably.
Genevieve George: And they don't care about what led you to that point. I've heard that a lot too. You hear the, “It's so unfair. He did this, she did that, whatever.” But the courts don't care.
What got you there? They just care that it's equably distributed.
Linda Weiksnar: Yes. And so we try to remind people that all the way through, because I've had people who say, one lady, my paralegal, said to her, “Is it just that you want your pound of flesh? Is that it? And she said, “Yes, he hurt me and I want revenge.” And I had to—we were in the middle of trial, and I had to remind her that that whole story about “I get my pound of flesh,” you don't get any of the blood that goes with it. So that should not be the goal.
So we work really hard on the front end before we get anywhere near a litigation or even trial, which is the end if we can't solve things along the way. We work really hard to educate our clients on what they can expect, what the law says, what the judge can and can't do, what can happen in mediation, what your best day in court is gonna look like and your worst day in court.
And we remind them all the way that every time we use, like we say, the court can't do this, it means us also until we get in front of a judge. And I like to remind people people of that, because more than 90% of cases settle before they ever get to the courtroom. They might be in litigation, but they settle before the judge has to make an ultimate decision.
And then along the way, the judge will say to people, he calls everybody in for a case management conference and he’s really not talking to me or the lawyer on the other side, he is really talking to the two parties. And he or she will say, “Well, look, here are the things that I can do. Your lawyers can tell you all the things that you guys can do in mediation or in settlement talk.
But if it comes before me, I'm a guy. I don't know you, I don't know your children. I don't know anything about you. I only know the financial status that the lawyers put in front of me and prove, is that who you really want settling your matter?”
And I tell people that before we ever even get into litigation. That's something that I discuss in a consult so that the clients know moving forward it's not about your getting your revenge. It's not about healing your broken heart because we can't do that. It is not about the terrible woman that he took up with while you were still married. And by the way, that's a two party thing.
So your husband or wife, they know they're married to you when they start off with somebody else. So it's not always the other person who's the problem. So one of the things that we tell people when they call is try to put together what your finances look like as we sit here today. These are one of the first things that they have to do to get into the litigation process is they've gotta fill out a financial affidavit.
And people are not prepared for that because most people do not have a written budget.
They're just kinda like, “I think I spend around this much on electricity each month and maybe I spend around this much on gas each month.” All that information is in the documents that you have. It's in your credit card statements, it's in your bank statements.
You can go through and create a budget so that when I hand you the form for the financial affidavit, you don't have a heart attack because it looks imposing. The financial affidavit lists everything. It wants to know, what's your mortgage, what do you spend on electricity? What do you spend for food?
There are always places that people try and fudge things and say, “Oh, nobody will notice if I say we only wanna spend $800 on food, but I say, I spend $1200. Nobody will notice.” The first place we look. Second place we look is gas for your car, because people are like, “Nobody knows how much I drive.” We have one hearing where the guy had $600 on his financial affidavit for gas, for his car, but then he testified that he worked from home.
And he only went to his office in 40 miles away once a month.
Genevieve George: Oh yeah. Well, that’s a lot of gas for that one trip.
Linda Weiksnar: Yeah. So his case did go to trial.
Genevieve George: He's getting golden gas.
Linda Weiksnar: He is, right. He's getting the top shelf stuff. So he said to him where else do you go? Where else do you drive? And he said, “Well, really nowhere.” They have two little kids.
So he was like, “The kids and I will go out on our bikes or we just go out for a walk.” And I say, “Great. Then who are you buying gas for?” He says, “Nobody, why do you ask?” And I said, “Because you have $600 on your financial affidavit and there's no way, even at four bucks a gallon that you're spending $600 to go to your office 40 miles away one time per month.”
And the judge was like, “Yeah, that is 100% correct.” It hadn't come up because the guy said previously, he drove to work all the time and he just never changed anything.
We look for those things. When my client's financial affidavits come back, I look, I circle things, I highlight stuff, I make notes.
I send their financial affidavit back and say, “Is this an accurate number?”
Genevieve George: I've seen the affidavit before, right? So in full form, it’s like 30 pages long, right?
Linda Weiksnar: It's long.
Genevieve George: It's pretty significant. It's really getting into the nitty gritty of your personal finances. And if you are the spouse that doesn't handle the day-to-day bills, it can be a little harder to pull that.
I mean it, that information exists, but you may not be used to looking for, know where to look, have the right logins, all of that. So how do people address those sort of challenges?
Linda Weiksnar: So we start with work with what you do have. If you've got your bank statement or if your name, even if your game is just on the bank account, you can get those statements from the bank.
If your name is on the credit card, you can get those statements from the credit card company. Mostly you can point, click, ship, just download these things and have them. So I had cases where the clients haven't been willing or able to do this kind of an analysis. We just create a spreadsheet and we go through.
There's a column, here's your food, here's everything that looks like food. Here's everything that looks like food outside the home. Here's everything that looks like it's related to your auto. So we just go through and we do an analysis because if it's an alimony case, a spousal support case, we need that information. So I just tell the clients to do the same thing.
Go back a minimum of three months, six months is better, 12 months is the best. Because even though the financial affidavit form says that it's your present expenses, it also says it's your average monthly expenses. So if we've got a longer period of time over which you, as the client, have looked through your expenses and come up with this budget, it's much more defendable than—like I get them in all the time and they say, “Estimate, estimate, estimate.”
Okay, well, you can fix that. So we shouldn't be six months in still dealing with an estimated expense.
Genevieve George: Right.
Linda Weiksnar: If I can't get my client to say, these are my averages over this amount of time, I will do the spreadsheet. Okay, spreadsheets are fun, but I'd much rather the client do that because I don't wanna have to charge them for it.
If it's something the client can do, they should do it. So where I find myself doing it is where our clients who are really overwhelmed, or like you said, just really had not been the one paying attention to finances, and so they really don't know. And ladies, I'm talking to ladies now because it's primarily them who are in this situation.
Ask the right questions as you go along. Ask, where's our retirement? Where are our investments? Those are questions that you need to be asking all along, not just at the time. Because if you just put yourself in somebody else's hands entirely, then you find yourself in this overwhelmed, frustrated, upset, terrified position when you get served with divorce papers.
Genevieve George: Right. Right. So yeah, that's not even just a message in the case of considering divorce. That’s just in general.
Linda Weiksnar: Yes.
Genevieve George: Understand what you have and where it is. I preach that a lot, get your head outta the sand. You don't have to know the nitty gritty details, but you need to know enough that regardless of divorce, if your significant other gets hit by a bus, you need to know where this stuff is.
Linda Weiksnar: Exactly. Exactly. And that's a great way to lead into it if you think you're headed for divorce, but you don't necessarily wanna say, I want a divorce, but I really wanna know where all my financial stuff is, lead into it with what if something were to happen to you.
And I don't know where any of this is. It still surprises me after doing this for so many years that I have women who come in who are younger than I am who have no idea. Because it's not—okay. So when my mom was younger and getting ready to get married, it was customary for you to live at home until you went to live with your husband.
And all that has changed. I lived on my own before I got married, and so I had to handle my own stuff. And so for people who get married right out of college, which is apparently still a thing, and God bless them, start early on your happy life. But it's important for people in those situations to still stay on top of these things and not say, “I haven't written a check in 20 years. I haven't paid a bill in 20 years.”
That's a really scary place to be in. And it's hard to get out of that.
Genevieve George: And I think that just makes you ripe for being what I would call blindsided by the divorce. You may know what the emotional things or whatever might be causing it, but like blindsided by the financial piece of divorce to not know—Okay. I thought we were doing okay. 'cause I just put all of the faith over here in my spouse to handle that and not really knowing where you're at. So it's more of a communication thing, which may be part of the problem that has them calling you in the first place.
Linda Weiksnar: That's correct. ‘Cause I really do see, men and women really do speak different languages and you'll see a lot of memes about them now where like it's trying to teach guys. “If she says fine, it's not fine. If she says, okay, ask follow up questions,” things you need to know about how the other party communicates. One of the things that we sometimes come up here is love languages. So if your spouse's love language is spending time together, then do that because you can give them all the expensive presents in the world, but that's not saying “I care about you.”
It's interesting to see a lot of the younger generation talks about the mental load and how females tend to carry the mental load more than males do because everything gets done and so men don't really notice how it gets done.
Genevieve George: How it gets done.
Linda Weiksnar: Right. And so there's this very funny video that's out and this guy is like, “It's a magic table. I just put my laundry on it and it gets washed and folded and put away.” And the wife is like, “Really? You think it's a magic table that does that?” So it's very funny, but it's very true to life and I see it among couples of all ages. It's not just young couples or young men whose mom has done their laundry for them until they got married.
It's all ages. People who think—women who are like, “I don't know, the bills just got paid every month.”
Genevieve George: Right. Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: Okay. That's all of that is stuff that people need to know. So you're right. Communication is a big deal. And hopefully somebody out there sees this before they get to the point where it's a bigger deal and communication can't help anymore.
Genevieve George: Well, I like that having a different avenue to ask not like, “I think we might be headed for divorce. Let me get together what our financial picture looks like.” No, you're really saying like, I think you can frame it in like, “I trust you that you're handling this and not put doubt into that trust. But I just want to know for my own peace of mind where we're at, how we're doing.”
And I try to tell people that like take a seat at the table really, even if you don't fully want to know all the details, get the high level information that will just keep you informed.
Linda Weiksnar: To follow up on that, it's really important for the spouse who does not feel empowered, spouse who feels like “I am so far behind the eight ball here,” to feel like they have more information that feels, makes them feel like they have a better bargaining position because they know what to expect.
It's also a better role model for your kids, especially if you're going through a divorce to show them, “Okay, look, I do know what I'm doing. I have the information I need.” And remember, your kids are watching you and your spouse as you go through any kind of a conflict to see how you handle it. So I showed them, this is how you write a check.
And I know checks are like the dinosaurs, but some people still really like checks or show them, set up a small account for your kid and have them put some money into it so that they know, “Oh, I got paid for doing this task and now I have account.” And this is a way that your children can become prepared.
And it also helps, I find my clients feel like they have more control because they're piecing together things they've ignored for many years. So when people are doing their budget, which I suggest, always suggest, they try to have some idea before they come to me because it's such an overwhelming thing.
Also, figure out assets and liabilities. If you own a house, know what your house is worth in the market. There are imperfect tools on the internet for finding out things like that. So don't believe anything on the internet. But a lot of the things like Zillow and Realtor.com are close enough for a starting point.
I don't tell people, “Oh, go get an appraisal of your house,” because that's not something you do on an everyday basis. So for purposes of starting out—
Genevieve George: I'm just randomly having the house appraised today, sweetheart.
Linda Weiksnar: I'm having handymen come in to fix all the stuff that we, those are things maybe you don't want to get into at that point while you're trying to figure out your financial picture.
So things like Zillow and Realtor.com, and there's another one that I can't think of right now, but they're good for giving us an idea. Sometimes people say, “Why don't I just use what's on the tax assessor, the property appraiser?” And that's great, but it's usually lower than market rate because there's adjustments and whatever.
So it's usually lower and they don't reappraise your house every year. We wanna know what liabilities are. So if you carry mortgage, we wanna know what that looks like. If you carry credit card debt, we wanna know what that looks like. If you have loans to parents that you are in fact expected to repay, we wanna know that.
I have people all the time who get loans from their parents, and then the parents say, “Oh, I absolutely do not expect her to pay it back, or him to pay it back.” Great. Then that's not really a loan.
Genevieve George: Right.
Linda Weiksnar: That's a gift. And so we've gotta be upfront about that when we're dealing with things like liabilities.
I also tell people, this is a little bit of a harder one for folks to really think about and deal with is if there are treasures that you would be heartbroken if they disappeared or were smashed, or sold, given away, secure them. Things that people have lost. I have a video of one husband standing in the driveway with his white China—antique China—smashing it in the driveway one plate at a time because she was trying to leave him.
I have people who were supposed to share photos and the parent who had the photos said, “Oh, they were all ruined in the flood.” And then a little girl comes home and she's like, “Well at daddy's house I have a picture of daddy and me as a baby.” So pictures were not ruined in the flood. He just didn't give them.
Sometimes people when they find out that you want the pictures, they do shred them and you get a box full of shredded photos. Whatever it might be. Aunt Tilly's silver tea set. Don't sell it, don't give it, but secure it. Sometimes that's the trunk of your car. Sometimes it's a storage unit. Sometimes it's the home of a trusted friend.
Those things do have to be accounted for because the other side's gonna wanna know, “Well, Aunt Tilly gave us her silver tea set. I wanna know where that is since silver's so high lately.” Keep track of where that stuff is.
Go through your house and either take a video as you walk through each room, narrating what's in each room, or take still photos.
We've had cases where we've used those to go through and divide up their stuff, which is tedious. So I tell people all the time. If it's not a treasure, it's just stuff. Stuff is replaceable.
Genevieve George: I feel like I've heard you—you talk about arguments about the green couch.
Linda Weiksnar: Yeah. It's crazy. I had, one of my very first cases was a very wealthy couple who had so much money.
There was plenty to go around. The things they were arguing over were not irreplaceable. They were very important to them. But same token. So one of the things I'll tell you was like an antique school chair with the desk and the little chair bolts to the floor and the wrought iron. And the husband loved it because it had been refinished and given to him as a gift from the school. The one room schoolhouse he was educated in when he renovated it so it could become an educational center for kids.
So they took this chair and they buffed it up and it beautiful. Well, the wife had it. She wouldn't give it. So ultimately, I said to her daughter, “Why don't you go to the flea market or the antique show and find another one, buff it up, because your mom will literally never know. She's not looking at it, she hates it, she only wants it because it was his. Problem solved for, I don't know, $200.”
Whereas they had already spent literally tens of thousands of dollars arguing over these things. And the other thing I'm not going to tell you because it's very specific and if they ever hear this, they'll know it's them, but something that was so ridiculous. I was like, “Wow.”
Genevieve George: Yeah. Stop fighting over that.
Linda Weiksnar: So just remember, and we tell people this all the time, it's just stuff. How married are you to the couch?
The couch is, it's not worth what you paid for it. You're gonna look at it and you're gonna think, “Oh, that's where we conceive little Billy.” It's just a couch. And by the way, little Billy never wants to hear that story.
Genevieve George: Nor does he want it in either of your homes.
Linda Weiksnar: Right. So that's one of the things that's so important in terms of, as we talked earlier about getting people into the right mindset because so many want something that is precious to the other side, and not because they want it, just because the other side wants it.
If when you're going through your house, if you have a Picasso sketch hanging on the wall, note, this is the Picasso sketch and narrate a little bit about where it came from. Was it a gift from somebody? Did you guys find it in Goodwill?
Did you buy it at some charity auction? Whatever it might be, give me a little bit of background, because those are the things, honestly, Picasso sketch is something people are gonna fight over. I've had people fight over artwork like crazy and I'm like, “Is it somebody good?” And they're like, “No, we got it at the street one day.”
I'm like, “Okay, you know what? There's art fairs here all the time. Go to another art fair and find a picture you like because you paid $200 for it. Are you really going to spend $1,000 fighting over it?”
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: Go spend however much on something else that you love that doesn't have any bad memories attached to it.
So that's our starting places is I need you to know your finances, budget, assets, liabilities. If you are a—typically a female, I do have somewhere that husband is the one who's not employed. But if you are a woman who stayed home to raise children, take some classes about whatever it might need to be.
Whether it's to become more computer literate, if you need classes to get, like for example, a nursing license back or your education license, if you didn't finish your degree because you were staying home with kids. Look into doing that. There are a lot of avenues to do that. There are a lot of grants for that purpose because you do not wanna get to the end of your matter and now you still have no marketable skills.
And you are facing like, what, two years to finish whatever you need to do to get back into the market, then you're also starting at a low point and you have to work your way up.
Genevieve George: I think that's so valuable and it's something that's come up where I've been talking with people that are going through a divorce practice and they say things like, “I'm going to have to work, but like I'm being told not to start that yet because it's going to affect what I receive in the divorce.” But what you're saying is sort of like you need to get those skills and like be ready.
Linda Weiksnar: Yes, because even if it's a support case where we've got Mr. Gotrox makes let's say half a million dollars a year and Mrs. Gotrox has stayed at home for the last 20 years, the court is going to look at what is she doing to support herself? If there's enough money, so we assume that Mr. Gotrox at half a million dollars a year has spent wisely, that the Gotrox live a semi-frugal life, they're not powering their jet to run off to Paris because their best baguettes in the world are there.
That they're living and they're investing and they're saving. But that is not always the case. I have people where there's lots of money, but it turns out that once the liabilities are resolved, there's not so much money to go around.
Genevieve George: Not enough to live off of and just…?
Linda Weiksnar: Correct.
Genevieve George: …continue to not work.
Linda Weiksnar: Right, and spousal support is one area where the spouse who is not working, it's to their detriment a little bit. So let's say, typically, like I said, typically it's women who are looking for support, sometimes it's the men. But let's say I earn $100,000. And that's a nice round number.
But let's say my legitimate expenses to run my household are $70,000 a year. Well, after taxes, doesn't leave anything left over for me to pay support to my spouse who's not been working. And so in that case, the standard is the spouse, the pecuniary spouse, which sometimes they're not poverty-stricken, but that's the word that they use.
The spouse who does not have the lot of money and has not been working, they have a need. I can show they have a need. I have a need for $5,000 a month, but I get to the husband's stuff and he's running at an $1,100 a month deficit. And no matter what I do, my spreadsheet to show what his expenses are and how they're, whether they're reasonable or they're not reasonable, if I can't get him to a surplus, then there's no ability to pay and the spouse who needs the money gets nothing.
So it is in some places, people give advice, “Don't start working now.” I don't love that advice because I know, especially,I'm here in Martin County, so in our circuit, the 19th circuit, we look a lot more to see what are you doing to help try to support yourself.
There are some counties where judges are more in favor of spousal support, and those counties are kind of well known, but even there, what we're seeing is that the tide is turning because we have basically the highest educated female population in history. We have more women going to school, going to college than men. More women going to graduate school than men. And so it's great and I wish everybody could have time to stay home and spend with their kids because that's an amazing time. But it doesn't work out great for everybody.
So if you didn't finish your degree or if you were in a field where you need to brush up on some skills to get a license back or because things have changed in the eight years you've been out of the market, you should do that—number one, the other side is going to be complaining the whole time, “Well, your client's not employed and she's employable and she's not doing anything.” And the other is that it does give you a better sense of purpose again, and it makes you feel like—
Genevieve George: And it's gonna put you in a better position on the other end of this.
Linda Weiksnar: Correct. Correct. So if we go back to my example where I'm married and I make $100,000 and I know that my spouse can work, the thing I'm going to say is, “Well, Judge, my spouse ran an Etsy shop,” or “My spouse babysat for cash and so he or she is able to earn money. And so you should impute income to my spouse.”
And the court is going to do that. And so the minimum they will impute to you is minimum wage.
Now there are some times where like if there's somebody staying home with a tiny little baby, then they're going to say, “Well, it's not worth it for the spouse to go work for minimum wage to pay that to daycare. So I'm not going to impute income.” But by and large, in the majority of situations, a court is going to look at an able-bodied person and say, “You can work. Why aren't you working?”
And so in that situation, it's pretend money. The court pretends you have it. Everybody pretends you have it. So then the person who's had income imputed to them has to find a way to fill that gap. And the way to do that is by being employed.
And if you're a person who’s not great with customer service, then you do not want to be in a customer service kind of job where all the people come and they're not very nice and they want their money back and they don't believe you when you say, “Sorry, I can't do that.” So those are important places to start. Another thing that's really important is figure out what your goals are.
So there's a couple things that have changed in Florida in the last couple of years. One thing that changed is the support statute. So in short-term marriages, super short, three years or less, there's no alimony of any kind. In short marriages, up to 10 years, you can have what we now call it durational alimony because it's for a duration. And that is at 10 years, it's 50 % of the length of the marriage. At 15 years, it's 60 % of the length of the marriage, and at 20 years and up, it's 75 % the length of the marriage.
Again though we go back to this need and ability to pay standards so while you might be entitled to spousal support, the courts are going to look very thoroughly as to whether or not you can afford to or you are able to defray any of your own expenses. So figure out what are my goals? Are my goals to try and get—we have a different kind of alimony called rehabilitative where you're going back to school.
You're learning a new something. I worked on one case where the woman was like a healthcare aide and hated it, so she went to esthetician school and loved it. And then the husband paid for her to go to esthetician school and then she was able to support herself much better than she could as a healthcare aide.
So if there's something you've wanted to do and it's reasonable, like if you graduated high school and you want to be a rocket scientist, the court is probably not going to approve that plan. But if you finished a four-year degree and now you have to get a teaching certificate because you want to teach high school chemistry, that's something that a court would look at favorably. So we look at the practicality of it. Is it feasible? Is it affordable? How long does it take? Have some idea what that is.
Another thing that's changed in Florida recently is how we do time sharing. So we now have a rebuttable presumption that time sharing will be 50-50. And as far as the judges are concerned, that's a really high hill to climb to show why it shouldn't be 50-50.
So now ahead of time, parties can agree that it's going to be 60-40 or something different based on people’s—how much time each of them has from work, how they want to do it. And then within this time frame of the probably 50-50 time sharing, we have different schemes for different age kids. So if your kids are little, little, we have a set up where they're never away from either parent for more than three days at a time because that's what's best for kids.
So people who have a hard time with that are people like firemen or policemen because they have such unusual schedules. And we used to really work to try and fit into those schedules. And now we recognize that that's not what's best for kids.
So if your kids are like under five, six, seven, then we say, depends on your kids and you guys, people should know their kids better than I do, better than the judge does. Then we say this 2-3-3 plan is better. Where I'd have them the first Monday, Tuesday. You'd have them the second Monday, Tuesday. I'd have them? That's not right.
I'll have them Monday, Tuesday in the first week. You'll have them Wednesday, Thursday in the first week. I'll have them Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So that's a 2-2-3. In the second week, you'll have them Monday, Tuesday. I'll have them Wednesday, Thursday. You'll have them Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
So it's a couple extra changes for the kids, but when they're little, it's really hard for them to be away from either parent for a long period of time. When your kids are like second grade to end of middle school, we like what we call the 2-2-5.
So every week, I have them Monday and Tuesday and you have them Wednesday and Thursday and we alternate weekends. So every other week, we have a five day weekend with the kids. And it gives the kids a little more. It gives them fewer changes, gives them a little more freedom to be able to do activities with friends because it's not like, “Oh, I left all my stuff at my other parents' house.” And then when people say a real 50-50 week on week off, that's really best for high school kids who are doing what they're supposed to do anyway, which is separating from us and spending time with their friends.
Genevieve George: Yeah, it doesn't matter where they're sleeping because they're not hanging out with us anyways.
Linda Weiksnar: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Getting ready to launch. And that's what we raise them to do. So think about I have have moms all the time who say, but I can't be away from my child that long.
I really do understand it. I went through this myself and it was really hard to be away from my kids, but the other parent can be a good parent. And it's good for the kids to be with both parents. So that's a mindset people have to work on at the beginning.
Genevieve George: And it's part of as a mom, I don't want 'em to be away that long, but at the court doesn't.
Linda Weiksnar: Correct.
Genevieve George: They're not gonna care that I think that they need to be with me longer. There's like a standard and we'd have to prove that the other side was like unfit. And it's very difficult to do that.
Linda Weiksnar: It's really difficult. It's really difficult. I had a case recently where just all of the things that came out about the other parent, even that, the judge gave the dad additional time.
And that was where they had settled. They had settled this was a modification and the judge was like, “I think it's best for kids to spend significant time with each parent.” So, mom, I understand where you're coming from. But I also understand where dad is coming from.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: And that's a harder thing for moms to grasp based on my experience than it is for dads because they say, “Well, I'm the one that the child comes to when he's sick or when they're sad or when they lost their favorite toy or they had a…” Yes, that's right.
Because historically, societally, that's been the role that moms have had. But what we see is in families where, God forbid, mom has passed away, dads meet those roles and they just really need to have the opportunity to be in that position. Whereas, as moms, we're sort of trained to believe that's our spot and that's what makes us special.
That's not the only thing that makes us special.
Genevieve George: Right.
Linda Weiksnar: And of course dads, they bring a different kind of energy to the relationship with kids. So it's really important for the kids. So I find that in the last five, six years there's been a lot more focus on what's best for the children. Where previously, earlier in my career, there was a lot of focus on how can we do this time sharing so it'll fit dad's weird work schedule or mom's retail job.
I had a case where that was an issue. the dad wanted the thing that said if the kids are going to be away from the mom for more than four for eight hours then I want to have the time sharing. Well that would be her entire shift at work. And he was like, “And there's some nights she works until nine o’clock."
So we don't do that nearly as much anymore. Look to see how we're going to work around the parents work schedules. We tell parents you have to figure out—
Genevieve George: What's best for the kids, right?
Linda Weiksnar: What's best for the kids. And that's so important because we need to raise the next generation of kids who are able to have good, solid relationships.
They're able to figure this stuff out on their own, and giving them the opportunity to spend time with both parents helps with that.
Genevieve George: Yeah. I mean, I just think that that's so important that you're sharing that too, because when you're thinking through these things before you've even called the attorney, right, is that you need to have that sort of emotional reality of like be emotionally ready for what the reality might be with that time sharing and all of that. So that's incredible. Of course, you need to get the finances in order, but you need to—that's so important for that emotional piece too.
Linda Weiksnar: Right, because that's often the hardest thing that I run into with people, where they're insistent, “No, I need to have 75 % of the time sharing for XYZ reasons.” And we spend a lot of time, I don't like to trot out the statute because they're not really written for everyday beach reading. They're sometimes feel like, “It says it right here.” I'm like, “No, that's not what that means.” “Like, but it says it right here,” “Yeah, that's not what that means.”
Genevieve George: Yeah. Because the average person is not able to understand and interpret the legal jargon of what those statutes mean. And that's why we need you.
Linda Weiksnar: It's funny that you say that. 'cause at the beginning of every consult, I will say to people, “Look I have another language that I speak. It's family law.” So if I use a word that you don't understand, or it seems weird in the context I'm using it, stop me because I don't wanna get to the end and I say “Any question?” And you say, “Well, you lost me at financial affidavit.”
'Cause that's the first five minutes of whatever we're talking about. So it's really important. There are a lot of people who say, “No, I don't wanna interrupt you because your time is so valuable.” Yes. But you're paying for that time, so interrupt me to make sure you—
Genevieve George: That you're getting what you need out of this too, right?
Linda Weiksnar: Yeah. And mostly I don't perceive it as an interruption. I tell people all the time, it sounds like a monologue, but it's a dialogue where I have more lines than you do. And that empowers them a little bit to feel like it's okay to ask questions that you need to ask questions. The only questions, literally the only questions that are dumb questions are the ones that people don't ask me.
And we get all the way to the end and they'll ask me then I say, “Well, you know that would have been a good question to ask me before the morning of trial.”
Because now, I probably don't have what I need to prove up that position. But we're here at trial and today is our day. So ask the questions. That's really important.
For people who don't know a lawyer or don't know somebody who can refer them to a lawyer, do a little research. Don't believe all the Yelp reviews because typically the folks who are willing to go and put their review out in public are people who are not happy with the outcome.
And sometimes it's the lawyer's fault and sometimes it's absolutely not the lawyer's fault. So really the important thing is do a little research. Ask friends if they have referrals. Did they like a lawyer? Did they not like a lawyer? I get referrals all the time from a lady who I did not represent. And I did not represent her husband. I represented her husband's ex-wife. I get referrals from that lady at least two a year because she will say to people, “This is who you need to go to because I don't like her, but boy, she did a great job.”
And I'm okay with that because I know that the reason she doesn't like me is because her husband didn't look so great at the end of our hearing. Sometimes that's a function of the client didn't tell the lawyer stuff. So clients, tell your lawyers the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Genevieve George: Yeah, that's what I tell people for me too. The more information I have, the better advice I can give you. That applies to you as well.
Linda Weiksnar: Yeah, I was in trial one time. It was a trial that the only thing these people had, it was a case I took through Florida Rural Legal Services, which provides legal services to low income folks.
Literally the only thing they had to fight over was their son who was 17 years old. And she was the mom, so she wanted the son to live with her. The child support was not a terrible thing either.
So we're in trial. tells me why, leading up to it, she tells me why he should stay with her the whole nine yards. We get into trial and the dad, who's unrepresented, says to the judge, “Well, Judge, the reason I think our son should come live with me is because recently they had a fight and he punched her in the face and she called me to come get him.”
And I kind of look over at her and she goes, And I said, “Well, that would have been a really good thing for me to know beforehand.”
Genevieve George: Yeah. Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: The kid was almost 18. The judge sent him to live with his dad because his dad was a big guy. My client was a teeny tiny little woman, and the kid had already punched her in the face one time. So that son was not gonna be living with his mom.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: For any, significant period of time. So tell me if I know it, I can at least come up with something to defend or deflect or minimize.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: If I don't know, then I'm the one who's blindsided.
Genevieve George: Yeah, yeah. I feel like in this podcast, a lot of what I talk about is like pre-planning. Like you have to have good communication with your professional team. You have to communicate in advance of things.
And it just applies to so many parts of your life. It becomes crisis planning if you don't do it in advance. And that applies in the family law space.
Linda Weiksnar: Right, and so when we have calls for people who want to come in for a consult, we have a questionnaire that goes out that gives me information, very basic information that I need to know.
Are there kids of this marriage? How old are they? When and where were you married? Have you been separated a long time? Big picture, do you own a house? Things like that. And at the top, the very top of that questionnaire, you make your choice. Is it urgent? I've been served papers that I need to move right away. Is it moderately urgent? We're talking about divorce but nothing's been filed yet, or is it I just need information?
And so that really helps me figure out what I need to convey to the other person. If it's somebody who just wants information, we usually just sort of start with, here's how the process works. Here's what you'll need to have ready. If it's urgent, then they've got to send me whatever they've been served with ahead of time so that I know specifically what issues we're dealing with and I can address those. And then we kind of circle back around to here's how you do your financial affidavit.
We have this thing called mandatory disclosure, which is where you just have to provide a whole bunch of, each side has to do it. So I have to give you all of my credit card statements, my everything, my pay stubs, if I have retirement accounts, all of that stuff. If I own a business, I have to give you certain documents related to the business. And you have to give me the same thing.
Genevieve George: Right.
Linda Weiksnar: And so often people are like why do I have to give him tax returns? He gave us tax returns. So there's a weird evidentiary reason why we have to give it back, even if it's the exact same information. But you have to give it back. And failure to do it just results in motions against you, and it costs more money and…
Genevieve George: Right.
Linda Weiksnar: That's not good for anybody.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: But so even for me, for the pre-planning, for people coming in, I need to know where we need to start the conversation. Okay, you were shared with these papers. This is what this means, this is what this means, this is what this means. Or is it the things you and I have been talking about. Here's how we are gonna move forward with this or be in a good mindset. How do I know what I need to even start the conversation?
And like I said earlier, people—your friends and nail tech and grocery bagger guy—everybody’s gonna want to help you and give you advice. And they're gonna tell you what happened in their sister's dog walker’s brother's divorce. And your situation sounds exactly like that. They're not the same.
Genevieve George: Yeah. No two are the same. I imagine.
Linda Weiksnar: There's always something different. And typically, I find when people come back to me for, “I think he's in contempt of court or I think she's violating the agreement.” I read through the agreement and I say, “In here it doesn't say anything about the thing you're complaining about.”
Well, I know that, but we've just always done it this way. Okay, but somebody can't be in contempt of court if it's not in your agreement, which has become a court order. So when we write them, we try to think about based on what we've seen from the parties so far, we try to parenting plans and marriage settlement agreements based on the situation as it currently exists because past is prologue. So we want to write in there. If somebody's always tardy and it makes me late for work because you're late bringing the kids or picking up the kids, then we want to write in there something about if you're late more than three times in a month and it makes me late for work, then X happens.
So you have to think through those things ahead of time and let me know what are going to be the big issues. If you're late with child support and because you're late with child support, I'm late on a mortgage payment, well then maybe you have to pay the late fee that I'm charged because my mortgage payment was late.
So those are things that we need to know everything that's going on even if it's embarrassing even if you you know think this is never ever going to come up you should tell me.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: I mean, maybe not the minutia because maybe I don't need to know some of the bedroom stuff unless it's relevant. But by and large, that stuff is not going to be super relevant because when we switched from a fault state to a no fault state for divorce, almost all that stuff went away.
So things that didn't go away. If there's domestic violence in your household, we need to know that because that does impact time sharing. It impacts how our case moves forward. It impacts whether there's going to be one bailiff or two bailiffs in the courtroom if we have a hearing. It impacts how we do mediation.
If the kids saw the domestic violence, that's really going to impact time sharing. If there's alcohol abuse or substance abuse, we need to know that.
And we talked a little bit earlier about how the judges don't really care about if somebody stepped out. The only time they care if somebody stepped outside the marriage is if it resulted in significant loss of marital assets. Misuse, waste. And we call it dissipation.
It's not as easy as it sounds. It's not simply I spent money to rent a place where me and my new boyfriend are living while I get divorced because I have to live somewhere. So that's not really dissipation. But if I—
Genevieve George: But if you bought him a new car…
Linda Weiksnar: That's gonna come in.
And so what happens then is that the judge sort of clause those assets back in for purposes of valuing the marital estate in terms of going forward and doing equitable distribution. So don't take your friend's advice, I mean, don't take it as gospel. You can take your friend's advice as “I love you and I want to comfort you and I know this is a hard time.”
But by and large, the only advice you should take is from your family lawyer. And even if your brother's a lawyer, if your cousin's a lawyer, your next door neighbor, if they're not family lawyers, there's a lot of nuance that exists in the practice that people don't think about. Like one of the things that we see all the time is I'll have people call me to talk about grandparents' rights. So there is a statute that grants grandparents' rights, and it has been repeatedly ruled to be unconstitutional.
But in a state filled with grandparents, nobody wants to be the legislator who says, “We really should just repeal that statute.”
Genevieve George: Well, we are a state filled with grandparents.
Linda Weiksnar: We are. We really are. So I'll be working with somebody and they don't like the answer I give them about grandparents' rights. So then I get a call from their cousin, the lawyer. And they say, “Well, Linda, like maybe I really did get it wrong. I see that there's this statute on grandparents' rights.” And I say, “There is, but did you look any further?” “Well, what do mean? There's a statute.” I'm like, “Yeah, but it's been ruled unconstitutional.” Every permutation of it, there were like four categories of how grandparents could get the right. So then as a case came through with one of those, unconstitutional. As a case came through with the next category, unconstitutional.
So pretty frequently, I get calls on on that issue like, I promise you, I promise you there's no grandparents rights in Florida. Other states, yes.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Linda Weiksnar: And if grandparents get rights in other states where that's recognized, then Florida will recognize whatever that court order says, but we don't give grandparents rights.
So know what your goals are, know what your budget looks like. Don't exaggerate your budget because we'll find out. We'll figure that out pretty quickly. Like I said, my folks who come in, if I think that there's one woman who weighs 98 pounds soaking wet and a toddler, they're probably not spending $1,000 a month on food, even with the increased cost of food lately.
So we try to put it in perspective. There's no across the board. Every case is different. Your facts, your circumstances are all significant to your case only. I do get a lot of people who will say, “My case is just like so and so's and you represented so and so.”
Genevieve George: Yeah. And they went through this and they went through that. But no, on my end too, no two families are the same. And I'm sure it applies in your space, so it's not apples to apples with their, what did you say? Cousins, dog walkers, boyfriend, sister.
Linda Weiksnar: Yes. Right. It's not. But it's funny because people are always like, “It's just exactly the same!”
No, like twins could marry twins and they could live in the exact same model house right next door to each other in the same neighborhood and their kids could be born on the same day. And it's not the same.
There's always going to be something that's that's different about it.
So if people wanna talk to a lawyer, any lawyer, the first step is to call that lawyer's office.
How we work here at Crary Buchanan is somebody calls and say, “I need a consult for a divorce.” Sometimes they will know what my name is right away, because somebody has referred them here.
They will go to my paralegal, Mary Ellen. Now Mary Ellen will run their name and their spouse's name through our list of clients.
It's our conflict checker. And she'll also ask, “Are there any businesses, small businesses that you own?” Because if somebody in my firm has represented one of those businesses, we need to know that as well.
Genevieve George: And that's consistent. That's your process. But if I called another attorney in Fort Lauderdale, they're gonna run a conflict check.
Linda Weiksnar: They should, they absolutely should run a conflict check. I will tell you not everybody does. So for query, we've been here almost a hundred years. Our complex check goes back decades. Literally decades. I'll get stuff and it’s, it looks like we represented his dad 40 years ago. I'm like, okay, that's not a complex.
But I had a case one time where my client said to me, “My husband just hired Joe Lawyer, but I spoke to Joe Lawyer. And I told your lawyer everything I wanna know.” She was like, “I just didn't like his answer. So I didn't hire him.” So I had to file a motion to have him recused from representing the husband in the case.
And the judge said to him, “Well, sir, don't you run a conflicts check?” He said, “Yes, but we only keep those things 30 days.” And the judge looked at me and said, “Ms. Weiksnar, how long does Crary Buchanan keep those things?” And I was like, “40 years.”
Genevieve George: Yeah. Like for as long as our files are electronic.
Linda Weiksnar: Right, and even when we went from paper files to less paper files, all of those names from the last 50 years were input into the data bank so that we know, “Oh, is this person related to Sawicki who we represented in 1970?”
Okay, well, really, if we represented them in 1970, I'm not going to get any information from that case that would help in this case, but it's good to know, is this a parent, is this a mother-in-law, whatever.
So first thing is we run a conflicts check. If there's no conflicts, we set a consult. So consult is usually set for an hour. There are attorneys who offer free consults. What I find is with those, you don't really get into any of the details.
It's like a half hour. It's a very quick, this is who I am. This is what you can expect, but not a deep dive. So we do charge, but for me, my consult rate is lower than my normal hourly rate because I want people to—I do want people to be able to get the information.
They can come. I tell people don't you can come and take notes but don't bring somebody with you because as an attorney, you and I develop an attorney-client privilege once we start to talk about your case, but if you bring somebody else with you then that could impact the attorney-client privilege and we don't want that to happen.
And I will also say typically the court is going to do whatever it can to preserve that attorney-client privilege but you don't want to put either one of us in a position where somebody tries to get me to testify about what you and I talked about.
Genevieve George: Yeah. So don't bring your friend or your mom and dad to the consult, just go and talk to the attorney.
Linda Weiksnar: Right.
Genevieve George: And lay out your story without any outside influence.
Linda Weiksnar: The only exception to that is if that person is necessary for me to be able to render you legal assistance. So what that looks like.
Let's say a person comes in, their English is not great. So bring somebody. Let's say it's somebody who's so devastated by what has happened that they can't tell me without crying. So then the person who comes with you who's filling me in on the details is necessary for me to get the information that I need.
But by and large, those situations are rare. So Mary Ellen will set you on the calendar. And this is sort of same across the board is that whoever's, if you're talking to Joe lawyer, then Joe lawyer's person will set you for a consult.
In the post COVID world, we accommodate what that looks like a lot differently. It used to be you had to come in. We didn't do a lot of stuff by phone. Now we do a lot of stuff by zoom. We do a lot of stuff by phone because if a client's got childcare issues, they can still keep their appointment. If the client's sick, they can still keep their appointment.
Genevieve George: Without getting you sick!
Linda Weiksnar: Without getting me sick.
Two thumbs up. So we do try to work things to be a lot more, if you literally only have a lunch hour, that's all the time you can take away from work, then you can go sit in the closet at work or in an office with a closed door and have your consult and not worry about not getting back on time. And I think other lawyers are doing a lot of those things as well.
The hard part for me to say, know, is I don't know how they, I take tons and tons and tons of notes so that I recall what your situation is and I got the details and I don't have to keep asking you.
Not all lawyers do that. But sometimes a guy might say to you, “Look, I know it's somewhere in the notes or the emails we've exchanged. It's just gonna be a lot quicker if you answer my question again, even though you've already told me, because that's more cost effective than me going through four months of emails to try and find the 10 words of information I need.”
And when people come in for their consult, ask me whatever you want. Try not to be late. That's really important because if if it's consult day and I've got consults back-to-back, then when you're late you're either going to get a shorter time, you're going to be offered the opportunity to reschedule, or you're just not going to get all of your questions answered because I can't keep other people waiting.
Coming in to see me, I don't make you sign a contract. If you say I'd like to see a fee agreement, we can email you one or send you home with one. People should read their fee agreements before they sign them.
They should ask all the questions they have beforehand. One of the things that's really important to ask is how do you bill me? So here at Crary, we bill in six-minute increments. So from one second to six minutes, that's a 0.1. Up to 12 minutes, that's a 0.2.
Some people bill in quarter hour increments, so the minimum that they, if they spend three seconds on your case, the minimum you get billed for is 15 minutes.
So that's a really important question, “How am I billed? How is my retainer treated?” Here, for family law stuff, retainers go into my trust account and we don't bill against it because what I find is it is never gonna seem like enough time has passed between the time you give me a retainer and the time your retainer has run out.
So for us, it's really important to make sure our clients know how we're spending their time. Our clients get an itemized invoice each month. And I say right up front, when you get it, look at it. If it seems like this is something that didn't happen on your case, like we just filed your case and it says, “Notice case for trial,” that time entry probably belongs on a different case.
We try really hard. I go through every invoice to make sure that there's not mistakes like that, but they happen.
Genevieve George: But we're human.
Linda Weiksnar: We're human.
Genevieve George: So look at your invoices.
Linda Weiksnar: Yes, so I have clients who come to me and I'm their second lawyer on the case and they say, “I actually like this retainer system because I never knew what my lawyer did before they asked for more money. I never got an itemized invoice to see what they did before they asked me for more money. I just had no idea and I really felt like the lawyer needed to make rent that month so they needed more money.”
And I can't say that that's not what happens, but I do know that it's not what happens here because we don't bill against your retainer. And so people say “Is it like your signing bonus?” And I say, “It is not my signing bonus, it's your money until I've earned it.”
So where we see the retainer applied most of the time is when people get to their last bill and they say, “Can I apply my retainer and refund the difference?” We do that a lot. I had one guy who was a long time client. He asked me if I would apply his retainer to his current wife's case with her ex-husband. Sure. So that's what happened.
But it's important for you, client, to know how your money is being spent. We will outline the expenses. So like in the 19th to file for a dissolution, it's $408, I think. All of that stuff is always available on the clerk's website, but we tell you as well.
There's parts in a fee agreement that we make you initial, signifying that you've read them. Those are things that have to do with like if we have to go to trial, there's typically a trial retainer because your retainer is not going to cover trial. Essentially that's the lead up to stuff.
I have a lot of clients that we, they say, “I’d like to think about it.” And I say, “That's great.” They say, “I want to talk to another lawyer.” I say, “You should do that.” You have to really like your lawyer because you're going to be in the trenches together and you're going to be telling them, I mean, literally everything.
Even the stuff your lawyer says, I don't need to know that. People, they want to tell you in case it's important. And I get that. So, the other thing to remember is that your lawyer is obligated by law not to reveal that your confidential communications except if your lawyer thinks that you're going to testify and you're gonna lie, then your lawyer cannot help you testify and your lawyer has it what we call a duty of candor to the court.
Meaning that my responsibility to the court to be upright and honest is more important than my duty to my client to maintain their confidentiality. So I've had to help clients find another lawyer when they have told me something that I can't continue to represent them. I'm under no obligation to tell the next lawyer what my client told me.
Don't tell me you're going to do illegal stuff. Don't tell me you're hiding money. Don't tell me you're laundering money. Don't tell me you've transferred stuff into your girlfriend's name because you think the court won't be able to figure that out.
Every person who comes in thinks they're the first person to have this great idea on how to scam the system and they're probably not even the first person that day who had that idea.
So there's really very little you can do to get a leg up or gain an advantage in the way the system works. Now, the system's not perfect, so maybe people have heard of cases where it really seems like somebody got a leg up or where one party really got the shaft. I've had those cases.
There's almost always some reason for it, but they're definitely not the norm.
Genevieve George: Yeah. This was amazing, Linda, thank you so much for sharing all of your time and expertise with us.
I feel like anybody listening is gonna feel much better prepared before they make that call and have that initial consult and interview so that they can get all their ducks in a row before that. So thank you so much.
Linda Weiksnar: It's my pleasure. 'Cause I really do feel like when your clients have the information they need, the knowledge that they need, they make much better decisions.
Genevieve George: Yeah, I agree.
That's it for today's episode of The Wealth Development Studio. Remember, financial clarity is powerful. Do you need help with your financial plan? Go to pelicanfinancialplanning.com to schedule a call with me. Until next time.
