A Judge’s Perspective on Divorce Court: Chatting with Judge Wesley Tibbals
Meet Judge Wesley Tibbals
May it please the court! We’ve got a special guest today who knows a thing or two about the workings of divorce court, and that’s because he’s a judge! That’s right, we figured it was about time that we had an actual judge on to make sure we’re not just making stuff up. Judge Wesley Tibbals talks with Pete and Seth today about life behind the bench in divorce court. There’s a lot to talk about and Pete and Seth have a lot of questions. Why does it take so long for your divorce to work its way through the system? What’s a judge looking for from the litigants in front of them? What should you look for when searching for a good, experienced lawyer? And what should you expect from the court system? It’s a wide-ranging conversation that will undoubtedly help anyone decide if they should go in front of a judge for their divorce and if so, how to better handle it. Enjoy!
About Judge Tibbals
Judge Tibbals has served his community for seven years as a Circuit Court Judge with fairness and respect to all. Judge Tibbals, a fourth-generation Floridian, was appointed Circuit Court Judge in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in his jurisdiction in 2015. He has presided over family and civil dockets, as well as criminal, delinquency, and dependency court matters in first appearance court. In 2017, and again in 2018, Judge Tibbals received temporary appointments to serve as an Associate Judge on the Second District Court of Appeal. On July 30, 2017, the Chief Judge appointed Judge Tibbals as the Associate Administrative Judge in the Family Law Division and he remains in this position.
In 2018, Judge Tibbals was recognized for his efforts to promote alternative dispute resolution methods in family law cases by Next Generation Divorce, in which he is an honorary member. In 2019, the Hillsborough County Bar Association Family Law Section recognized Judge Tibbals with an award for his extraordinary contributions to family law. Judge Tibbals is a faculty member of the Conference of Circuit Judges, where he is able to teach continuing judicial education courses to judges throughout Florida. In March 2020, Judge Tibbals was one of the first judges in the state to begin using the Zoom videoconferencing platform to allow family law litigants in Hillsborough County access to the courts to resolve their family law cases. Prior to his appointment, Judge Tibbals was a trial attorney at Akerman LLP for over 15 years representing Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and individuals. He began his career as an associate with Thompson, Sizemore, Gonzalez & Hearing, P.A., representing private and public sector employers with an emphasis on federal court litigation. He has broad experience in federal and state courts handling business disputes, contractual claims, products liability and labor and employment issues. He was recognized by Super Lawyers Magazine and Florida Trend for his expertise in business litigation. During his time in private practice, Judge Tibbals committed hundreds of hours to pro bono service as an attorney ad litem in juvenile delinquency court, assisting children in navigating court proceedings when a parent or guardian was unavailable. In 2014, he was recognized by the Hillsborough County Bar Association for his pro bono legal service with the Jimmy Kynes Award, the highest award for pro bono service in Hillsborough County. Judge Tibbals earned his bachelor of arts and juris doctor degrees from the University of Florida, and is a proud Florida Gator.
Links & Notes
Judge Tibbals’ Website
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from True Story FM. Today, may it please the toaster. We're talking to your judge.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson and, as always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. We've talked about all the different ways to get a divorce. Today, we finally have a resource on the show who can tell us once and for all, if I, Seth Robert Nelson, attorney at law, am right about anything. Judge Wesley Tibbals serves as the circuit court judge in the 13th Judicial Circuit presiding over family court matters. We certainly don't want to say Judge Tibbals has seen it all, but it's not a stretch to say he's seen a lot. He's here today to share this divorce process from his perspective on the bench. Judge Tibbals, welcome to the toaster.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Pete and Seth, thank you very much for having me today. I certainly appreciate it and I hope I'm able to answer some questions for you all and your audience and also to give a little bit more information and demystify the process of what happens behind the bench and behind the closed doors. So thanks a bunch for having me.
Pete Wright:
We sure appreciate it.
Seth Nelson:
No, we don't want to do all that. Hold on. Wait a minute. If we do all that, why do we need lawyers, Judge? Justify the process.
Pete Wright:
There must be some secrets out there. Look, I think you all should know. I come to this episode with an agenda and I have prepared a list of questions that are most important to me as somebody who's been podcasting with Seth now, nay, a number of years. One, what is Seth like as a lawyer? Two, what's it like knowing you don't have to laugh at all of Seth's jokes? Three, does Seth talk at nearly as much in court as he does on this show? Four, how close have you come to throwing Seth out of court, and what's it going to take for us to get there? And five, the most important question, what's it like to see Seth in the courtroom and immediately know the other party's going to win? Listeners have to know what it's like working with this guy.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. None of those are important.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
One can't answer, two can't answer, three is yes, four is no, and, five, I won't answer that because it'll might affect Seth's reputation.
Pete Wright:
Hey, this is a good match, Seth. I'm so glad we're here having this; a way to go. So we are really excited, in all seriousness, to have you on the show because we've talked a lot about the divorce process and never have we talked about the divorce process from the perspective of the bench. When people actually end up in court, what is the judge looking at when looking at the litigants? What do you think, Seth? We start with that. As the judge, what do you see when you look down from the bench at your participants in the courtroom?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
So for the last, probably. two and a half years, I haven't really seen anybody in-person from the bench because I've been doing most of the things over Zoom to keep people to come to court and continue to have that access to courts. But I think one of the really important things is to make sure that people understand we are going to hear the bad stuff, we're going to hear the good stuff.
Probably one of the things that people try and do and overdo is to either hide their own bad stuff or emphasize the other person's bad stuff. And when that happens, you really open yourself up to the other lawyer, or the other party because the other lawyer is going to know your case and the other party is certainly going to know you almost always. And they're going to know you way better than your own lawyer, way better than their lawyer, and way better than the judge.
So I think honesty goes such a long way, especially in terms of just acknowledging we all have our own faults. That acknowledgement goes a long way because I'm thinking about it from the perspective of the children, these children are going to go somewhere. So just acknowledge your own faults and let's see where we could go from there.
Seth Nelson:
And I think to that point, Judge Tibbals as a parent, a lot of the other family law judges are parents, and if you come to court and you can only bash the other side and you're perfect, that's just not real life. That's not parenting. Judge, when you hear it that way, where one person is terrible, my client is perfect, from my perspective, from this side of the bench, I'm not giving the judge what he needs to make a decision because he's obviously not hearing the whole story. Is that a fair assessment?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
I think that's a fair assessment. And Seth, you've heard me say this in court before, certainly when I first started and when we were doing some in-person hearings. And Pete, just so you know, the way that we operate is every case within about the first 90 to 120 days after it's filed will have some sort of an appearance in court. We call that a case management conference. It is everyone's first opportunity to come to court. And one of the things that I used to say a lot or speeches that I used to give a lot, and I still do every once in a while, is you need to really figure this out on your own because, as Seth said, I'm a parent, but I'm not the parent to your kids and you need to be the parent to your kids.
And if you think I, as the judge, can make a better decision and will know your family as well as you, you're sadly mistaken. And you've really ought to be making as many of these decisions about parenting and about moving forward in your relationship with your former spouse or the mother or father of your child. You need to do that on your own. And you can get some guidance from lawyers and counselors and those types of people and we get some guidance from the judge. But, overall, it ultimately these are your kids to raise.
Pete Wright:
I'm struck by the requirement on you to remain grounded in such a way that allows you to read the room in a way that sees through all of the stuff that is coming at you from so many different positions from the opposing parties. How do you do that? How do you stay grounded such that you can see through the consternation, the conflict?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Based on experience, both as a lawyer and as, now, seven years as a judge, and I think Seth can speak to this as well, and it goes back to the first point, everybody's got their faults, so you just learn to understand and try to get where people are coming from, making sure that you're prepared as the judge, making sure that you are listening as the judge, and making sure that you are doing your best to meet people where they are, but also acknowledge that there are certain decisions. I've got a process that I follow in every case and it's you go through this process and that's where the decision is. But in the family court area, you do have to understand that there are some people that you're really going to have to meet where they are, and using the tools that I have, which are very limited, and try to pull them in the right direction.
Seth Nelson:
And that's the thing to point out, Pete, is when you're in court, Judge Tibbals and all judges on family law court have what we like to say as a sledgehammer when they make the decision. When you're trying to settle your case and another judge in family law court says this, that we have a scalpel, we can really carve things out and be much more creative and do things that Judge Tibbals doesn't even have the power to do.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
That's exactly right and it's one of those things that I think litigants and people that come into court need to understand is that there are so very few tools that a family law judge has to give guidance versus making decisions. And, ultimately, the judge is there to make decisions based on the law and based on the facts. And Seth can probably tell you this, I've certainly had to make decisions that they came out in a certain way and that's not where I wanted them to turn out, either morally or ethically or whatever the case might be, but that's what the law and the facts are. That's why I like to emphasize to people that come into court, is judges are the last people that ought to be making your decisions for your family moving forward. We really are. But understanding that that's the system that we have and that maybe the ultimate course that families take, it really should be a last resort. You ought to really try and be creative as Seth was saying.
Pete Wright:
I deeply appreciate that perspective. We've talked a number of times to people who have contentious divorces. And even though they might know it's a last resort to go to court, their rage, their frustration, their inability to get through conflict leads them to feel like they want to go to court. They're going to court because it feels like it's a battlefield. What do you say to those folks?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Those are the folks that are typically the parties that will end up staying in court for the remainder of their... if it has to do with children. And the one thing that I try to emphasize to the battlers, there's never a winner. There's never a winner in family court. Everybody loses something and it just depends on how angry you want to be when you leave court losing more than you anticipated. I think that is a tact that I take in addressing parties in those situations. And sometimes it gets through and sometimes it doesn't, and the ones where it doesn't, they go to trial and then they're usually back in court repeatedly until their children age out over the age of 18 in Florida.
Seth Nelson:
And part of that, Pete, is because a couple things that litigants that want their day in court do not understand. You don't get your day in court. The lawyer that you hired gets your day in court. In fact, in court, you're treated like a child. You speak when spoken to and just answer the question. If I have a client sitting next to me and they start piping up, the judge is going to say, "I'm sorry, you have a lawyer that's going to speak on your behalf." And then they're leaning over to me and then they're whispering in my ear and then they're writing notes.
In all of that, I believe, and I explain this to my clients, and Judge Tibbals can answer the question if he thinks it's appropriate, impacts Judge Tibbals' view of that person that he is judging on figuring out to do what's best for your children. And if you can't sit in a courtroom and keep your mouth quiet, that's going to have an impact because Judge Tibbals is human.
Pete Wright:
The great question; how much of these kinds of signals are you paying attention to?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
So I pay attention to all of those signals and set the scene, judgements and orders and things that I've written. And one of the paragraphs that I always include in my final judgments of cases that I have to try, if I actually write the judgment myself, is statements on credibility. And I make observations about how people behave in court. I make observations about perhaps mannerisms, anymore with Zoom. I make observations as to whether or not they're smoking cigarettes and drinking a beer during the final hearing, which both things have happened.
Pete Wright:
I was just wondering I've got to put away some stuff here in the background.
Seth Nelson:
He's not talking about the lawyers there, maybe he is. I'm not sure, Pete,
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
That was a party. I've had some questions about some of the lawyer behavior, but I won't explicitly say anything about that today. But yes, Pete, the short answer is I look at all those things. And some of it's visual, it's observing, it's seeing what people are doing, how they're acting in court. Are they frantic when a certain answer is made by their other party that's sitting on the witness stand? The courtroom is a very dynamic place when you're trying a case. It is an incredibly dynamic case. There is so much going on and I admittedly miss some things because of you're talking about just a natural field of vision and where people sit in the courtroom and what I happen to be doing.
Seth Nelson:
Let's just talk through that for a minute, Judge, because people see it on the movies. So if we're in family court, and I think this has changed on Zoom, but if you're in the courtroom in Hillsborough county in a family law court, the witness stand is actually next to the judge's bench and it's at kind of an angle. And then Judge Tibbals and the other judges might have a computer screen or two up in front of them. They've got evidence binders with documents in front of them. Then they might have the statute that they're referring to or their own notes or their own kind of shorthand on how they do things. And then they have a lawyer sitting down asking questions. So, Judge Tibbals, do you even have a very good view of the witness?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
It's a great question because the visual that Seth laid out is really accurate. And the other thing I think to point out, at least in our courtrooms in Tampa, when our courtroom was built, this section of the courthouse, the model of what was, and still is, referred to as therapeutic justice was in the forefront of the minds of the designers as to who laid out our floor on the fourth floor of family law courts.
So our courtrooms are small. They look nothing like a courtroom that you're going to see in a movie or in a television show. Except in two courtrooms on the fourth floor, the judge is not in an elevated bench where all floor level with the litigants, with the parties, with everyone. And as Seth said, the witness stand is almost out of my field of vision for the actual witness that's on the stand, which is strange. So I have taken to, on more than one occasion, leaving the witnesses, the parties, at their council table.
Pete Wright:
Just so you can look at them eye to eye.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
So that I can see them, absolutely. So that I can see them. When we've had traditional trials, we have witnesses, and I have them in the witness stand, I move the things around on my desk and turn so that I can actually see them and I can typically still have a pretty good view of what's going on in the courtroom and still have a good idea what's going on on the witness stand. So the field of vision has to be very wide if you're operating in our courtroom, which is one reason why, frankly, I have actually enjoyed trying cases over Zoom. I can see a lot more, I think. Now, my colleagues will tell you they feel much differently about that, and you do miss some things, but I enjoy and I feel like I get some good view of things that are going on, on Zoom.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, it's back to school season. It's coming up and it can be difficult times for those going through a divorce. It's especially true when alcohol and child safety is concerned.
Pete Wright:
That sure is, Seth, and I'm sure we don't need to go back to our very special guest, Judge Tibbals, and ask his opinion on this because, I'll bet, he's going to say, "Get your house in order. Do something right for yourself." And on How to Split a Toaster, our mission is helping save relationships. And when you're in the courtroom, you got to have something you can trust. That's why we partnered with Soberlink to help offer resources to help you navigate the back to school season, get your house in order, get your kids in order, get your life in order. Look to Soberlink to help.
Seth Nelson:
Soberlink are remote alcohol monitoring technology that's created to prove your sobriety in custody cases and help keep your kids safe. The system includes a high tech breathalyzing device with facial recognition that allows you to receive real time updates from the monitored co-parents anytime, anywhere, allowing for swift intervention for improved child safety.
So here's the deal. You get this device to prove I'm not drinking, the kids are safe. If you slip up, the other parent knows and they can keep your kids safe. So you're not getting in a car, you're not making matters worse. This isn't a got you device, it's a keep kids safe device.
Pete Wright:
That's perfect. And Soberlink is currently offering a free back to school and divorce packet. This includes a Q&A with a top divorce attorney. I'm just going to say, with a nod in a wink, got a divorce attorney that we've had on the show talking to us too. So you're going to see some familiar names there. We've got a back to school checklist. We've got communication tips. We've got all kinds of stuff in this fantastic packet. Soberlink is a wonderful partner for us and we think you should go request your free packet today at soberlink.com/toaster. That's www.soberlink.com/toaster. Thank you to Soberlink for being a valued sponsor of How to Split a Toaster. Is there such a thing as judicial stage fright?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
That's a really interesting question. I would say yes when I first started. I would say I'm much more comfortable in the position now. I still have a level of discomfort when I'm not sitting in the courtroom and I see somebody like Seth in the grocery store. And Seth and I have had this conversation in the past, or if I see him on the street, I don't like to be referred to as judge or a judge or anything else out in public. So that comfort level, but I had a little bit of stage fright my first day. Some of that had to do with what happened in my very first hearing that I ever had, but there is, I think for sure.
And we worked through that by all of the judges. All of us have this standing agreement amongst us that if something is happening and something's going on and you need not a second opinion, but you need to maybe a reality check, we'll call a timeout, walk out, go down the hallway, "Hey, this is something I haven't seen or heard before." And we all have an agreement that if somebody comes to your door, you basically drop what you're doing and walk out and you talk to them. And we have a good collegial bench that way.
Pete Wright:
That's fascinating. Just everything that you've been talking about, it makes me think, no matter how deep my expertise in a subject, getting on a platform like that and being responsible for judgment is at some level terrifying. Am I going to get it right? Do I know enough? What is my reputation and how is it going to be impacted by the way I approach these people with my sledgehammer?
Seth Nelson:
Here's what you've touched on and you've just described what good judges go through. That's why they're prepared. They want the field of vision. They're looking at everything because, genuinely speaking, the rule of thumb or what it was for a long time is, in Hillsborough county, new judge gets elected or appointed, and we want to talk about how you actually get this job and keep the job, but they would get sent to family law.
And from the family law bench, we'd like, really, we have a brand new judge who's never judged before, has never practiced family law before, and they're learning how to be a judge and they're learning our substantive area, and they don't like the topic. And we've had really bad benches just generally where there was a few or more judges that just were very obvious they did not like the topic, they wanted to get out of this division, and go over to criminal or go over to civil contract litigation. And then we've had benches, which frankly we have now, where we have a lot of people on this bench that want to make the right decision, are not disgusted with the topic.
They get people are going through a hard time. They understand that, as lawyers, we're dealing with people going through the worst time in their lives and they just want the information from the lawyers and the litigants so they can make the best decision as possible. And when we have continuing legal education or judges speaking, they'll tell us, and Judge Tibbals correct me if I'm wrong, that you will be frustrated on the bench when you don't get the information you need to do your job, which is to make the hard decision.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
That can be very frustrating because, and I will tell you in those types of cases where we're not getting that information, there's usually a reason for it, and that goes back to some of the topics we talked about earlier, which is that's maybe information that somebody doesn't want out, somebody can't get out, somebody can't get in into evidence. I think, Pete, you had mentioned how you go about this and how you make these decisions. I'm paraphrasing. And you were asking also, and I think Seth had brought this up, about your client tugging on your ear and trying to whisper to you and everything else.
99% of what that client is trying to tell the lawyer while they're sitting at the council table will never get into evidence even if their client will stand up and yell it from the rooftops. Most of it's hearsay, most of it's not relevant, because they're all the little nitpicky things about, well, somebody will say a date and it's off by a day or you know something that just doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and what we are really listening to. Now, I mean, if you don't know your kid's birthday, that's going to be a different issue, which we've had on a regular basis, but you work through those things.
Pete Wright:
I want to transition to how the court is organized and how you work together because I think you bringing up that how you work with other judges is really fascinating to me. But what I hope people hear, if they're going through the divorce process, is that getting in front of the judge does not mean a loss of humanity. Everyone in the room has an interest in the humanity of your separation. Is that a fair assessment?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
I think that's a great assessment, but I think it's also important to note that there's no loss of humanity, but there's a loss of control. Meaning, if you want the judge to make your decisions or make those decisions, you have given up control. And I say that in different ways to different people. I often use an analogy of if you want me to drive the bus or do you want to drive the bus, right?
But with our bench, and I think overall with the judges that we have in our circuit, we have a wonderful group of judges that are there for the right reasons. They want to do a good job, they want to be prepared, they're doing a good job, and they want to be, to the extent possible, empathetic and humane, especially in family court to the extent that the law and the facts allow you to do that.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So transitioning to how the court is organized. Helping people listening to this understand what is going on in the court system, how does it work? And you're in a unique position to be able to educate us in this area.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
In terms of the general makeup of the court, and I'll speak to our circuit in particular, we have 69 judges, I believe, between our county and circuit court judges. And both county and circuit court judges are referred to as our trial court judges. Then we have a level of appellate judges above us and then the Florida Supreme Court.
At the trial court level, from a legislative perspective, the legislature lays out the types of cases that we can hear. As a circuit court judge, I can hear felony criminal cases, that kind of stuff. But in the family law division, we've got 10 judges that handle family law cases to the extent we can, we collaborate, we ask questions of each other, we talk about the lawyers, we talk about the parties.
Pete Wright:
Oh, I want to [inaudible 00:27:21] and I'll tell you what.
Seth Nelson:
I'll tell you, you got to be candid with the court because if you're not candid in Judge Tibbals' courtroom-
Pete Wright:
There are nine other judges.
Seth Nelson:
... there could potentially be a problem when you're two doors down, right? And the reverse is true.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
When you are candid and you say, "No, Judge, that's not what I meant." Or, "Hey, that's not what the law is on this, Judge. I know it goes against my position, but here's a case that I think is distinguishable." And the judge is like, "Good try, Mr. Nelson." But when you bring that forward, that makes a difference, I think, in your next case. We're in front of these judges all the time. So is that a fair statement, Judge?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
I think it is. I mean, it's one of those things that I think it goes throughout any job, any life experience, anything like that. But your reputation is what you make of it in terms of the lawyers. You can spend an entire career building that reputation and then you can mess it up.
Pete Wright:
But it goes to, again, for those listening, just how small a particular fishbowl is the family law division that you're talking about. It's not just 600 judges one of whom might hear your case. This is tight knit.
Seth Nelson:
How many cases do you have, Judge, on your docket?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
So I have about 750 cases on my docket, give or take, and that's right in the average area for all 10 of us.
Pete Wright:
Okay. Define your docket?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Those are all of the active cases that I have and those are anything from dissolution of marriage, paternity and custody cases, some limited child support, adoptions. I have some separate cases that are only assigned to me as well in my capacity as the administrative judge. It's a very small set of cases, subset of cases that are in the family law area.
Pete Wright:
You said you were the administrative judge. What does that mean?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
The best way to describe it is I'm the first level of complaints. So I'm the complaint department. And it's actually, I probably overstated my qualifications for that. I'm actually the associate administrative judge for the family law division.
You had asked earlier about the makeup of the court. In Florida, we have what are called unified family courts. It's an umbrella and underneath that are three different divisions, at least in Tampa. Delinquency, which is juvenile criminal cases, a dependency, which most people would refer to as the foster care system, and then the family law court or domestic relations, which is where I am. So I'm the associate administrative judge under my little wing. So I have 10 people that in charge of. So if anybody complains, they come to me and, no, it does not come with a raise.
Pete Wright:
I was just going to say, you've just described the cast of The Office. You're the assistant to the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.
Seth Nelson:
I'm really treading on thin ice here, Pete, I'm telling you.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
I'll answer the question for you. I am Dwight and I have no authority.
Seth Nelson:
Thank you, Judge. Thank you. You never wanted to be with judge that doesn't have the power to do something. Pete, I was right on that edge.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Well, okay. I think it's important to note too, Pete, that my docket is defined not just by the number of cases, but by what's going on before there's a final judgment, which we all call your prejudgment cases, and then what's going on after the final judgment. Because, as I like to say in family law, there really never is a final judgment, there's just a first judgment. Because people continue to litigate, especially if there are children involved, they will continue to come back to court over and over and over.
Pete Wright:
Until the child's 18. Is that a fair assessment?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Until the child is 18 and sometimes beyond that in certain circumstances, yes.
Pete Wright:
And of those 750 cases currently on your docket, on average, how many would you say you're able to work through in a given year? Is that a fair period or...
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
It's a fair period and I don't know a great way to answer that question. I guess, I can answer that question by giving you an example. So we have two courthouses in Hillsborough county, the main courthouse, which is in Downtown Tampa and then we have a courthouse in our east circuit or east division, which is in Plant City, which is in the Northeast corner of Hillsborough county. There are only four judges that are out there. There's two circuit judges and two county court judges. It was built to serve the Eastern population and that entire side of our county has just exploded at this point.
So there's a huge population out there and I won't go into all those stats, but to answer your question, when I started in the east division in my docket, I think I had 983 cases on my docket when I started, and that was in February of 2019. When I moved back to the Tampa division and went back into a family law division in Tampa, there were 618 cases. Cases don't stop getting filed. We were just able to close and address and adjudicate cases, where we had a net makeup of, what's that, 360 some odd cases. We made up those cases. So I made up ground. So we were getting a lot of cases off the docket.
Seth Nelson:
But just think about this, Pete, not all these go to trial, but you have 10 judges, 750 cases around average, that's 7,500 cases pending, and now I'm in front of a judge and I say, "I have a motion because the parties aren't getting along and it's substantive deals with kids. I need one day or a half day or two hours." If I want a day and Judge Tibbals gives each client, each litigant, one day for their trial for 750 cases and he doesn't take a day off.
Pete Wright:
You're still not hitting. You're not giving everybody who needs it attention. That's where this whole line of question obviously is going, that there are people who are listening to this show wondering why does it take so long? Why is it going to take six months for me to get my one day? My hope is, just hearing the raw numbers, you get a sense of why it's taking so long.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
And sometimes it takes so long to get to court not only because we do have a lot of cases and we have only limited amount of time, new cases are being filed all the time, but sometimes, for litigants, they actually need that time to pass so that they can address and perhaps get through part of the emotional breakup of their family and get to a point where they are able to make decisions that are not based on emotion and not based on the then and there, but based on what they see for themselves and their family a few years down the road or 10 years down the road. I understand that and I think all of our judges understand that.
And I know for instance and for a fact that Seth has had a couple of cases where there's stuff going on outside of the courtroom that I'll never know about and we'll have a case management conference or the case will come up because there hasn't been any activity and Seth and his client or the other side or whoever the lawyer is, there are a lot of buzzwords, "Judge, we're working through some things. There's a lot going on outside of the courtroom. Our clients are really talking. We're working towards something." We understand what that means. We understand that these parties need some more time perhaps to heal and to get to a point where they are able to make some decisions on their own.
Seth Nelson:
And, Pete, we've talked about it on the show, right? I tell people when they come into my office, "How long till I get divorce?" And this is a person who's at acceptance. They've gone through the grieving process. They're done. Their spouse didn't realize they were grieving or splitting up and so they're like, in my office, "I want this done now. I'm ready to move on." And I'm like, "It's going to take six to 18 months." And they'll say, "Are you not listening? I want it done now." And I said, "I am listening. I can't give you what you want. I can tell you it's six to 18 months. But if you want your case done in five minutes, I can get that done. Agree to the offer from the other side." And they're like, "Well, I can't do that." I said, "Well, there's the rub."
Pete Wright:
Six to 18 months?
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
And if we can get it settled and get some documents done and the mandatory disclosures and financial affidavits that we've talked about to Pete, and we can get a marital settlement agreement and we can get a parenting plan, then we can go in front of a judge and say, "Judge, we've worked it all out." And we'll knock those out in five minutes. I can get a hearing on that within 20 days. That's no problem. But when you have the big litigation and you're fighting over documents and you're coming back all the time and you're taking up more of the court's time. And you don't want these judges to remember your case. You have 750 cases. Do you want to be the case that the judge remembers?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Do you want to be the one that stands out over a beer later?
Seth Nelson:
No. So that's the problem. Now, to Judge Tibbal's point, sometimes clients aren't emotionally ready to settle and to get there. And I've had clients tell me this, "Seth, I would've not agreed to this a year ago. Not because it wasn't a good deal then or it wasn't best for my kids then, is I couldn't see it. I wasn't ready to settle. I had too much anger. I wasn't at acceptance." Some cases, "I didn't have a job a year ago. You advised me Seth to go get a job. Even though I have an alimony claim because you told me it's better to be self supporting than relying on a check. And now I have a job and I've gotten a raise and I'm not as scared that I'll be homeless and penniless because I'm earning my own money." That's a much different dynamic and Judge Tibbals can't do with that in the courtroom.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
And I think also to add to that [inaudible 00:38:39] or can get to the point of being very self-aware, they will acknowledge that they've maybe even got to work on themselves before they can get to a point of acceptance, as Seth said. And that sometimes takes time and that sometimes takes patience. And those are things that I rarely see as the judge, but I can understand that they are happening outside of court.
Seth Nelson:
And with people who are presenting these to you, Judge, if you can answer this, if you can't, you can't, but I find litigants are afraid to admit when they aren't perfect. And I try to explain to them, "It's okay. You don't have to be the best parent in the world. You have to be real. And you have to be real in addressing your deficiencies, but that's going to go a whole lot further, I think, with the presentation to the court and what we're trying to explain than trying to sweep this under the rug."
And when you explain that to them, if they buy into that, Pete, they're less nervous because they don't have to be perfect in court. I'm not saying you break out the cigarettes and you pull on your lawyers ear the whole time, but you don't have to win every point to win the match. And there's no winning; no one's walking out of that courtroom happy with the decision because some's going to go your way, some's not, right? Is that an accurate sense of what you see, Judge, from the bench?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
It is. And it kind of goes back to that point of credibility and it goes back to that point of nobody wins. It's just who loses less before they walk out of court. It can be a very difficult point to get across. And I really appreciate the lawyers who make every effort to make that point to their clients before we get into court. And it's kind of a classic you want to address the bad stuff up front and it can be a classic lawyer move, which is you put your own client on the stand and you get the opportunity to have them say the bad stuff about themselves coming from their own mouth, coming from their own lawyer. You get it out of the way and it can wipe out the impact of a cross examination.
Pete Wright:
So I have to ask a question that I don't think Seth can ask. What do you do? You're in court, from your perspective, and you see a lawyer that is of questionable approach? Lawyer who, in your estimation, is not doing a good job, might not be an ethical participant in the case, how do you handle that?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
So that's a great question and it is fraught with problems in how to address it. The one thing that I have endeavored to do and I've not done it every time, I can promise you, is I endeavor in that situation to not embarrass a lawyer in front of his or her client. One of the obligations we have as judges is not to interfere to the extent possible with the attorney-client relationship. Now, my typical or, I guess, my desired reaction would be for me to, at some point, be able to speak directly with that lawyer about his or her conduct. And I have done that in the past and I try to do that in a fashion that is more of a mentoring role because the last thing any judge wants to do is report a lawyer to the bar, says the Florida bar, and that's the governing body for all lawyers in Florida.
There's 108,000 lawyers in Florida. All of us are required to be members of the Florida bar and they have a disciplinary arm. My wife is actually on a discipline committee and she's a lawyer as well. That's not where you want to go. So you try to handle it in the best way possible by not embarrassing the lawyer and trying to address it directly, if you can, in an appropriate fashion. We have some other options in Florida. Ee have a professionalism committee that you can refer the lawyer to. It's non-disciplinary. You can't lose your bar license, you can't be suspended, but it is a group of lawyers and judges that are assigned to those committees to have those similar conversations that I would want to have with that lawyer.
Seth Nelson:
So let me ask you a thing about actual judging. So if you have a lawyer, maybe they're not doing anything unethical. And this happens a lot in family law. We have a lot of solo practitioners, maybe fresh out of law school only a couple years, so they're just as experienced. They might not have the mentoring. They're ethical, they're doing the best they can. They're just not necessarily very experienced and therefore they're not necessarily presenting a great case. It's been my experience that judges don't hold that against the client. You're actually trying to get to the information. You're allowed to ask questions from the bench, if you choose to. So it's not that you're going to necessarily penalize someone for having a bad lawyer, just like you're going to reward someone for having a good lawyer because, ultimately, you've got to just get through it and get to the facts and apply the law. Is that an accurate way that you try to approach those different situations?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
I think that's very accurate and it would be incredibly unfair to penalize a client. That being said, sometimes the result that comes out may feel like a penalty to the client, but it's not a judge actively penalizing a client because of their lawyer's job. It's just their lawyer may not have done a great job. And Seth is right, judges in the family law division have a little bit more leeway to ask questions, but that's a very fine line. You have to be very careful that you don't cross over and give the appearance of advocating for one side or another. And that raises a whole other host of issues.
Seth Nelson:
Well, I've got one more question because I know Pete's dying to ask one, but is there anything that you're allowed to share, and if not, just don't share it, on advising or giving advice to our listeners on how to figure out whether they're interviewing a good lawyer for their case or not.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
You want to find out from the lawyer, obviously, what their experience is, have they handled these types of cases, that sort of stuff. I also think that if you come to a lawyer and they say, "Why don't you ask two or three other lawyers about me? Or why don't you go interview with two or three other lawyers and then you make your decision?" Those are lawyers that are confident in their ability, they're confident in their capacity to handle your case, and they're confident that you're not their only client. A lawyer when you walk in their door and the lawyer immediately says "you're hired as my client and write me a check for X amount" without going through and really getting a better idea of what your case might be about, I would probably be a little bit wary about that.
And I took that same approach when I was a practicing lawyer. I was in a little different position. The firm that I practiced with by the time I left had 700 lawyers all spread out across the country. So a lot of the cases that I had, they were institutional clients to the firm, those sort of things, and they were hiring our firm and our lawyers for particular reasons. So it was a little bit different, but you do have to be discerning as a lawyer as to who your clients are going to be and you have to have confidence that if that client turns around and leaves your office, it's not the last client you're ever going to see. And I think lawyers that tell you, "Go check out some other people and then if you like me, come on back."
Pete Wright:
Okay. I've got two questions and I think they're related. The first one, we were talking about the organization of the courts and I'm wondering what level of agency you have as judges in the circuit to define how the court is run. And second, the related part, how do you get the job?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
The answer to the first question is, ultimately, every judge in the state of Florida is an independently elected or appointed, and eventually always elected, constitutional officer. Each circuit also then has an elected chief judge and that election is by the sitting judges in that circuit. So that's how we handle things. That chief judge is the one who, at least in our circuit, ultimately makes all of the decisions as to where people are going to be assigned. That is, what divisions of the court they're going to be in. There is guidance.
When I first started in 2015, there had been a group of my colleagues at the time who had put together a recommendation of how long you were in certain divisions and when you could ask to be moved or what your seniority was and all those sort of things. So there is sort of a guidepost as to where you are and when you can move and how long you stay in a position and those sort of things. But, ultimately, if our chief came to me tomorrow and said, "You're going to the criminal bench on Monday, there's nothing I can do about that." It's, "Yes, sir. I'll go wherever you want me to go."
Pete Wright:
And suddenly your docket is thrown up and split with the other nine remaining judges and whoever comes to fit you?
Seth Nelson:
We had the guy from criminal or the woman from criminal bench, she's coming in and handling Judge Tibbals' old docket. And if I have a trial in front of Judge Tibbals on a Monday and the chief judge moved him to a different assignment, and a new judge is sitting there, I say, "Good morning, Your Honor, I'm ready to proceed." I don't get to say, "I want judge Tibbals." Or maybe, "Whew, thank God Judge Tibbals isn't here."
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Most of the time it's the second response, but, yeah, we don't redistribute the cases. So it's Judge Wes goes to criminal and Judge Pete comes into my division and, bam, we are off and running at that point.
Pete Wright:
Wow. Okay. Well, you said it. You are a dually elected judge and it is election season. Can we talk a little bit about that? How's it going? What do we need to know?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
We can. I'm going to go back and briefly answer your first question or your second question that you had earlier. Judges in Florida, you can get on the bench by becoming appointed or elected. And an appointment occurs if there's an opening in a term. Every judge's term in Florida is for six years. The terms start in January. So, for instance, with me, I was appointed in 2015. I actually started on May 8th of 2015, which happened to be my grandmother's birthday. And I picked that date on purpose. But then what happens is if you're under an appointment and the next general election cycle, that is more than one year after your appointment, you were on the ballot or you had the opportunity to be on the ballot, so there's a week in the general election year, so our election primary election this year is August 23rd, we have a qualifying period, which is at the end of April.
During that qualifying period, I've got file papers and pay a qualifying fee and you do all this other sort of stuff. But during that week, if you're a member in good standing of the Florida bar and you've been practicing law for, or you've been a member of the Florida bar for, I think, at least seven years, I think it's seven years, you can put in to become elected, at that point. You can put in to be on the ballot.
In 2016, I ran without opposition. That is, I qualified in that April timeframe, nobody qualified against me. I was never on the ballot. I started a new six year term in January of 2017. So this is next election cycle up for me. I do have an opponent this time around, so I'm running a campaign and that election is on August the 23rd. And frankly, I'm very pleased with the support that our campaign has gotten from our local community.
Seth Nelson:
It's interesting. Let's be clear about what it means to run as a judge in a campaign in Hillsborough county, Florida under the rules. Judge Tibbals is not allowed to directly ask money from anybody. So you're allowed to put a committee together and they can try to raise funds for you. He's not allowed to go out there and talk about issues. He's not allowed to tell you whether he's a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. All these are rules that you're not allowed to talk about. And you can have problems if you violate these rules. So, for example, people will ask me about Judge Tibbals and I can say anything I want about him. But that exact same question, if it's asked to Judge Tibbals, "Well, what do you think about this or what do you think about that?" Not allowed. So what is he allowed to talk about? Your experience [inaudible 00:53:18]?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Pete, you hit it on head. There is really not much experience. What I've done on the bench, I really shouldn't talk about particular cases that I've handled or particular outcomes. I'm not allowed to make predictions, not allowed to go to certain things. For instance, if there's a candidate forum and not all of the judicial candidates are invited, you're not allowed to go. If there is another candidate forum and it happens to be a partisan forum, for instance, there are forums coming up and there are both partisan candidates, so in other types of races, congressional races or state senate or legislative races and then judicial races, typically the way that those work is the judicial candidates will go first, they'll have their little speech. They can perhaps answer a couple of questions. They go off to the side.
And, typically, when the partisan candidates start, the judicial candidates have to leave. If there's any event, even if it's an event for me by my campaign committee, if someone is going to make an ask for campaign contributions, I have to leave. I can't be in the room. And we have, at last count, a little over 900,000 registered voters in the county and it's a countywide same boundaries for the circuit judges in the county. So you're talking about 902,000 or 903,000 registered voters where there's no television, there's not a lot of ads. I mean, all that stuff is expensive and you don't have partisan party money. You don't have all these things that are coming in. It is your campaign.
Pete Wright:
You can't talk about any issues. There's no issue to run on.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
There's no issues to run on. People are like, "What's your platform?" Well, the fairness, experience, and integrity, that's it. I mean, that's my platform.
Seth Nelson:
And I want to talk about that integrity part for a moment because I hear this for my friends like, "Well, Seth, do you contribute to all the judges' races?" I say, "No." They're like, "Oh, well, when you do, you're going to get a little favor in court if a tie goes to the runner or tie goes to the contributor." One, I've never had that experience. Two, sometimes you're in court with someone else that's also contributed, so what's the difference? But three, the honest judges with integrity, the ones that you want on the bench making these decisions for these very important family law matters are so focused on their job and they don't want any appearance of impropriety at some levels.
And this is my own experience. It has nothing to do with Judge Tibbals. I feel that sometimes I have to do even better because there's not going to the appearance like I did Seth a favor. That just doesn't even happen at all anyway, but sometimes I feel like time might go against me and I think it's an unconscious thing that judges do because it's ingrained that you have to follow these rules and they put on that rob for a reason to be neutral and they're not taking any sides and that's what you need on the bench. Do you ever feel that, Judge, that you have to check your bias or anything like that? Only if you can answer. Don't if you can't.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Well, I think I can answer that question a little bit differently and I think it goes to the process that I try to use in every one of my cases. And that is, and I said this earlier, I've come to decisions or results that if I were to just look at the case cold or look at the facts and I were to allow whatever my morality or ethics to weigh into it, I might not have come to that same result.
Somebody's asked me the question, are there cases that keep you up at night? And the answer to that question is, as long as I feel like I've given everybody a fair shake and I've followed the law, applied the facts to that, that's where the chips fall. There's really no other way to put it, but, ultimately, there are sometimes going to be those cases where it comes out a way that you might not personally want it to come out. That's just part of the job.
Pete Wright:
This has been incredibly illuminating. I have to tell you I am disappointed that there was not more dirt on Seth. I come to these shows with that expectation and on that point. And that point alone, you did not deliver. But everything else, you have been a great asset to this show. Thank you for educating us and helping our listeners understand what to expect when they get in court.
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
Well, you just didn't let me go on long enough. I could have come up with something on Seth. And probably, if Seth and I were sitting around having a beer, he would tell you the same thing. But I certainly appreciate the opportunity. One of the things as judges that we are really tasked with is helping educate the public about the judicial system, demystifying it, letting people know that we're all human. I really appreciate the opportunity to get on the toaster and be able to contribute in that way.
Pete Wright:
Well, give us the plug. Where would you like people to go to learn more about you and about this crazy season you're in the middle of right now?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
If anybody wants to learn a little bit more, I have a website. It's judgetibbals.com. Fairly simple. I'm also on Instagram. I don't know what it is. I think it's @keepjudgetibbals or something like that. And also on Facebook under my name as wella and then I have a page that is Keep Judge Tibbals. So T-I-B-B-A-L-S. My campaign committee updates that stuff regularly, so you can figure out what we're doing and what's going on and read a little bit more about my bio on the website.
Pete Wright:
Well, that's perfect. Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for listening, for downloading this show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget, you can send us questions. Just go to howtosplitatoaster.com. There's button right on there. You can push the button, ask a question, and we'll take it and answer it. And it could even be about judging. We'll figure out an answer to it. Don't worry, send it in. We just want to hear from you. So howtosplitatoaster.com. Thank you so much on behalf of Judge Tibbals and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney. Can I say that in front of the judge?
Judge Wesley Tibbals:
He doesn't have to agree.
Pete Wright:
It feels a little dirty. I'm Pete Wright. We'll catch you next time right here on How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce & Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce & Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
