Divorce Process

Can you provide a quick overview of the divorce process in Tennessee?

  • 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?

  • 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?

  • 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?

  • 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