It’s Not an Oil Change: Using Divorce Road Map 2.0 with Karen Covy
Today we’re talking with Karen Covy, author of When Happily Ever After Ends: How to Survive Your Divorce Emotionally, Financially, and Legally. Karen has been working as a divorce professional for over 25 years as a mediator, attorney, arbitrator, decision coach and more. She’s come up with an online program called Divorce Road Map 2.0 that helps people navigate the challenges that come with divorce. Her mission as a divorce coach is to educate and empower people to get through their divorce with less damage, conflict and expense.
Karen joins Pete and Seth on the Toaster today to talk about how to learn how to better and more intelligently use your divorce attorney. It’s difficult to turn off that emotional decision-making tool in your brain so make sure you’re using your attorney to help you. Divorce is not an oil change, after all. There are lots of moving parts.
So tune in to hear this week’s conversation about learning to make decisions during your divorce.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, it's time to upgrade your toaster to 2.0.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everybody, I'm Seth Nelson. And as always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. Today, we're talking to Karen Covy author of When Happily Ever After Ends: How to Survive Your Divorce Emotionally, Financially and Legally. Karen has been working as a divorce professional for over 25 years as a mediator, arbitrator, decision coach and more. She's come up with an online program called Divorce Road Map 2.0 that helps people navigate the challenges that come with divorce. Her mission as a divorce coach is to educate and empower people to get through their divorce with less damage, conflict, and expense. Karen, welcome to the Toaster.
Karen Covy:
It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.
Seth Nelson:
So Divorce Road Map 2.0. Is divorce roadmap 1.0, you just drive right off the cliff.
Pete Wright:
Thelma & Louise.
Seth Nelson:
Is that what's happening there?
Pete Wright:
I saw that movie.
Seth Nelson:
Yes.
Karen Covy:
Exactly. But it doesn't have the best ending. So the 2.0 version is hopefully going to give you a better ending.
Pete Wright:
I hope so. Look, I started reading up on your material on online and I know Seth is going to love this. There's a lot that's positioned on using your lawyering resources reasonably. Let's use your lawyer for what they're really good for. Now, Seth's a divorce lawyer and you're a divorce lawyer and you just are pitching, let's use your divorce lawyer less. Let's do less lawyering in the divorce process.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. But Pete, when you said that, what came to mind when you said let's use your lawyer for what they're really good for, I just threw in the word nothing in my head.
Karen Covy:
That is not true.
Pete Wright:
That is not true. There are statutes made to please the court. So let's talk a little bit about what the divorce... just to get us into the program, I thought we'd talk a little bit about what the Divorce Road Map 2.0 is. And then let's use the opportunity. We have the two divorce lawyering brains on the show, plus me, and let's build an actual case for how you can use your divorce lawyer the best. What do you think?
Karen Covy:
Sounds good.
Pete Wright:
All right. Let's do it. Tell us about the roadmap first.
Karen Covy:
Okay. So the Divorce Road Map is an online program that people can access 24/7 on any device they have, any time they want for as long as they want. And it gives them an overview of how the whole process works and then gives them an overview of the different areas that they're going to have to deal with in a divorce like lawyers, like kids, like what process do you want to use? How does it work? And how do you figure out which process is going to be the best for you? So it is primarily an educational tool delivered through videos and a lot of handouts, a lot of spreadsheets, worksheets, checklists, whatever you need to help you in your divorce.
Seth Nelson:
Whoa, back up.
Karen Covy:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Karen, you're talking so fast. I got excited. You said it has spreadsheets.
Karen Covy:
Yeah. It's got a spreadsheet in it [crosstalk 00:03:35].
Pete Wright:
Oh no.
Seth Nelson:
Nice. I'm signing up.
Karen Covy:
Sorry.
Seth Nelson:
I'm signing up, Pete.
Pete Wright:
We got to tell Andy to warn people not to say the word spreadsheets. The Pavlovian response is so fast for you. Your face got all flushed-
Seth Nelson:
It's clickbait. I love it. I know. I'm so excited.
Pete Wright:
Oh God.
Karen Covy:
I didn't know. I'm sorry. But I didn't know.
Pete Wright:
You weren't warned. How could you have known? Now I just have to clean up the mess. All right. Spreadsheets. We're going to put that away. I mean, it's a useful tool. What got you to the point where you thought, okay, there have to be two sides of this. One, I'm going to help the people that I'm working with, and two I'm going create this tool that's going to help me solve some problems in my lawyering. This education tool has to help you too. Right?
Karen Covy:
It does. Because then people have all kinds of weird expectations about what's going to happen in a divorce and what's not. What is my lawyer going to do? And what is my lawyer not going to do? And when people have expectations that aren't based in reality, they expect something from their lawyer that the lawyer's never going to give them, and then they get upset. And then the lawyer's upset because the people are upset and then it's not a good place to be.
The Genesis for all of this was years and years ago, when I was practicing law in a small office. It was only my secretary and me in the office. It was hot. I was with a client. The door was open. So my secretary heard the conversation after the client left, and the secretary had worked for a bunch of big law firms in Chicago. She said, "You know no one else does that?" And I said, "What?" And she said because I went through all of the processes and all of the choices that they had and explained everything to them. And she said, "Most lawyers," the ones that she had worked for, and they were the big kahunas in the city. She said, "They don't do that." And I said, "Well, what do they do?" And she said, "They tell the people what they're going to do."
And then I didn't think I had that right. It's not my life. I can tell you what your choices are, but I think I'm obligated to tell you your choices. And so that's what I did. And I realized that there was a need for that kind of education for people, from someone in a way that they could relate to and rely on. So that's what I created.
Pete Wright:
Because divorce is not an oil change, Seth.
Karen Covy:
It's not.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, we've got our title of the show; divorce is not an oil change. And I don't mean this show. I'm actually going to lobby to change from How to Split a Toaster to divorce is not an oil change. But even when you get an oil change, don't you have some peripheral decisions to make? Do you want to rotate your tires? Can we fill out some other things?
Pete Wright:
All right. There might be a spreadsheet involved.
Seth Nelson:
There you go. But Karen, I like what you said about giving clients' choices. Because as we've talked about before Pete, when you're reaching an agreement, you can reach an agreement in the great State of Florida, check the local jurisdiction, that the court can't actually order in court, such as paying for college. So that's a choice that you have. Maybe you agree you both will contribute towards your children's college education, but in exchange for that, you're not going to divide this account between the two of you. You're setting it aside outside of the division. You're earmarking it for the kids' college. Judge cannot do that, but you can reach that agreement. And that's just a choice that people have to make.
Karen Covy:
There are a lot of choices people will face in divorce that they never think about.
Pete Wright:
Well, and that leads us to our principle question, that let's just say it's time for me to get a divorce. How do I walk in 8:00 AM day one to my attorney's office and start that conversation with an eye toward making the proper use of that legal resource?
Karen Covy:
It starts by understanding what your lawyer can do. And it helps if you're walking into a lawyer... First of all, I'm going to assume you've chosen a lawyer. And you walk into a lawyer. And if you understand what you're going to have to bring to the table, you can say to the lawyer, "Okay. What documents am I going to need? How can I organize them in a way that saves me money because it's the way you use?" Do you want digital, or do you want paper? The little tiny things. And the more organized you are, and the more you can work with your lawyer as a team, the better experience both of you are going to have, the less money you're to spend. And your lawyer is also not going to lose their mind doing things in an inefficient way rather than efficiently.
Seth Nelson:
And on that point, Pete, I know some people are thinking, are you serious? I'm going through a divorce, I'm totally stressed out, and I'm not an organized person to start with. It's always an ambition of mine. It's okay. If you're not organized, it's okay. We have ways to help you get through the process. So if you come to me and you say, "I am never going to get you these documents that you're asking for. I'm unorganized." I can say, "Thank you for letting me know. This is how we can solve this problem. Let's schedule two hours for you to come into our office and sit down with a paralegal and get ready. Bring your laptop, or bring your whatever device. Because if you don't remember your password, we're going to log into bank account, change password, forgot password. You'll get the code. Let's do it right now. And we can help you download all those documents."
And that will actually be less expensive than that same paralegal sending you follow up email, telephone call, me calling you telling you we're getting closer, getting a client conference on, "Hey, what's going on with your documents." So it's okay if you're not organized. But coming to the table and saying, "Hey Karen, this sounds great, but it's horrible. How can I do this when I'm not an organized person?" What would you say to that character?
Karen Covy:
What you said makes total sense. It's about knowing who you are and knowing where you're at. Maybe you're normally an organized person, but you're in the middle of a divorce. You're an emotional wreck. You're not organized now. That's okay, but don't pretend that you are and have your lawyer chase you because it's the millions of emails and follow up calls and the court appearance is to say to the judge, "I don't have that. I'll get back to you. Give me another 30 days." All of that costs money and takes time.
Pete Wright:
Well, this is helping me because I'm trying to provide a framework for myself that says, what can I expect? What kind of coaching am I getting from my lawyer? What can I expect them to say to me? And one is, they're going to want to find out how organized I am. So one, stop lying to myself and don't lie to them about how organized I am. Let's just cut to it and know that one way or another we're going to have a problem to solve. And that is getting organized. That can be easy or hard. What's number two? Organizing paperwork statements, that's one. Number two?
Karen Covy:
It starts by knowing what you want. So many times lawyers, they're trying to resolve a divorce case and they say to you one day, or they say to their client, "Hey, what about this?" And you're like, "Yeah. I don't know. That sounds okay." And then they call you the next day you go, "No, I've changed my mind." And then the next day, it's no, I've changed my mind. And sometimes it's like trying to pin jello to a wall. And from the lawyer's perspective, they cannot settle a... They're not going to settle it based on what they want. It's not their divorce. They need to settle it based on what you're okay with. And that means you have to know what you're okay with.
Pete Wright:
Is it fair for me to say your lawyer actually doesn't care about the... one way or another. This is not an emotional decision for you.
Karen Covy:
You mean for the lawyer?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, because you-
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. So Pete, here's what I think you're saying. Client comes to me and says, "I don't know what I really want to do about spring break. Should I do it every other year, where I get the full spring break and my spouse gets the even years and I get odd years? Or should we split it in half?" As a lawyer, I do not care on that outcome ultimately, if you don't care. But if my client says to me, "I really love spring break. Every year we take a trip. I don't want to divide it in half because I think that's going to mess us up. I'd rather have it every other year." Now I know what you want. I'm going to go argue for that, either in mediation, negotiations, in court, whichever it may be. But if you come to me like, "Eh, I don't really care."
What I would tell a client, here's the positives and negatives, because I've done hundreds, if not a thousands of these cases, thousands of them. I've lived it in my own life for the last, I can't believe this Pete, almost 16 years since my former spouse and I got divorced. So I have that experience of raising a child in that environment. I can tell you positive and negatives, but ultimately I don't care. And it's not that I don't care as in care-care, this is not what you're paying me to do for you. Did I get that right Karen? And Pete loves it when I'm wrong, so feel free.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I have a bell.
Karen Covy:
No, I think you are a hundred percent right. I don't think caring is probably the best word choice. It's not that a lawyer doesn't care if have all of spring break or half a spring break. It's not for them to say. It's not their families.
Pete Wright:
Well, and that was actually my point. And actually, I like where that went, because to Seth's point, your lawyer will care a lot when you tell them what you want, when you tell them essentially what to care about, they will fight for it and care about it. But until that point, they're not going to make decisions for you.
Karen Covy:
Exactly.
Seth Nelson:
Which puts you in a bind if you're having trouble making the decisions. And I know Karen has a lot to say about that. And I like to use this phrase, because Pete always does it. Let's pivot to that.
Karen Covy:
Okay. That was a great phrase for both of you.
Pete Wright:
Man.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, I stole it from Pete.
Karen Covy:
I tell people that what they don't realize about divorce or at least most people don't realize is that you are going to have to make more major life decisions in a limited timeframe than you will at any other time in your life. So getting through a divorce is really, in some ways, a decision making exercise. And being able to make a good decision starts by knowing what you want. And it starts even before the divorce, knowing if that's what you want or not. And it carries through every negotiating item in your divorce. Do you want A or do you want B? Do you want two weeks in the summer consecutively or do you want them separate? What do you want? And only you can decide that.
Pete Wright:
So how do you coach people through that decision making process? Somebody comes in and they're totally stymied about spring break, they're totally stymied about who gets the car or who gets the house. Where do you start if they just can't land on that point of readiness to make a decision?
Karen Covy:
It starts with understanding. First of all, I've got to make sure that they understand what their choices are. You can't make a decision unless you know what all of your choices are. So it starts always with getting information, seeing what all of the options are and then doing the work inside that says, what matters to me? Because if you know what the most important things are to you and you make decisions with those goals in mind, you are going to make better decisions. If you just look at every decision in a divorce as a one off, that's when you end up at the end of your divorce going, "Wait, how did this happen? How did I end up with... This isn't what I wanted."
Seth Nelson:
So let me give you an example of that, Pete, that applies to a lot of people, whether kids or not. You're married, you own a house together.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
There's four choices. You sell the house, split the funds. One person keeps the house, but the other person's going to want to get their equity out. Half of it. I'm going to talk about other issues there. The other person wants to keep the house. And the fourth one is the worst one, you get divorced and you stay living in the house together. That one's pretty easy to knock out.
Pete Wright:
What? Does that happen?
Seth Nelson:
It's a choice. I'm not saying it's a good one, but I've had it happen because they couldn't afford at the time to sell it. The market was down. The house was upside down. Think 2008.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I guess.
Seth Nelson:
Right. They didn't have money to come to the table. They didn't want to go into bankruptcy. There's a lot of reasons, but they didn't want to be married.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Seth Nelson:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
That's a choice. Tough one.
Seth Nelson:
It's a choice. So let's eliminate that. But I think the lawyer's job is to one, explain the choices and then the ramifications of those choices. If you're going to keep the house, is your name on the mortgage? Is your spouse's name on the mortgage? Do you have to refinance or get their name off the mortgage? Can you afford to do that? What's the down payment? What's the interest rate? Do you have enough income to support it on your own? There's all these practical things that we have to discuss and maybe do some independent research/verification with a mortgage lender, a broker, your bank, all those items before we make the decision. Karen, am I on the right track here?
Karen Covy:
You're totally on the right track.
Seth Nelson:
Two for two Pete. Just saying. Two for two.
Pete Wright:
I don't love how this is going.
Karen Covy:
Although, I'll give you a little bone here, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Oh, good. Okay.
Karen Covy:
That there is another option that I have seen happen too, which is not necessarily a good option, but it's that the two people continue to co-own the house together, although one person leaves. And so the one person's in the house, both of them are still co-owners and they're going to... Usually that's done for X number of years until the youngest kid goes to college or something like that, and then the house is sold. When you have people continuing to co-own a house after a divorce, it can work beautifully or it can be a total nightmare. Because you have to try to think in advance of everything that could go wrong, and that's not easy.
Seth Nelson:
And now you're talking what ifs. Who pays for when the roof leaks?
Karen Covy:
Exactly.
Seth Nelson:
Who pays when the water heater goes out? Well, wait a minute. I'm living in the house. I'm paying the mortgage, the taxes and the insurance, but the mortgage payment is part principle and part interest. And so I'm paying down principle every month. In three years from now, when our youngest kids graduates high school, we sell it. Why does my spouse get half of that pay down of the mortgage?
Karen Covy:
And what about appreciation? What if the house is worth more in three years, they're going to get the value of that. But what about depreciation? Nobody wants to think their house will be worth less, but 2008 proved to all of us that that can happen. So you have to think of so many things in advance that it's not the cleanest choice let's put it that way.
Pete Wright:
That lets me find the rails again, because you guys both just presented about two dozen, what ifs and now my head is spinning again.
Seth Nelson:
And on those, what ifs your head is spinning, those are the hardest things to negotiate because they're what ifs.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
And everybody is doing the what if down the road as if it's negatively impacting them, therefore they want the best outcome on the what if now?
Pete Wright:
Because we're all stars of our own movies.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly.
Karen Covy:
And you can spend a whole lot of time and a whole lot of money in attorney's fees, negotiating what ifs that never, ever happen.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So family law attorneys, how do I get myself out of the what ifs? How do you ground me back in the reality of the decision I have to make now?
Seth Nelson:
It's simple. I just send you to Karen.
Karen Covy:
Again, I hate to keep harping on it. It comes down to what you want, but what's important to you. If it's important to you that your kid stays in the house until high school is over and there's no other way to do it, okay, well then maybe the danger of the what ifs, you're willing to deal with that. But if there's any way you can make a clean break, that's going to be a whole lot better for everybody because it's just one and done and you move on. But you know what it really is about. It's about risk assessment and risk tolerance. What are you willing to live with, for what reason?
Seth Nelson:
And to add to that, Pete, to get you out of the ultimate decision, you get away from that position. The position is, I want to keep the house, I want to sell it, whatever. And you talk about your underlying reasoning for that decision. I want to keep the house because it's in a good school district. I want to keep the house because on my income, I'm not going to be able to afford to refinance and pay the higher interest rates that are going up. I want to keep the house because it's a mile and a half from my parents and I'm caring for my elderly parents.
So you got to look at the underlying reasons that you are getting to the ultimate conclusion or position, because if you're dealing with the reasons, then maybe you can come up with a different solution such as well, wait a minute, in this division of assets, you're going to get a large cash payment. So maybe you can use that to put down on a new house and you don't have the high interest. And by the way, you're in a four bedroom now, in just a mile on the other side of your parents' house is a two bedroom that you can maybe buy for cash. So you can start getting to different solutions if you know the interests. But if it's just, I want to keep the house, you've got nowhere to go with that. You can't work the problem.
Pete Wright:
It's just a line in the sand. It's more like a hard line. It's a line in cement. It's just, here's a statement. It's not a discussion.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
How often do discussions like this lead down from the perspective of the law, a discussion around the path of least resistance like, here's what we can do most easily. Here's the easy thing, versus here's the thing you want. If I come to you, is that a discussion I need to be ready for? Or do you weigh in on least resistance options?
Seth Nelson:
Shoot, Karen, because I know my answer.
Karen Covy:
Of course, always. I mean, here's the thing, as a lawyer and I know lawyers get a bad rep, but most divorce lawyers I know are really trying to do a good job. And they wouldn't be doing this in this kind of area of the law where there's so much emotion involved if they didn't care. Most of them care and they want to do what's best for the client. So they're really doing their best and they're trying to give the client options. And they're going to say, "This one's the path of least resistance. This one is the cleanest. In my opinion, this would be the one that will be the best for you, but it's your life. If you want the other one, as long as you know what's involved, full disclosure, here's what you're going to face. It's still you're choice."
Seth Nelson:
And along those lines, Pete, just this morning, I was drafting a very complex marital settlement agreement that had a lot of moving parts, a lot of what ifs, a lot of if this happens, we're now in a different area of law, because it was dealing with trusts and estates. So the more I drafted it, I was like, "This is not good." And not that it wasn't a bad deal. I was drafting what everyone was basically saying they wanted to accomplish. And I got a hold of an estate trust lawyer, I said, "This is what I'm doing. What do you think?"
I've been trying to get ahold of him, and I got ahold of him. And he gave me some of the concerns that he had from that perspective, that area of law. Ultimately, I came up with a simpler way. It changed the deal. It had some things that maybe one side didn't want, but because it was simpler, they were willing to do it. We had a solution for that. So I took what was going to be a very complex legal document and simplified it, which if you can keep it simple, it is usually an easier, better outcome. Not in all case. Sometimes you have complexities that you just have to have. But if you can keep it simple, I think that's always the way to go.
Karen Covy:
I couldn't agree more.
Seth Nelson:
Three for three, Pete. Three for three. I'm just keeping count over here today.
Pete Wright:
I'm sure you have some lawyering to do. Karen and I can do this on our own. Karen, you were saying?
Karen Covy:
But I just wanted to say how brilliant Seth is, because that's exactly right. I'm sorry. But the more moving parts that there are in a document, the more complicated it is, the more it's liable to come under attack later. And the more you give some lawyer in the future an opportunity to find a hole in the document, because it's impossible for anyone to think of everything all the time that could ever happen in the future. Who thought COVID would be a thing? It's a thing. So you can't foresee the future.
Seth Nelson:
When I find myself putting mathematical formulas and attaching Excel spreadsheets, I get very excited, but I know it's probably not the best legal document.
Pete Wright:
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, approximately 10% of children live with a parent with an alcohol use disorder.
Seth Nelson:
This is an alarming statistic as a family law professional who deals with custody cases regularly.
Pete Wright:
Finding the balance between the child safety and helping the child maintain a relationship with both parents is one of the hardest things to navigate. Add in the he said, she said phenomenon that happens with divorcing couples who often weaponize alcohol use against one another, and the situation is even more difficult.
Seth Nelson:
All of this is why Soberlink has been one of the most important tools for my clients dealing with these issues. Soberlink's remote alcohol monitoring tool has helped over 500,000 people prove their sobriety and provide peace of mind regarding the child's safety. Soberlink helps keep the focus on the best interest of the child, which is really the most important part in a divorce case dealing with children. I've teamed up with Soberlink to create a parenting plan guide, to help people going through divorce that involves alcohol and children.
Pete Wright:
And you can download it today at soberlink.com/toaster. And if you take a look and you think you're ready to order Soberlink, just mention How to Split a Toaster for $50 off their device price.
Seth Nelson:
Our thanks to Soberlink for sponsoring How to Split a Toaster.
Pete Wright:
I feel like in the spirit of knowing what you want and getting yourself organized, I keep landing on this idea of what is it... or this question of what is it that tends to make a divorce more complicated? Is it that you come in emotionally disorganized or intellectually disorganized?
Karen Covy:
I never really thought of it that way, but my gut reaction would say emotionally. I mean, every decision you make, whether people want to believe it or not... Research has shown that every decision that we make from what to have at breakfast, to what to wear, to what to do in our divorce is all emotionally based. We want to think that we make decisions logically and rationally. What really happens is you make the decision emotionally, then you justify it after the fact logically or rationally. So I would have to go with the emotional disorganization is the hardest to deal with.
Pete Wright:
I mean, to that point, is it the emotion that actually made that marriage settlement agreement more complicated or is it that everybody was just so savvy with what they wanted that they were critically able to make your life worse?
Seth Nelson:
I think there's some emotional aspects to what I was drafting. Absolutely. In the way things wanted to lay out there. But I do find when people get to the intellectual challenges of making these decisions, part of that is that grieving process. So if you have someone in acceptance, they're like, "Yeah. This is a business transaction. Let's go." That's easy on that side, and then they're frustrated because the other side isn't at acceptance yet in the grieving process.
Pete Wright:
To them, you're just trying to steal their house in the divorce.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. And they're still emotionally attached. And here's the thing is I think lawyers get street cred for being lawyers and people think we're smarter than we are. I've seen a lot of lawyers that aren't necessarily the brightest bulb, but they passed the bar, they're practicing law. So when you say less complicated, some people are like, "Well wait, I thought it was always complicated." But when you can take something that is complicated and simplify it, that I think is great lawyering. I don't want people to think like, oh this is simple. It's not. I used to practice my opening arguments and my legal arguments in the car to Kai when he was eight years old. Because if I can explain it to an eight year old, I actually knew the judge might get it.
Pete Wright:
Okay. All right. Next week, all the judges Seth has ever worked with, stay tuned.
Seth Nelson:
Yes. I'm changing jurisdictions now.
Pete Wright:
Immediately. Yes. Hello Alabama. And I know it's a hard process going through a divorce, but all this is making me think as we structure what you need to do to have a better, more efficient, more effective relationship with your lawyer. The question goes the other way and really that's what we're talking about, what do I need to do to be a better divorce client for you? What do I need to do? Because if I become a better divorce client, that is, it sounds like by definition going to make a smoother divorce.
Karen Covy:
Absolutely.
Seth Nelson:
So Pete, this is what happens in what they teach you in law school and then what they don't teach you in law school. And what happens every day in every lawyer's practice that's dealing with litigation or some other contentious divorce or otherwise. You are presented with a series of "facts". A client comes in and starts telling you a story and your job as the lawyer, if you let them tell the whole story is to figure out what was relevant? What's not. What applies to the law? What's the problem? What are you trying to solve? What can the law do for you on that? Are there exceptions to the rule? Is there an exception to the exception of the rule? Which just means you're right back at the rule to start with, because two negatives makes a positive. That's what they teach you.
What they don't teach you, and I've learned this over my years of practice is, I ask my client to start with their question. Don't give me the story and then give me the question. Start with the question. So here's what I mean by that. Well, I bought the house pre-marital before we got married and then we did an addition to it. And then it got some... A tree fell on it and an insurance claim came in and I took that money and I put it into my grandmother's account because we owed her money. And then the next thing I know that we were getting a divorce, but a week before he asked if he could put his name on the house and I thought that we were rekindling. And so is the house mine or his?
Pete Wright:
I see what you did there. And let me just say, for the non-lawyers out there, what Seth just did must be hysterical to other lawyers because Karen is just rolling right now. And I'm just looking at this like, this is how I tell stories.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. And you are not hiring a lawyer to listen to your story. You're hiring your lawyer to solve a legal problem for you. And what happens is... And I get this a lot because I do free consultations. They are so thankful that they got a lawyer on the phone and they just want to tell their story. And I'm always like, "Wait a minute. If I could wave a magic wand and fix your problem, what's the problem?" So I have them start there, which then leads me to ask a series of questions to get the relevant information I need to give them a legal opinion.
Pete Wright:
One of our very early episodes, you made it very clear that you as a lawyer are not my friend. And I took great umbrage with that because I thought in the movies that we were supposed to be friends when we golfed together and all that stuff. But what you just described, it sounds to me is a bartender.
Seth Nelson:
Which I'm happy to be your bartender.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
That's a whole lot different than being a friend. I'll tell you, Pete, I've never gotten a tip for being a lawyer.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. And you might just be the most expensive bartender too. So I'm just saying. You serve good stuff.
Seth Nelson:
I mean, I've never been like, "Objection, your honor." And then the court sustains my objection, agrees with me and my client slips a five over. That never happens.
Karen Covy:
As long as he's not slipping the five to the judge, you're doing good.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. You're doing fine. That's great. All right. So we've talked about just getting organized and knowing what you want, the decision making process and embracing an understanding of the emotion versus the intellect. If I could say anything as the vessel of legal ignorance here, I think this is just a reset for me of understanding how my lawyer is going to interact with me and how I should be expecting these conversations to go. And I hope if you're listening to this and you are going into the divorce process, that this helps you or grounds you in this expectation that your lawyer is not your friend. And for this process, for the sake of this process, you probably don't want them to be. And let's go ahead and get divorced. Is that fair?
Karen Covy:
I think that's more than fair because when you think about it, you want your lawyer to be objective. You want them to be on your side. But friends are not objective. They tell you what you want to hear. That's not going to help you if you're going to lose by hearing what you want to hear. You want to know the truth.
Pete Wright:
You want to know the truth. And you can find out the truth in the Divorce Road Map 2.0, if you want, with Karen, but you can also read the book. Where would you like to point people to learn more about your good work, Karen?
Karen Covy:
They can find me on my website karencovy.com. That's K-A-R-E-N C-O-V-Y.com. There's no E in Covy or I'd be related to someone famous and I wouldn't have to work for a living. So you can find me on my website. The book's available on Amazon and the Road Map is available on my website as well.
Pete Wright:
And we will put links to all of those resources in the show notes, so you're just one click away from Karen goodness. That's right, it's just one click and you're on the road. Thank you so much, Karen.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, this was great. I think I'm going to go home tonight watch a little Thelma & Louise though. I'm going to 1.0.
Karen Covy:
You still haven't gotten past that. Huh?
Pete Wright:
I'm actually going to recut Thelma & Louise. I'm just going to put a cutout of your head on top of Geena. Can I do that? Is that okay? There's probably some sort of copyright.
Seth Nelson:
For me being three for three and being called brilliant, you won this round, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show. On behalf of the good Karen Covy and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright. We'll see you right back here next week on How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with Nelson Koster Family Law and Mediation 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 Nelson Koster. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
