Episode Description - The Biggest Divorce Mistakes Even Successful People Make
When divorce attorney and bestselling author Raiford Palmer sits down for a conversation, he doesn’t hold back.
In this candid and thought-provoking episode, Raif draws from nearly three decades of legal experience to share, not only his legal insights in divorce, but also his own journey through divorce. That journey reshaped his legal practice, helping him empathize with clients on a deeper level.
Throughout this conversation, Raif stresses the critical role that knowledge and understanding the emotional and financial rollercoaster of divorce plays in navigating divorce effectively. He also shares insider insights about the way divorce really works and the tremendous benefits of alternative dispute resolution.
Raif discusses how to apply a cost-benefit analysis that will keep you from making some of the biggest divorce mistakes that so many people unwittingly make. He also scrutinizes the misconceptions surrounding legal processes, the potential risks versus rewards of trials, and the strategic approaches to avoiding court battles.
If you’re thinking about or facing divorce, this episode is a treasure-trove of practical wisdom that will guide you through your divorce with more control and less conflict and expense.
Show Notes
About Raiford
Raiford Dalton Palmer is an experienced Illinois divorce attorney and the bestselling author of "I Just Want This Done: How Smart, Successful People Get Divorced Without Losing Their Kids, Money, and Minds," named the Best Family Law Book of All Time by BookAuthority. Raiford has been featured in prominent media outlets including The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Newsweek, US News, the New York Post, SiriusXM Radio, and WGN Radio AM 720.
With nearly 30 years of experience as a lawyer and mediator, Raiford is the CEO of STG Divorce Law, P.C., a law firm focusing solely on matrimonial law in the Chicago area. He is a Fellow in the Illinois Chapter of The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML).
Raif is married to his law partner and AAML Fellow Juli Gumina, and they have a blended family of two sons and two daughters.
Connect with Raiford
You can connect with Raiford on LinkedIn at Raiford Palmer, on Facebook at Raiford Palmer and on Instagram and X @Raiford Palmer. To learn more about Raif’s work visit his website at STG Law Firm and visit his YouTube channel at STG Divorce Law and listen to his podcast at I Just Want This Done Podcast. To easily get the best selling book "I Just Want This Done: How Smart, Successful People Get Divorced Without Losing Their Kids, Money, and Minds" visit I just Want This Done.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Raiford
- Raiford Palmer, is an experienced Illinois divorce attorney and author of "I Just Want This Done: How Smart, Successful People Get Divorced Without Losing Their Kids, Money, and Minds." Raif is known for his focus on helping people manage complex divorces without incurring unnecessary loss.
- Raiford discusses working with his spouse, also a family law attorney, which adds a unique perspective to their practice as they have both experienced divorces firsthand.
- Raiford cautions against DIY divorces, especially for those with substantial assets, children, or complex financial situations. He advocates for seeking at least limited scope representation or coaching for guidance.
- He mentions “limited scope” or “unbundled” services, where clients can pay for specific legal tasks rather than full representation, to save costs and avoid unnecessary conflicts.
- Raiford explains the importance of analyzing the costs and realistic outcomes in divorce litigation, noting that many clients spend a lot of money without meaningful gains. By using this analytical tool clients could often avoid making some of the biggest divorce mistakes many people unwrittingly make.
- He emphasizes that trials are often inefficient, costly, and lack the personal vindication many clients expect. Settling is often more practical, though sometimes trials are necessary, particularly for non-negotiable issues like custody.
- Raiford advocates for ADR, including mediation and collaborative law, to resolve issues more amicably and cost-effectively. He also highlights the role of divorce coaches in managing clients’ emotional challenges during divorce.
- Raiford introduces the concept of the “washing machine” effect, where each party retaliates against perceived injustices, escalating costs and frustration. He advises avoiding this cycle by focusing on resolution over retaliation.
- Raiford underscores that clients’ expectations of “fairness” often don’t align with legal outcomes. He encourages clients to focus on what is legally achievable rather than emotionally satisfying.
- For those dealing with a highly combative opposing counsel, Raiford suggests taking steps like pretrial conferences and early depositions to encourage realistic settlements and move toward resolution.
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Transcript
Raiford Palmer: The Biggest Divorce Mistakes Successful People Make
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
client education, dyi divorce, cost-benefit, settlement, biggest divorce mistakes
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Raiford Palmer
Karen Covy Host
00:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show.
My guest today is Raiford Palmer. Raif is an experienced Illinois divorce attorney and the bestselling author of I Just Want this Done how Smart, successful People Get Divorced Without Losing their Kids, money and Minds, and it was named the best family law book of all time by Book Authority.
01:01
Raiford has been featured in prominent media outlets, including the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Newsweek, us News, the New York Post, Sirius XM Radio and WGN Radio AM 720. With nearly 30 years of experience as a lawyer and mediator, Raiford is the CEO of STG Divorce Law PC, a law firm focusing solely on matrimonial law in the Chicago area. He's a fellow in the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the AAML, and Rafe is married to his law partner and fellow AAML fellow, Juli Gumina, and they have a blended family of two sons and two daughters. Raif, welcome to the show.
Raif Palmer Guest
01:45
Thanks, Karen, great to be here. I appreciate it.
Karen Covy Host
01:48
Oh, it is wonderful to have you here, and I can't get past the first question. I'm so curious what's it like being married to your law partner in a family law firm, and how did that happen?
Raif Palmer Guest
02:03
It's great. Yeah, it's a family business. That was not something I expected initially. We have been married since 2018. We met each other in the law firm and we were both owners of the firm at that time with another person. So we Juli, my wife got divorced. I got divorced a year or so after that and we got together after that and it worked out very well. Actually, we that was not something I don't think either of us would have ever expected. Just the nature of who we are as people and everything we didn't really know. I had no idea for sure. But it's worked out very well.
02:50
We get along real well in the business and personally. Our values are aligned, which is very helpful, obviously, and we both need the law firm, want the law firm to be successful. It's how we feed our children, you know. It's how we pay for college and all those things, and we love our team, the people that work with us in our firm, and it's been we're both the same age. It's been a career for both of us for decades. So the main thing is she does very different work than I do in the business. I manage the law firm and she still handles active clients. I have a few clients, she has a full caseload.
Karen Covy Host
03:35
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So you kind of go on different tracks. But how does or does your relationship and the fact that you are both divorced, you are remarried, working together, all the things, how does that inform the work that you do with clients?
Raif Palmer Guest
03:55
I'll speak for myself. It makes me much more compassionate, I guess, or understanding, because it's very different when it becomes when it's your own divorce and it's not clinical, you know, when it's a legal problem to solve. Of course, you care about your clients and I've done personal injury and I've done business litigation and transactional work before I did divorce. If you don't care about your clients, you won't be a very good lawyer. But it becomes very different after you've gone through the process yourself and you do gain a certain additional empathy and very valuable perspective for what your clients go through in the process and it's no longer an academic problem, it's very real and you understand the emotional side of it much more and the way that you feel going through it. Even if you have a quote, unquote good divorce that's still traumatic. So that's I would say that that's informed us and made us better lawyers, because we both have a think, a higher degree of empathy for our clients from going through those experiences.
Karen Covy Host
05:10
That makes a lot of sense. But something you mentioned I want to follow up on something about that. When it's your own divorce, you don't have the same perspective, which is good and bad, and I wanted to use that as a springboard to talk about something that so many people think they can do now, which is to do their own divorce, go the DIY route, and I don't know about you, but I've had clients who wanted to do that and seen people who want to do that, who have a lot to lose, like they have money, they have kids, they have property, they have all the things. What's your feeling about DIY divorce and like should people do it? Should people not do it? What are the considerations?
Raif Palmer Guest
05:56
So I'm in general I'm not a fan, but it certainly it depends. If you have a simple divorce, very straightforward situation, it can be done. It can be done relatively well. There's so much fear understandably so by people in the general public about the fees and the trouble they'll get into in a divorce court that I think the reaction has been the reaction and the fear. The reaction to that fear has been so severe.
06:35
People are now really struggling with pro se or self-represented cases and in our family we have a support group on Facebook, the Illinois Divorce Support Network, and it's free to join, and people are in there all the time navigating do-it-yourself divorces and asking a million questions that a lawyer would easily know and the lawyer's staff would know, and routine things like how do you file this or what documents do I need? Very basic things, what documents do I need Very basic things. But the court system is, as you know, very complex and the system has not simplified itself to the point where there's for people to be self-represented in divorce without some assistance from a lawyer. It doesn't necessarily mean the lawyer has to be there standing there in court for them all the way through, but to be coached by an attorney or have the attorney help with doc prep and making sure all the paperwork is in order and filed correctly. We provide sort of coaching services and varying levels of support to clients who don't necessarily need a full attorney representation but need guidance, and there are a lot of lawyers that are willing to do that and I think folks are so scared of hiring a lawyer they miss that opportunity and they end up doing the equivalent of do-it-yourself dentistry, which is like it's as bad as it sounds, you know, it's like I'm so afraid of spending some money on it that I'm going to go try it myself and run into all the related problems and end up costing yourself a lot more money in the end, end up getting a lawyer anyway, backtracking, reworking things, wasting a lot of time in court.
08:25
So I tell people it's like akin to doing your own bathroom. You could do your own bathroom, you could remodel it, you could learn how to do plumbing, electrical, install the fixtures and tile and all that stuff, but it'll take you umpteen hours and tremendous amounts of trying and redo efforts. Or you can hire somebody to do it for an amount of money and get it done right the first time. So, as you said, there's a surprising number of people with pretty complex cases with a lot to lose who are so in fear of spending money on lawyers. They avoid it altogether and end up in a lot of trouble. That's not to say people don't get it done, can't get it done on their own they do.
09:10
But you're right, there's, I think, a large group of folks who have a misapprehension that lawyers will only demand that they will do full-on representation, that it will cost a fortune and when they have an uncontested case it's not expensive as divorces go, it's just not. And you can get some lawyers will do fixed fees. So a flat amount of money or a modest hourly. You know an hourly rate, but the sum is not very high. So you're talking about a lot of, in a lot of cases, several thousand dollars, not tens of thousands of dollars, and it's a bargain relative to the peace of mind and the financial security you're buying.
09:54
We're dealing with assets worth multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars 401k, pensions, people's real estate, and you're absolutely right. So it's. And these issues aren't, aren't all that simple. The law is complex, constantly changing, and yeah, so you make a good point. So I I'm concerned that there are a lot, of, a lot of people out there missing out on good representation and the advice that would come with that and the protections that come with that, in their fear of spending some money when it's probably a lot less expensive than they think.
Karen Covy Host
10:35
Yeah, and I think that it's not just the fear of spending the money, but the fear that the lawyer is going to stir the pot. Because yes, because I don't think they understand that you can hire a lawyer these days for discrete services, like you can hire someone just to do the documents. You can hire someone just to talk you through you know what should you be thinking about and what are your rights and responsibilities, and all those things right.
Raif Palmer Guest
11:03
Yes, exactly right, and you're right. People aren't aware of what we call limited scope representation, where you can define narrowly the role that you want the lawyer to follow. Now, there are some law firms and lawyers that won't do this work, but many will, and all you have to do is ask. And those unbundled services are available out there for people who want to pick a la carte off a menu. There are firms that will be happy to do that, and we'd rather have people represented and get it done properly. We'll represent people in any capacity, whether it's full-on representation and litigation, or mediation, or collaborative, or if they just need us for a little bit of advice. Can you look over these documents for me and tell me if this is what I, if this is what I believe it to be? Sure we can do that.
11:53
So you're right. It's a missed opportunity, I think, probably a marketing effort or a failure on the part of lawyers to make it pretty well known that those services are available also. But yeah, a lot of people can be well-served by telling lawyers what they need and ordering, asking for specifically what they need. And that leads me to one other issue that ties into this, and that is that clients need to know they're always in charge, and when you're talking about the runaway train issue and I talk about that in the book like the bulldog lawyer the fear is this case is going to get out of control, I'm not going to be in charge anymore. And ethically, the client's always in charge, as you know, and so the client is always able to tell the lawyer I don't want to do something, and they are always the boss. So it's important that people understand their role. The lawyer is always required to follow the client's instructions.
Karen Covy Host
13:00
Yeah, 100%, and you're right. I think that people don't know that. And lawyers, let's just say they're not always the best at marketing.
Raif Palmer Guest
13:09
Well, true.
Karen Covy Host
13:11
So I'm not even going down that rabbit hole Right in charge and feel that they're in charge and a lot of times I think they think that once they turn over the case to the lawyer they lose control and it just goes however it goes, and that doesn't need to be true at all. But I'm glad you mentioned your book because I really want it. First of all, the title is amazing. I love the title. That's really good. Got a copy right here.
Raif Palmer Guest
13:42
Thank you.
Karen Covy Host
13:44
Just happened to have it right there. That's perfect. So tell me about the book. How did it come about? Why write it? What do you want people to know?
Raif Palmer Guest
13:54
So I wrote the book out of frustration in 2020 that there was nothing else like it. I wanted a book for our clients of our firm to give them kind of the what for and why is about divorce. There are books that tell you to go to war, so there are books that tell you need to fight and they tell you how to go to war and fight and win. There are books that tell you to not get divorced. There are books that tell you it's okay to get divorced. There are books that tell you how to stay married. But there was no book that was sort of a tell-all or almost like a confessional about what divorce lawyers know those of us who've been in the trenches, what we know, what the reality is and what I wanted people to see and understand and the things that I told clients again and again over the years about the reality of how these cases work and why things are the way they are. And I would have these conversations with clients and say, for example, I would explain why the lawyer on the other side seems like a runaway train or why, why the case is devolving and it seems like the litigation is endless, and I would say I wish I just had a book I could point you to read the chapter, whatever, and you would at least understand all this stuff that I just know from doing this, and then we could have the conversation about what to do and save an hour long conversation. We could just you could look at the book.
15:30
And that's really where it came from was to talk about that, and also, to some extent, it was a manifesto about how I wished divorce law was practiced, because I do see it done improperly and I do see lawyers not doing things the best way, and I wanted to emphasize alternative dispute resolution and mediation collaborative. I wanted people to know those options existed, what the pros and cons were. I wanted people to understand cost-benefit analysis and how divorce lawyers look at their cases and just understand the reality of the situation rather than going into it blindly. So it's really meant to be a primer on the process. It's not tied to any specific state. I don't go into detail on how child support works or alimony or custody and visitation. That's not what it was meant to be. There are plenty of websites that explain that. It's meant to be a guidebook overall for the whole process and the way to think about it and do's and don'ts.
Karen Covy Host
16:37
That sounds really good for clients. I wish that it had been out years before it came out, but I'm fascinated by the concept you mentioned cost-benefit analysis and how lawyers think. Now, as a lawyer myself who's been in the trenches for more decades than I care to admit, I get it. But for the benefit of our audience, can you explain what are you talking about when you say the cost-benefit analysis and how a lawyer is going to analyze a divorce case?
Raif Palmer Guest
17:12
So, Karen, first it starts out with understanding that an awful lot of people spend a lot of money and time, and this goes to people's fears. So some of it is stereotypes are based, in fact, you know, like fears are based in some reality. So it is true that some cases are runaway trains and some cases do devolve into chaos. And the thing I want people to know is that there was a lot of money and time spent trying to push the needle in the case a few degrees off of center. So if you imagine equal being down the middle, and I imagine this needle on a gauge moving a few ticks left or a few ticks right towards one person or the other, whether it's visitation or whether it's division of assets, a lot of people spend a whole lot of money in grief trying to push that needle in one direction or the other, and they're just not typically not going to be successful. It won't move as much as the money they've spent or the energy and the grief. And there are people that are either misinformed or they just don't understand that all that effort is not going to necessarily result in the gains they expect, and the problem is they never compare the cost in money time. They don't understand the costs are beyond just attorney's fees. So it's emotional cost, it's the drag on your career, the effect on your children, your family writ large, the additional financial costs, not just for attorneys. But people spend more money while they're getting divorced, they're buying clothes, they move out to an apartment. There's just additional cash being burned and they find at the end, when the dust settles, that the money and the time all spent on that weren't worth, whatever difference they might have gained. And many times there is no difference.
19:11
And that's the thing that once you submit that to a judge, the matter is out of your hands and a court's going to decide your case. And they only they are a. I tell people, people, it's not a scalpel, it's not laser specific surgery, it's kind of like you know a hatchet and it's not perfect. The judge can't know all your specific details, they don't know your whole life, they don't know your spouse's life story and even though you have a trial, the court only will see a subset of the facts that make up your entire existence. And so at best you get a result. That is, it's an attempt to get an equitable result, but it may not be, it's not going to be anywhere near as good as something that's reached by settlement, you know, by a negotiated agreement.
Karen Covy Host
20:05
Right, and I think what people need to hear, and I think you're trying to impart to them, is that it's nothing is perfect, but at least with a settlement, even if you don't like everything about it and you and I both know we always joke that the best settlement is one where no one's happy, right. Everybody gave a little more than they thought they should, everyone got a little less than they thought they should. That's a good settlement, right. But even that, imperfect as it may be, is probably going to put you in a better place than letting a judge who doesn't know you and has never met you until the day you walk in the courtroom, decide. You know your fate and the fate of your children.
Raif Palmer Guest
20:49
Exactly, and it's you know. The thing with cost benefit is to get into how we look at it. It's first establishing what do you think is a realistic outcome at trial. So if we had a trial first of all, what do we think is a realistic outcome? What are the chances at the parenting time you want? It's one thing when it's black and white, it's easy. When it's a binary yes-no situation, it's easy when it's a binary yes no situation. So when it's my soon to be X wants sole custody and now I want sole custody, well, we're going to have a trial. There's no middle. So those are the easy ones. Not easy to do, but they're easy decisions because there's no settlement to be had.
21:36
The question is, if we're debating, like, well, I want a little more visitation time and my soon-to-be ex is not agreeing with that, and so we're debating over that, and maybe on the money, we think the asset division should be 55% to one party and 45, you know, 55, 45, or some person says, well, I think it should be 50, 50. Well, what's first of all, what are the chances you're going to get that 55% from the court realistically? And then, what is that difference worth, or what we call the delta. So what is that 5% worth off of center? Is it $100,000? Is it $50,000? So what is my chance of getting $55,000? How much is that worth? And then what is it going to cost to get there? And when you weigh that, when you look at all those numbers it's not that complicated really.
22:31
You can then see oh, I stand to gain $50,000, but it's like a 50-50 chance, my lawyer's telling me. So that's really sort of like, cut that in half, that's like $25,000. And my lawyer's telling me it'll cost $50,000 to get there. Well, you're going to gobble up any gain in attorney's fees, not to mention your emotional energy and time, and it's going to take another year or whatever several months, your emotional energy and time, and it's going to take another year or whatever several months. So that's the. To boil it down to the essence. It's you don't want to chase. You don't want to chase $5,000 by spending $10,000. That's how I explain it to clients and then everybody understands that and so we have to go through a little bit more complicated analysis, but it's not that hard to understand. If the time and money and grief gobbles up the potential gain, then you need to settle now with the deal that's on the table.
Karen Covy Host
23:25
Yeah, that makes so much sense, spent double, triple, quadruple in fees, and not to mention the time and grief and all the other stuff, the extra that they ended up getting. It just didn't make sense.
Raif Palmer Guest
23:48
Right. And unfortunately, what happens? Look, there are some attorneys out there that don't educate their clients well about these situations and the client potentially says I want X, and the lawyer says something vague like okay, well, I can't guarantee it, but we'll go, we'll do our best. And that's not really informing the client of their real chances of success. And some attorneys sort of hide behind zealous representation which is under our ethics code. You know I'm not preaching to the choir, but under our ethics code we're supposed to zealously represent our clients, which some lawyers I think take as sort of like well, I'll do what my client says. Well, yeah, but I believe in informed consent. Like a doctor, I think the client deserves to know what they're getting themselves into and what their realistic chance of success is. Not. Well, it's a decent chance, or well, maybe. You know, I think lawyers owe it to their clients to try to give them a better, concrete answer.
24:51
I know that nothing's guaranteed, but lawyers with experience generally have a very good idea of how judges rule on given topics under certain fact situations, and most of these cases fall within very familiar patterns and courts think about these things sort of in boxes, like we all do. We categorize things, and we know a typical marriage let's talk about Chicago area, a 20-year marriage. Let's say a million in assets and both people make a decent income. They're going to divide the assets 50, 50, all things being equal, and that's very common, it's, it's an unusual outlier when the assets are not divided equally. That's much less common. And so, as an example, and so are unusual maintenance awards. So we talk about alimony. We have a formula.
25:47
Getting anything more than the formula is hard. You know, getting less than the formula is difficult. And telling the client well, maybe doesn't fully tell the client, really it's a no, but we can throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. And that's where lawyers need to do a good job educating clients about reality of the situation, I think, and not just at the end of the day, when the trial result comes and the judge says no. The client says what happened and the lawyer says gee, well, the judge just decided against you. I told you I couldn't guarantee the result. That's disingenuous.
Karen Covy Host
26:23
Yeah, I agree. As a matter of fact, I remember having a conversation with a colleague many years ago and, like you, I've always been a big fan of alternative dispute resolution, in other words, stay out of court unless you have no choice, right. And this was kind of a you know, go getter trial lawyer. No, and I was, you know, arguing with him, or we should say, discussing with him a particular case, right, and saying, look, what's the matter with your guy or your I don't even remember who he had and who he was representing why won't he or she settle Right? This is a reasonable offer. You know, the judges, you know, recommended it and he's like, yeah, but here's the deal. My client doesn't like that offer and if I tell him then he's always going to think I was a bad lawyer and I sold him up the river. But if we go to the court, you know, if we go, all the trial and the judge makes a decision, I can go, hey, hey, you know, nothing I could do.
Raif Palmer Guest
27:18
You know, Karen, that's exactly right. That's a real thing. I've seen that too. It's easy to hide behind the judge. I've always said it's harder to create. It's easy to try a case. Now there's going to be a bunch of trial lawyers that have a heart attack if they hear this. But I've tried a lot of cases. I've tried jury trials, bench trials and commercial litigation juries and personal injury and divorce cases.
27:49
And trying a case is easy in that I'm not talking about technically easy to do. It well takes skill and a lot of effort and preparation. What I mean is it's easy because, like you said, you could just fall back on the judge and sort of blame the court for the result. When you're crafting a settlement agreement, there are a million details and, by the way, the judge just writes the judgment. So you don't, or they might ask you to write one version of it. But when you're doing a settlement agreement it's far more detailed and you have to work out all the bells and whistles and details and a detailed balance sheet and all these things and go over it with the client many times, make sure they fully understand everything. And when you try the case it's just like well, that's the result you get. So that's the roulette wheel you spun. I guess that's it. Like you said. You can just say, oh, that's what the judge says, well, shrug and that's it, and the lawyer gets their fee and the client's like, well, gee, thanks. And so that's where I get very nervous. When a client is in that decision point in settlement. They're contemplating a settlement on the table, they don't love it and they want to go to trial, and I know that it's within the range of that. A possible outcome is very close to the settlement, because I know that's going to be an unhappy client. If they insist on the trial, it's more than likely to come out the way I think it is, which is closer to the settlement than the fees plus the outcome. Right, and I'm worried I'm going to get a very upset client at the end and it's you know why didn't you tell me I should settle? I did tell you. So you know you write a long letter explaining everything to make sure that you have a long conversation walking people through it so they understand. And I think it's again a client.
29:26
Education is such an important art and we work with our attorneys in our firm all the time on saying that the most important thing we have is the client relationship. Lawyers in law school are taught to be technicians. There's very little of the human stuff involved. They don't tell you hey, you're going to have clients, you read all these appellate cases, you memorize statutes, you do trial, practice class, but they don't say oh, you're going to have to find clients and make them happy and they're going to have to pay you and they're going to review you on Google and all this stuff.
30:04
And you realize that when you come out of law school you think it's a law business. And once you practice law for a while you realize, oh, it's actually a people business. The service just happens to be law, but it's really a business about communicating with people and conveying what we know to them Stuff that they want to know, the things that aren't readily available on the Internet, the things that are not Googleable, and that important advice and guidance. That isn't just something you can get from ChatGPT or a Google search. So, yeah, yeah, that's where the value add really is 100.
Karen Covy Host
30:43
I tell my clients, you know, if you could get all the answers you need in your divorce from google, you know everybody would be doing it. There would be no divorce lawyers because you wouldn't need us. You need divorce lawyers because not only do they know the law, not only do they know the court rules, not only do they know all the details of how do you file this, what do you do, what's next, what's blah, blah, blah, but they also know the judges, right. And so, like you said, there are patterns that the lawyer will know and you, as a normal human, you're going to look and say, well, why can't I have that? And you can, as the experienced lawyer can say, because I know this judge and they're never going to give you that. That's not how they think.
Raif Palmer Guest
31:29
It's the difference between reading the rules of baseball and knowing how to play baseball. So you can go online and Google everything about it. You can find out all the facts about baseball, strategy tactics, how to bat, how to pitch, how to catch, and I'm not. I don't know much about baseball, but that was just a good analogy and it's like any of these things. You can read up on it. But then when you're in the arena, you have to have that, that lived experience and have worked in that world to play well, to navigate it well, and when so much is on the line, the client benefits from that attorney's experience and you're also buying a certain degree of insurance, that knowledge and experience and the backing of a team rather than just relying on yourself. And it's so valuable. And that's the book is an effort to educate and give people that perspective.
Karen Covy Host
32:32
Yeah, I'm glad you went back to the book because there's an idea that you put forth in there that I just I'm so intrigued I got to hear you explain this. What's the idea, or what's the difference between the washing machine and the swamp in litigation?
Raif Palmer Guest
32:42
Oh, okay. So I talk about the swamp and swamp creatures. Swamp creatures are sort of the you know, I'd say the bad lawyers, and I don't want to dump on it. I love lawyers. I've been involved in Bar Association and the Academy of Matrimonial. Lawyers are phenomenal people in the group.
32:58
There are some bad eggs, though. We have to be honest about it, and the swamp creature is the person that fights under all circumstances and drags people down into the swamp with them. They don't dissuade their clients from aggressive tactics. They file pleadings that aren't necessary. Here's the thing they're ethical and they're legal. So I'm not saying these people are unethical, because if they were they'd be getting in ethics trouble, but they know the lines. These folks know how to play aggressive tactics without getting in legal or ethical trouble and they toe the line. So they legally are allowed to do it. They ethically are allowed to do it, but it's a pleading that could have, for example, filing a motion that could have been resolved by a phone call. So call me first, tell me that my client was blocking the driver with the car and that the wife couldn't get out of the driveway. I'll call my client right away and say stop screwing around and don't block your wife in anymore. At least give the other lawyer the courtesy of a call to try to resolve the situation amicably without filing a motion, but instead you get an emergency motion about how your client's harassing somebody or an attempt to get an order of protection. So it's these hyper-aggressive tactics rather than trying to give the other lawyer and other party a chance.
34:25
And what happens is once somebody starts poking somebody in the proverbial eye, so once that first bullet is fired, so a motion is filed. Like that, what can happen is the other party says to their lawyer well, do something, I don't like this. And the lawyer has a hard time telling the client. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, and that's something I've talked about on my social media and the book too. Sometimes your best action is just sit tight. Well, the client gets mad about that. They think you're weak or you're not fighting. And I want you to fight. You know they think it's like a movie where if you get punched you need to punch back. And it's not like that, because you just you just going to get into the cycle of litigation, violence with that next motion and you do what I call feeding the monster. And when you feed the monster, like somebody that lawyer, now the other lawyer, let's say they're the initial aggressor they punch. Now you punch back. Now they say to their client see, I told you that they were nasty, and now they go oh well, let's go around again. And that's the washing machine. We go around again, so we go, we file another motion, and then there's something else that comes up and now we withhold the kids and then the next thing happens and it becomes this tit for tat that gets tremendously expensive and people just get more and more angry. As the washing machine goes around, the fees get higher, People get more mad at each other and their attorneys and a tremendous amount of time and money spent on what we call interim litigation, these temporary motions, temporary child support, temporary visitation, temporary spousal support, and then these, you know, order protection or a petition for exclusive possession of a piece of real estate.
36:18
So to change that to plain English and you know this, Karen, but for the audience, exclusive possession means you want your soon to be ex kicked out of the house, Karen, and I know that's hard to do. We know it's very hard from the way the law is in Illinois. But somebody might just insist and say I want them thrown out of the house. Okay, well, let's file an emergency motion because your spouse did something jerky. Fill in the blank they did something mean. All right, they file that motion. What are the realistic chances it will be granted? Maybe not so good. The motion gets denied, but the other party gets mad because they tried to get thrown out of the house.
36:58
So again, we go around and around and around and what happens is now people are much less likely to settle because they're angry. They've spent a bunch of money on fees and they feel like they make no progress as they're getting no closer to being done. And in Cook County, this is why cases take two, three, four, five years rather than one year or less, because it just well in any county this kind of thing could just make these cases take on a life of their own, because it's no longer about dividing assets and working out the issues with the kids. It becomes personal and people trying to take out their frustrations on each other through litigation which, by the way, is the most inefficient method ever devised to take out your frustrations on somebody. You're just making the lawyers wealthy and again, I'm not bashing lawyers, but people are wasting their money on a lot of this stuff when they could be focusing on getting done.
37:58
The phrase I use is are you getting more divorced? Is what you're doing getting you more divorced, or are we just going around the washing machine again? And lawyers are part of the problem and clients are part of the problem, because clients are the boss and lawyers can help and clients can help too. So it's definitely a problem and clients can help too. So it's definitely a problem and courts can help too. Courts can nip this thing in the bud by denying some of these motions, by telling parties and clients or parties in court or their lawyers they're not going to entertain stuff. Sometimes there are motions that we know go in court and we can't believe the court's even entertaining it, but it happens and so and I'm not here to say that this is, these are outliers but it happens more often than it should.
Karen Covy Host
38:52
Yeah, absolutely. I remember one time. It just brought to mind a story of one time I was in DuPage County trying a case. We were there. There was nothing to try like nothing. The people they had stuff in an apartment I don't even know if they owned the house.
39:11
They had a child, but thankfully they'd settled the kid issues right. It was only a trial about money and there was really not that much that they were. But they were determined to go to trial and the judge looked down at that. And the judge was like not having this at all Right. And so he looked down at them and he said OK, I understand you want your day. I am willing to give that to you, no problem. But just so you know, here's what I'm inclined to do in cases like this. I know you want this stuff and you want the same stuff. So if that's what you come to me with, I can't tell you for sure, but I'm inclined to just say to the sheriff go in there, sell everything, right down to their underwear, and divide the money 50-50.
39:56
So, if you want to have all your stuff sold, that's cool. That's fine with me. You got a half an hour, I'll be back right. So surprising they settled the case right, that's, that's an excellent example.
Raif Palmer Guest
40:09
It's um, it's understanding those realities. And I talk about divorce myths. In the book there's a whole section about divorce myths and one of them is that people don't know what a divorce trial looks like. So they think it's like a movie and they think they're going to get this vindication. And I talk about like the halo and lightning bolt. So they think like I'm going to get to tell the judge what a bad guy he is or bad wife she was, and the judge will feel bad for me and I'm going to get more of the money and the kids and whatever it is, and everybody will understand and I'll be vindicated and the bad person gets hit with a lightning bolt and I get a halo.
40:47
You know, and we all know, that's just not the case. Divorce trials aren't about any of that. By law they can't talk about any of the stuff that was the wise and wherefores don't matter. I think once people realize that a trial, a divorce trial, is a dry recitation of facts and figures, it's a very boring affair, other than maybe drama in a custody case with a maybe serious custody situation, most divorce trials are very dull because we're going through reams of financial information and to get it to the judge, by the way, in a very inefficient way, because getting a court to you can't just hand a book to the judge and say here's everything, read this and make a decision. As you know, we have to go document by document and introduce things into evidence and it's very slow and methodical and it's very dull and very time consuming. So there isn't a sexy moment where and the person gets to say and that's why I'm divorcing them, and they're bad, and that's it. And then the judge says ah well, you're amazing, so I'm deciding in favor of you and against your spouse and sorry about your troubles.
42:01
Here you go and it never works like that. It's not like the movies at all, it's not like television, it's dreary and pricey and you're sitting there waiting for the judge to decide, like you said, the fate of your family, your children and your money. And it's nerve wracking, if anything. And so that's and I'm not here to sometimes trials are absolutely necessary. It's I'm not down on the trial business. Sometimes you have no choice, that somebody makes an outrageous demand and they maintain it, or they want sole custody and you were okay with joint custody or sharing decision-making. They insisted on sole. Maybe there's made-up allegations. You have no choice but to fight. Those are easy cases, I mean. They're easy to decide that you need to try. You have no choice. It's these other ones where some of these are in the middle and they should settle, they could settle, but people, for one reason or another, get dragged into the swamp and end up in a trial that you know unfortunately doesn't give them the bang for the buck that they had hoped.
Karen Covy Host
43:09
Yeah, well, what if you? You know I deal with this with clients a lot where they look and they say, well, it's my spouse's lawyer that's dragging us into the swamp. What can you do? If you think that it's not your fault, it's the other guy and maybe legitimately so, I don't know. But like you're being dragged into the swamp and you don't want to go there and you can see yourself going down, what can people do to pull themselves out and end the case?
Raif Palmer Guest
43:37
There are a couple of things. One is making that good faith effort to settle, so making a detailed offer. I always like a full marital settlement agreement because you're giving and that's the document that I'm saying this for the audience's benefit. It's the document that resolves all the financial issues and things other than children in the case. Instead of a bullet point offer, which is a summary of main points in a settlement offer, sending a full settlement agreement prevents the other lawyer from saying, well, a, b and C is fine, but we don't know about all this other stuff and we can't agree to this because we don't know what the other terms are. So the key is well, first okay, let me rewind a little bit First is isolating the problem. So find out, try to figure out is it the other lawyer, is it the other party or both? Sometimes it's the other lawyer and the other party's kind of an innocent person in this thing, although I always wonder because they're signing off on all the pleadings and I think people have sort of a duty to understand what they're doing but figuring out what is the problem. So in one case I tell a story where I just thought the other lawyer wasn't educating their client very well, not that they were evil or had evil intent, but I didn't think they were. Just they weren't very good at explaining to the client the cost-benefit analysis that I've discussed and the reality of the situation as it existed. And it was actually an ongoing trial in Cook County that had taken many months. It was like a day here, a day there. It was a trial with a lot of assets and the reality was the asset pool was diminishing due to all the legal fees and also temporary support that was being paid and the case had taken far more time than anybody expected.
45:30
I took over from a previous attorney and I wrote a letter that's actually reproduced in the book. The whole exact letter is in there. I just blocked out the names. But I explained what the realist outcomes were at trial and I did a full cost-benefit analysis in the letter and I wrote it directed to the other attorney. Now I knew that the client would want to see that letter and say I want to know what's in that, because lawyers have a duty to inform their clients about communications, especially settlement offers. So I did the cost benefit.
46:11
I said here's what the judge is likely to do and you've got to be honest about that, otherwise the other lawyer says oh, this is all BS, don't even pay any attention to this. So you've got to be very honest about what the likely outcomes are, and I was. I was probably a little generous on that. Then I said here's the likely cost, and I was conservative on that, meaning I wanted the client to ask the other party. I wanted the other party to ask their law firm is this true? Is what Mr Palmer is saying in this letter accurate? And I wanted them to have to say, well, yeah, it could be. And then the client says well, is this other stuff true, that we're down to X assets and if this continues at this rate, we'll have no money left? Well, yeah, that's true too. Well, that stopped the whole thing. We settled the case and it was just a lack of the other party just either hadn't been informed or wasn't paying attention to the fact that they were fighting over this dwindling pile of money and that continuing to fight would exhaust all of it. And basically, at the end it would be a complete Pyrrhic victory with just fees owed to the lawyers and then nothing left.
47:23
And so that's one effort is try to reach to the other party, either spouse to spouse. So maybe your client can talk to the spouse directly and say hey, are you aware this is going on? Have you talked to your lawyer? My lawyer is telling me this. I know you're going to think it's biased or whatever, but this is what my attorney is telling me. He wrote this stuff out. Here's how he sees it. Maybe you should talk to your lawyer about this. Well, that's an angle. Maybe they won't listen, but you can make an effort. One way is the letter I'm describing. Another way is try to get a pretrial conference with the judge. Have the judge explain potential outcomes. I find a deposition works wonders to force people to talk. So what happens in this interim litigation machine is we get all focused on these interim issues and the eye poking and, like I said, we're not getting more divorced.
48:20
Well, at some point in discovery, you know and I'm telling the audience a deposition is an oral statement, a sworn statement somebody gives and they ask the lawyer, ask questions. They have to answer the questions under oath. Well, you're allowed to do that and a lot of divorce lawyers sort of wait until the end to take those depositions. They wait until they're sure there's going to be a trial and they say, well, I don't want to waste the money and time and all that. Well, sometimes an early deposition is just the thing to get everybody to look at the case objectively. The lawyer has to prepare, so they have to stop worrying about these interim things and actually look at the potential outcome. They have to prepare their client for the deposition because they're going to have to testify, and then all four of you have to get in the room with a court reporter. Well, what happens is nobody likes depositions. They're a pain in the butt. They can be three hours long. It's exhausting. Lawyers don't love them, clients don't like sitting there being asked questions under that pressure, and so what ends up happening is a lot of times getting all four people in the room after they've had to look at the stuff to prepare for the deposition.
49:27
They start talking about settlement and a lot of cases I've seen settle out of depositions where the deposition will turn into a settlement conference. And because sometimes there are lawyers that you just can't get to sit with you in a room and you'll say, you know they say time and again hey, let's sit down and meet, talk about settlement. Oh no, that's ridiculous, we're going to, we're filing another motion or whatever. You know we don't have all the discovery. There's always an excuse for why we can't talk about settlement when you and I know we could talk about settlement on day one. We might need to learn, get certain information, but there's no reason why we can't start making progress immediately. We go, you do mediations. I know you've done a lot of that, a lot of alternative dispute resolution in the first collab meeting, in the first mediation. We don't solve the case necessarily, but we make progress, and we don't have to know everything to make some progress, and so I've seen that be.
50:26
A successful tactic is noticing up that, scheduling a deposition and making people pay attention. Scheduling a deposition and making people pay attention, you know that's the other. The thing is, if you know you're in a fight, though, if you know you're dealing with the swamp creature, the person that's going to be fighting, then just go forward and get it done and be efficient. Get your discovery complete, don't drag your feet. Make sure you comply with all the court orders, get the trial scheduled as soon as possible. Then you just need to chug ahead and keep marching and maybe they'll approach you about a settlement at some point. Maybe they won't, but the worst thing you can do is, once you've got that signal that it isn't happening, to sort of keep trying to make it happen, you know 100%.
Karen Covy Host
51:11
You know and I am the most alternative dispute resolution oriented lawyer when it comes to family law that you'll ever want to see and even still, there are some cases to your point. They just need to be tried or they're going to be tried because the people are too far apart or the lawyers are too far. But whatever it is, you just know you can figure out at some point. You know either maybe not early, early on, but at least by midway, if not sooner, that this thing is going to have to go to trial, or at least look like it's going to trial, like you need that trial date, you need it scheduled. Then you know, talk to me a little bit, because I've had some people. They kind of they lose hope, they get disheartened because they're like well, I've got a trial day and I'm going to trial, and how often does that trial really happen?
Raif Palmer Guest
52:03
Only a very small percentage of the time. I think national statistics are about 95% of divorce cases subtle before we're like at trial. So it's really only a very small percentage of cases. So do a lot of cases settle on the courthouse steps or the day of trials? Yes, unfortunately they do. Why is that? Because unfortunately people don't sort of focus on getting it done until it's very real and humans are procrastinators by nature.
52:38
So the trial date is really important for a flag in the ground, a sense of finality that you know if you don't settle, the court's going to decide for you. So a lot of people are in a situation where the one party that keeps avoiding talking about settlement finally gets serious two weeks before trial, three weeks before trial, a day before trial, because they're going through all the trial prep and they're finally looking at everything, or the realization really sets in that it is really happening. And if you have a foot dragging spouse and some people that sometimes people are in just total denial or you know that they don't want the divorce, their mechanism for avoiding divorce is just sitting there and doing nothing and which can be very frustrating on the other side of it. But they'll wait all the way until the bitter end and then they'll settle like the day before trial because they realize, oh, it's really going to be done now, I'm really going to be divorced. And it's unfortunate, but that's a fact too.
Karen Covy Host
53:41
Yeah, I mean, there's something about you make a really good point about the finality of it. Some people they just don't want to accept that it's happening. And it takes being there on the day of trial and you've seen, I've seen you know where, even with a settlement, you're walking in the door. Everything is agreed. It is the day of the final hearing, which is Illinois' call to prove up, and somebody says, wait, I want this one more thing, Wait, I went. And it usually has nothing to do with the one more thing. Whatever that was it was about, I don't want this to really happen.
Raif Palmer Guest
54:17
That's exactly right and that's where divorce coaches and counselors and I'm a my book is a love letter to collaborative or to ADR, and also coaches. I would say I have a whole chapter on coaching. I became a believer with in coaches when I got into collaborative in 07, 08. And I didn't even know they existed until then, and then they've been huge assets for me, not only in ADR cases but in litigated cases. And what I found in my career is something I tell clients is 90% of what's going to bother you in divorce is the 90% the lawyers can't do anything about.
54:57
It's. You know, all we can do is when the tool set is very limited. You know we can call the other lawyer, basically, or go to court that we can talk. So we can sit down and talk on the phone, on zoom and a meeting with the lawyers and the parties. That's one thing or we can go to court and do court stuff.
55:14
Those are the two tricks in the bag and the only things we're solving ultimately are and I mean, I know this is complicated, but when we boil it down we're dividing the property and the debt, we're figuring out support and we're dealing with visitation and custody.
55:32
That's it and all the stuff that drives people crazy about the other spouse and all the emotions wrapped up in and all the other things that make people really upset, have nothing to do with those very nuts and bolts things. And so once people realize that, hey, as a lawyer I can only help you with this subset of the things you're dealing with, that's where the coach is so valuable, is they can address the 90% and that can make all the difference in these cases, like with the recalcitrant spouse, the person who just can't believe it's happening. Sometimes a coach is critical in helping that person just literally visualize the future, as people will lock down and they say, well, this isn't happening, this isn't happening and I can't believe I'm going to. All they feel is a tremendous sense of loss and they lock down and that can cause a trial just because they're in denial and they I call them accidental trials. You know there are these trials that kind of people trip over into them because they just haven't wrapped their head around this thing.
Karen Covy Host
56:38
Yep, which is unfortunate because that's a trial that didn't have to be.
Raif Palmer Guest
56:43
Right, exactly, and it doesn't benefit the parties at all. And they will verbalize something very different than when they're feeling like saying this isn't fair. They'll say the settlement isn't fair. What they really mean is the divorce isn't fair.
Karen Covy Host
56:59
Right.
Raif Palmer Guest
57:00
That life isn't fair, that you know, and I'll tell people. Cosmically, you're right, you know. Like you know, emotionally, I understand. Legally, though, it's utterly fair. Like you know, pursuant to the law this is equitable, it's in its. But you're right, in the grand scheme of things, it isn't fair that you gave 25 years to this person and they now have a significant other and they cheated on you. That's profoundly unfair.
Karen Covy Host
57:29
But the court's not going to redress those grievances, you know so yeah, I have a mentor who used to always say that fair was the four letter F word of divorce.
Raif Palmer Guest
57:40
That's. I got that from. Jim Lenahan is a collaborative lawyer. You probably know Jim.
Karen Covy Host
57:45
Yeah, I do.
Raif Palmer Guest
57:46
And Jim always said that and I stole that from him. I love it. It's so true.
57:51
And you know your fair is different from the other person's fair and you know he would say is it isn't it is it acceptable to you, is an acceptable result. And also, I would point out, there's a range of acceptable results, and so that that mindset is so important that it it's not fair and um, but that's all the court's going to do is do those few things and once you understand that, then it helps you see through the clutter and focus on the objective and not get distracted by all this other stuff, because a lot of it, a lot of the washing machine is of the, I kind of call, probably maybe too casually, and this is for certain age group, cause I'm a little older uh, three stooges like eye poking, you know, poking each other in the eye and not making progress, and a lot of that I think is sort of emotionally driven about how we're angry with each other rather than is this materially helping my case.
Karen Covy Host
58:57
Yeah 100%. You know, Raif, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. Thank you, but in the interest of being respectful for your time, I think we're going to call it a wrap right here. But especially for people who might be interested in your services or in working with a lawyer who does you know unbundled services, who will do you know different things, just say, hey, I'll just give you advice, I'll do a consultation, I'll do you know your documents, whatever. I think that's such a valuable asset for people to know about. Where can people find you? Where's the best place?
Raif Palmer Guest
59:33
So the first place is to come to our website, stglawfirm.com. The firm is STG Divorce Law, so we're very easy to find on the internet. You can also search my name, Raiford Palmer just a Google search. You will find me all over the internet and social media. I'm at Raiford Palmer on TikTok, at Raiford Palmer on Instagram, at Raiford Palmer on X, formerly known as Twitter, and so we're very easy to find all over the internet. The book website is IJustWantThisDone.com and the book is easy to find by searching either my name on Amazon or the book title and the book will pop right up. So I hope people will check it out and thank you very much for having me on your show.
Karen Covy Host
01:00:18
You're welcome. Thank you for sharing so much in this episode. I mean, literally there are so many nuggets of gold here and for anyone watching or listening, everything all these things are going to be linked up in the show notes, so you won't have to search for anything. All you have to do is go to the show notes, click on the book, click on his name, click on all the things and if you enjoyed this episode, if you liked the video, do me a big favor, give it a thumbs up, like, subscribe everywhere, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
Raif Palmer Guest
01:00:48
Thank you.
Karen Covy Host
01:00:49
Thank you.
