Divorce Process
Can you provide a quick overview of the divorce process in Tennessee?
From Daniel’s interview on ReelLawyers.com
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I’ve given talks on this a divorce
breaks down into five categories
grounds custody child support alimony
and division of property that’s that’s a
divorce on one hand grounds and custody
have to do with human behavior they
don’t have anything to do with
finances the other three have to do with
finances child support and alimony have
to do with income and expenses division
of marital property is like the balance
sheet of a partnership you determine
your assets and their values you
determine your debts and you determine
what is an equitable way to divide them
between the the two spouses that are
going their separate ways now there are
a myriad of subcategories under each of
those five categories and it can get
very complicated and uh if this were
easy anybody could do it and it’s not
easy not in the complicated divorces
How can I lower my legal costs in a divorce?
From Anne’s interview on ReelLawyers.com
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Clients like to ask me when they first
hire me how much is this going to cost
of course I cannot tell you how much
it’s going to cost because everyone’s
divorce is different but what I can tell
you is a few good ways to lower your
costs and the primary way is to email
your lawyer phone calls are very
expensive phone calls generally for me
with my clients involve my clients
telling me a lot of information over a
long period of time because they’re
emoting and that’s important to them and
sometimes you can’t beat a phone call
but if you can give me that same
information in a little bit more of a
streamlined email and then I can respond
to you in an email well that might take
10 minutes but a phone call typically is
30 so to me email it almost saved the
divorce practice from surely going
overboard with the the way our fees were
running because now the clients have
such a quick way to access their lawyer
and get a quick response without it
being super expensive and also without
having to set up a conference call um
you know get on the calendar another way
we like to do it is zoom zoom has
changed everything ever since covid so a
a quick Zoom hearing uh between us if if
I can just hop on the the video and you
can hop on your video and we can talk
real quickly but we really see eye to
eye just like we met nobody’s having to
drive to anybody’s Office Space nobody’s
having to wait in a conference room we
just get it done and so I feel like Zoom
also changed the legal landscape uh for
the better for the clients
What is discovery in a family law case?
From Anne’s interview on ReelLawyers.com
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Discovery is something that always seems
very intimidating to my clients and I’m
going to tell you it was even
intimidating to me when I had to do it
and I’m a divorce lawyer but what it
means is you’re going to pull together a
lot of information that explains to the
lawyer on the other side who’s
representing your spouse what your
financial situation looks like what your
health looks like what you think your
other SP spouse does right or wrong and
and your spouse is going to be providing
that same information to your attorney
this way the attorneys get the big
picture how many cars do you have how
many houses do you have how many bank
accounts are out there we need to know
what could be out there financially but
we also want to know other things who
have you been talking to on Facebook
what uh possible relationships you
already have going on in the middle of a
marriage these are all questions that
get asked in Discovery Discovery is
expensive and it is a difficult process
for a lot of people they just really
hate having to sort of bear their soul
to somebody and once the written
Discovery part is done we go further
into depositions depositions are also
part of Discovery where the lawyer gets
to ask you questions about the answers
you’ve given and a lot of people don’t
like that either I will just say that if
you can answer very very truthfully in
your written Discovery we call them
interrogatories and requests for
production of documents if you can be
very truthful from the start and that’s
what you ought to be in your divorce
then everyone has a good trust factor
and can come up with this is what the
marital estate looks like we don’t have
to worry about all the fault that’s out
there and digging deep into a lot of
ugly things if we can all just get to
some numbers that make sense for
everybody and a parenting plan if you’ve
got kids that make sense so Discovery
can be cut short of depositions as long
as the lawyers feel like everything’s
been put out there and that it’s
everyone’s working on an honest and even
playing field
How does mediation work in divorce cases?
From Anne’s interview on ReelLawyers.com
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Mediation is critical to resolving
divorce in my opinion uh we try probably
10% of our divorce cases every case in
my state has to go to mediation before
it can go to trial and mediation has
turned out to be a tool that attorneys
rely on to get their clients either to a
settlement or to an understanding of
what all the issues are it really
distills the uh the issues and lets
everybody see what their strengths and
weaknesses of their case are the goal of
mediation obviously is to settle the
case and generally when both sides can
see their strengths and weaknesses and
when you have a real experienced
mediator who can come in and say look
this just makes sense or let’s get
creative here this means a lot to you
this means a lot to him let’s try to put
those together uh and come up with a
solution it’s so much better to do it
yourself than to ask a judge who doesn’t
know you is going to spend just maybe a
week looking at your case to to make
those decisions when you and your spouse
can make them together with the help of
your lawyers and an experienced mediator