What we have to say. . .

Apr 14
0

PREPARE TO MEET WITH YOUR ATTORNEY

By | Child Support, Co-Parenting, Community Property, Custody and Conservatorship, Divorce, Just and Right, Marital Property Division, Separate Property, Wellness

I am here to help you.    Very simply, a large part of what I do is to ask questions and receive information.   Once I have sufficient information, I am then able to strategize with you and move forward to solve your problem.

Many of you have never met with an attorney, so you don’t really know what to expect.    I am going to tell you some things you can anticipate.  I hope that having this knowledge will put you at ease.  I want you to feel relaxed and comfortable for your first meeting.

Typically, during my initial meeting the first thing I want to do is to hear from you.    I want to know the good, the bad and the ugly of what has brought you to my office.   I want to hear about your children and about their relationships with you and the opposing party.  I want to hear about your property – what assets and liabilities do you have.

After you have told me about your situation, I will explain the legal process to you and strategize with you to develop a plan.   I will not have all of the answers at this point.

VERY IMPORTANT – ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WORRY IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY OR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.   I have found that if you have made a list containing the following and have made copies of financial documents, we can spend less time talking about the basics and more time strategizing.

Information pertaining to your children

  • Full name, sex, and date of birth for each of your children
  • Names of school(s) your children attend and the name of the child care provider(s)
  • Activities in which your children participate
  • Special needs (if any) of your children

Financial Information:

  • Information about your income such as tax returns and/or most recent paystubs for you and the opposing party
  • Bank accounts (name of bank and account numbers)
  • Credit cards (name of credit card, account numbers, and amount owed)
  • Year, make, and model of all vehicles
  • Amount of mortgage or rent

Personal Information

  • Your full name, address, phone number, date of birth, and email address
  • Opposing party’s full name, address, phone number, date of birth, and email address
  • Name of your employer (if any)
  • Opposing party’s employer (if any)

I strongly encourage you to make a list of questions to ask.

If you are modifying a prior court order, please bring a copy of the court order with you to the meeting.

If you have been served with a lawsuit, please bring a copy of the papers to the meeting with you.

Remember, I am here to help you!

 

Feb 01
16

Mistakes people-pleasers make when divorcing a narcissist, from a divorce lawyer

By | Co-Parenting, Community Property, Custody and Conservatorship, Divorce, Domestic Violence, Just and Right, Marital Property Division, Separate Property, Trial Issues, Unsolicited Opinions, Wellness

So common is it that a potential new client tells me that they are married to a narcissist, that I actually have a specific knowing smile in response and I swear to myself I should create a YouTube channel about divorce and narcissists. I’d make a fortune even if I only charged $5 a viewing.

Note: I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist and I have zero training to be preaching about personality disorders. Everything I know, I’ve learned on the job. Take it with a grain of salt.

Did Tom Cruise really love Katy Holmes? Or, did he love how she looked when he was looking down on her from his stool in their wedding photos? He certainly made a fool of himself in the name of love but wasn’t it really more about the attention he got? Despite reports that Katy “won” their divorce (or at least did better than Nicole Kidman), I’d put money on Tom bragging that he was the one who outsmarted her and that the reason he has Suri most of the time is because “he let her.”

Divorcing one of these gems? Here are some common mistakes people-pleasers make divorcing narcissists. Drum roll please. . .

  1. Not filing first. Assuming you have made the moral decision to get divorced, be the first one to file for divorce. The person who files first gets to go first. That means that party gets their story out first at the hearing on temporary orders and at trial. It means that person’s lawyer will give the first impression of the case. The person who goes second or last has the hard job of disproving what has already been said or suggested and retelling the story in his or her own light. It’s a compromising position. Most likely the narcissist will have a “poor baby” approach, as in, “I really had no choice but to file, since he doesn’t bring me coffee anymore” and with this story line going first, it forces the people-pleaser to get defensive which drowns out the real story, that being that there was no room for another person (you) in the marriage to a narcissist.
  2. Be ready to fight the obvious. A people-pleaser would never sell a car to a friend for a premium price, but a narcissist would. A narcissist would never concede you broke up with her, but a people-pleaser would let you have the final word. Do not assume that just because you have always taken care of the kids or operated the business that your spouse will concede that you are primarily responsible for those items. This is especially important because you need establish the status quo to your judge. Be ready to defend the last two years of painful homework projects or to demonstrate you have prepared all the company’s tax returns and landed the biggest client.
  3. Trying to prove a point. Don’t. Even. Try. What does it matter if you have won every battle or even the war? It will make no difference to the narcissist, who is still clothed as an emperor. Narcissists will walk out of a courtroom having been ridiculed by a judge and want to celebrate with the local sommelier’s choice in wine with red meat. Therefore, don’t think if you could just “show her” or you could just get the “judge to tell him”, that it will be downhill from there. Nope. You married a narcissist, so don’t for a second think that all the granted motions in the world will humble him.
  4. Not carbo-loading. Here it is, here is your permission to go to a buffet in jeggings. A narcissist plans on his spouse complying with his plan for division of assets and custody arrangement. In the narcissist’s mind, the narcissist will simply prepare the decree and the spouse will sign it. Divorcing a narcissist will not be over and done in a couple of months unless you give him everything he wants including the things he demands at the last minute. Oh yes, to a narcissist, “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine”. Awarding all of the assets to the narcissist is just papering what is already true to a narcissist. Since you can’t make the narcissist understand that your inherited money is actually yours, you will have to set the case for trial and plan on going. It’s like a marathon: it takes a year to prepare for and complete and you are delirious at the finish line (if you make it). The only difference is you have a lot less money now, hate your lawyer (at least a little) and you may have kid issues to deal with. Like the jungle, the tired animals get eaten. So, carbo-load because this is going to take a while, you might as well enjoy it.
  5. Expecting mediation to work. Where a people-pleaser might get worn down by the long hours stuck in a room with a lawyer (gag), a narcissist is just getting started and is appreciating how all the professionals have their day tied up in what she will not agree to. Picture the scone-eating narcissist being asked if she would like creamer or milk in her tea while she contemplates whether or not she can live without his grandmother’s diamond watch. Go to mediation but have a plan and listen to your lawyer.
  6. Self-infliction. A narcissist is the blade a people-pleasure cuts himself with. The people-pleaser mistakes the narcissist’s joy as love. The joy was getting attention, not being with their “person.” The people-pleaser really loves the blade, and misses the blade even when the claws come out in court. Loving your spouse is not a bad thing. Love is an exhibit of our humanness, as beautiful as the body’s ability to heal itself or birth a baby. Deal with the love, loss, rejection and sadness without cutting yourself on the blade. Cut the nerve instead and cooperate with your spouse but don’t inflict new wounds on yourself. You will end up with the wounds and the narcissist will only feel better about herself because you “did it to yourself”.
  7. Be ready for Karpman’s triangle. According to Karpman, the cycle of dysfunctional relationships involves three roles: victim, persecutor and rescuer. Pay very close attention to the role you are playing in the drama cycle so you can learn what it is when the narcissist plays victim or rescuer. If your spouse said you would never see your kids again, get ready for him to play victim of the year when you are awarded primary of the kids. Offer him a compromise and get ready to be the victim when he takes advantage of your kindness.
Aug 17
14

Four Women Who Need a Pre-Nup in Texas

By | Community Property, Divorce, Just and Right, Marital Property Division, Pre-Marital Agreements, Separate Property

1. The Business Owner. A properly created business has exhaustive company agreements, succession planning and creditor protection. Unless you have every confidence in your documents, you may want to consider a pre-nup to set up agreements between you and your spouse. I see many family-owned businesses severely disrupted by divorce, especially by the temporary orders phase. Image a couple in crises and both spouses are signatories on the company checking account. Perhaps each believes he/she runs the business and should be able to continue to run it exclusive to the other spouse. Where does a court begin to do what’s in the marital estate’s best interest? It is much easier on the Court if there is an agreement in place.

2. The Second Wife and Step-Mother. The reason wife No. 2 needs a pre-nup has everything to do with the probate code. When a spouse dies without a will and has children from a different marriage, Texas law requires that the majority of the estate goes to the deceased’s children. This is a huge problem for second wives.

Imagine a second wife who has young children being left with almost nothing. She will have her community interest in property earned or acquired during the marriage except for property her husband inherited, but that’s it.

A pre-nup can avoid this problem in two ways. One, a pre-nup can provide for trusts, bequests and contingent awards in a highly tailored manner. Typically, these provisions satisfy the needs of children from prior marriages as well as the spouse and children from the second marriage. Because a pre-nup is created before marriage, it provides answers to these issues before the challenges of marriage influence decisions. Secondly, a carefully drafted pre-nup can trump a will that leaves out a spouse. Yes, that’s right. Spouses do not have to leave their estate to their surviving spouse unless they have a pre-nup.

3. The Stay-At-Home Mom. As you may have read in previous articles, a stay-at-home mom is the most common penniless woman in the family courthouse. If the plan is for you to stay at home — the flexible one, the one who doesn’t climb the corporate ladder and so on — you won’t have much of a launching pad for a career should you divorce or your spouse pass away.

There isn’t a way to provide for a launching pad in divorce, but you could at least ask for yearly retirement savings in the likely amount you would have earned had your career not been the priority. For example, if you leave your advertising job of $80,000 per year to raise children by your never-home regional manager husband, consider asking for him to agree that the family will deposit 10 percent of your forgone salary into a retirement vehicle that would be considered your separate property upon divorce or death. Your resume may not be prepared, but at least you wouldn’t have to start all over on retirement planning.

4. The young (and dumb). Please do not take offense. I say young and dumb because undisclosed credit card debt is a very big and growing problem. Refinancing, consolidating, co-signing … can be very confusing and often misleading to the young and in love. A key element to pre-nups is that they require full disclosure of assets and liabilities. Younger people simply do not have the skills to confirm the credit worthiness of their fiancé. I suppose a good liar would also lie about their liabilities before marriage, but at least with the majority of people, a meaningful conversation can be started about debt, who is paying for it and how to get out of it.

Nov 16
1

The Subpoena Power

By | Child Support, Community Property, Custody and Conservatorship, Divorce, Just and Right, Marital Property Division, Separate Property, Trial Issues

There are two types of subpoenas that can command two types of actions. Trial subpoenas command appearance at a trial or hearing and discovery subpoenas command appearance to give testimony for the purpose of discovery of evidence. Either way, the subpoena can also ask for production of documents or tangible items for trial, a hearing or discovery.

The subpoena power can reach beyond the parties in a lawsuit. It can also compel non-parties or entities to comply. Although there are some limits, generally speaking, someone can be compelled to testify or produce documents in a case that they are not directly involved in. For example, Denise Richards could have been subpoenaed in Charlie Sheen’s criminal assault case for his alleged attack on Brooke Mueller. In his suit against Kim Kardashian, Chris Humphries (her 72 day husband) subpoenaed Kanye West (her boyfriend) to appear and give testimony at a deposition, purportedly to show she didn’t intend to marry Chris for legitimate reasons.

Oftentimes, the only way to obtain admissible evidence in a case and prepare for trial is to seek information from third parties using a subpoena. Bank records, computer files, corporate books and records, report cards, medical records, phone records and so forth are good examples. Note: Facebook and other social media sites are protected by federal law from the subpoena power.

Failing to comply with a subpoena could result in contempt charges. The statute allows for a court to assess fines or require the non-appearing party to be confined. Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 176.8.