Episode Description - Your Spouse Is Hiding Assets. Now What?
What if the evidence you need to win your divorce is hidden and you don't even know where to look? Becky Sampson, founder of Only Subpoenas, learned this lesson the hard way when she spent three and a half years representing herself against five attorneys in Hawaii family court. After mastering the art of subpoenas through 21 successful requests for financial records, she didn't just win her case, she discovered how to level the playing field when a spouse is hiding assets.
Most people think getting a forensic accountant is the answer when money seems to be missing, but there's a catch: accountants can only work with the documents they have been given. If your spouse won’t come clean with the financial records, even the best forensic accountant won’t be able to find where the money is hidden.
Subpoenas help you find the records you don’t have. They’re the actual key to uncovering hidden finances, from retirement accounts to employment records.
Becky explains the critical mistakes that cause one in three subpoenas to get rejected, why "foreign subpoenas" across state lines are trickier than anyone realizes, and how proper documentation creates the leverage that often leads to settlement before trial.
Now helping attorneys navigate the tedious compliance requirements most law firms avoid, Becky shows how the right information (obtained the right way) can transform a divorce from an endless battle into a fair resolution.
Whether you're self-represented or working with a lawyer, understanding when and how to use subpoenas could be the difference between guessing what exists and actually proving it in court.
Show Notes
About Becky
Becky Sampson is the Founder of ONLY Subpoenas™, a company born out of her own hard-won victory in the Hawaii Family Court system. After 21 hearings, 21 subpoenas, and 3½ years representing herself against five attorneys, Becky didn’t just win — she secured a fair and equitable financial outcome that honored both parties while keeping compassion at the center.
Now affectionately known as “Becky Brockovich,” she uses that experience to help others—especially women—navigate the legal and financial complexities of divorce with strength, clarity, and strategy. Her mission is to teach people how to uncover the truth, organize their evidence, and negotiate from a place of empowerment so they can walk away not just with peace of mind, but with what’s fair financially.
Connect with Becky
You can connect with Becky on LinkedIn at Becky Sampson and on Facebook at Becky Sampson. You can follow Becky on Instagram at Divorcing Strong Becky Sampson and on YouTube at Divorcing Strong. To learn more about working with Becky, visit her website at Only Subpoenas.
Free Download: 100 Legal Divorce Terms
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Becky
- Becky Sampson, founder of Only Subpoenas, built her business after successfully representing herself in a complex divorce involving 21 subpoenas across multiple jurisdictions.
- A subpoena is a court order used to obtain information from third parties when an opposing party withholds or conceals records.
- Subpoenas are especially powerful in divorce cases to uncover financial assets, including bank accounts, retirement funds, credit cards, employment records, and tax information.
- Becky emphasizes that subpoenas must follow strict legal rules and often fail due to technical errors; about 1 in 3 subpoenas are rejected when not done correctly.
- Foreign subpoenas (across state lines) add complexity and may require domestication, though many institutions will comply voluntarily if approached correctly.
- Becky’s background in negotiation and peacebuilding helped her secure compliance and avoid unnecessary legal escalation.
- Subpoenas often create leverage, leading cases to settle without trial once full financial transparency is achieved.
- Forensic accountants rely on subpoenas to do their work; without subpoenaed documents, they cannot fully trace hidden assets.
- Becky works exclusively with attorneys, handling subpoena preparation, compliance, follow-up, and negotiation to save clients time and money.
- Her core philosophy: subpoenas are not about aggression, but about truth, fairness, and informed decision-making so parties can resolve cases equitably.
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Transcript
Your Spouse Is Hiding Assets. Now What?
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
subpoena, compassion, divorce
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Becky Sampson
Karen Covy: 0:10
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.
With me today, I'm speaking with Becky Sampson. And Becky is the founder of Only Subpoenas, a company born out of her own hard-won victory in the Hawaii family court system. After 21 hearings, 21 subpoenas, and three and a half years representing herself against five attorneys, Becky didn't just win. She secured a fair and equitable financial outcome that honored both parties while keeping compassion at the center. Now affectionately known as Becky Brockovich, she uses her experience to help others, especially women, navigate the legal and financial complexities of divorce with strength, clarity, and strategy. Her mission is to teach people how to uncover the truth, organize their evidence, and negotiate from a place of empowerment so they can walk away not just with peace of mind, but with what's fair financially. Becky, welcome to the show.
Becky Sampson: 1:33
Thank you, Karen, so much for having me. This is this is always fun when I get to go be a guest on someone else's podcast.
Karen Covy: 1:41
I love it. And I love what you're doing. And I want to dive right in and start with for anyone who's listening who might not be a hundred percent sure on what a subpoena is. Let's start there. Can you define what a subpoena is, what it does, and who needs one?
Becky Sampson: 1:57
Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate the question because it's interesting. You know, I I've been in this subpoena world for probably four years now, four or five years. And I'm surprised with how many people don't understand what it is. It's a very simple document. And of course, you're the attorney, right? I'm not, I'm I just a disclaimer, I'm not an attorney, I'm not a paralegal. Um, however, I did master something during my divorce and uh saw that there was a need in the in the field for it. So, a subpoena is something that is a court order. So, if you're going through a divorce or any kind of a case and you need information that the other party is not giving you, or maybe giving you some of it and not all of it, um, you have the right to go get a subpoena, whether you are self-represented or if you are with an attorney. Um, and a subpoena basically is a court order that asks that organization to supply, like it could be a bank, or it could be medical records, or it could be um police reports, or it could be evidence of video footage, whatever you need to for your specific case to be able to prove your um case against the other person. And so, and when you'd use it, well, typically, you know, it's funny, uh, Karen, I was on the I was on a podcast the other day, and this one lady uh that's an attorney um out of Chicago, I asked her, I'm like, so like usually you do discovery, the courts don't like it if you go straight for a subpoena. And she's like, Well, why not? I was like, what? Usually I would tell people don't start with a subpoena because that kind of ticks off the other party. It's a little bit more of an aggressive move. But sometimes that's what you need to do.
Karen Covy: 3:48
Well, yes. So, a subpoena is a way to get information of what, like you said, of any kind that you want from somebody who's not a party to the case. Yeah. And so to go straight to the bank, usually people don't do it because it's expensive. I mean, it costs money, it takes time, it takes more effort. Most usually the first thing you'll do is ask your ex or soon-to-be ex, give me the bank statements. But then the problem, you know, it's uh six or one half dozen of the others, more of a strategic decision about do you go for the bank records right out of the gate, or do you ask your spouse for the bank records? Because that's an easier, less expensive way to get them if they give them to you. And so if they don't give them to you, normally what people will do is ask the other side to produce the documents first, give them a chance to do it, and then if they don't do it, or if they are conveniently missing certain months, um, then you go to the bank and get the subpoena. But I don't know why you could. I mean, you can go right to the bank initially, but it you're right, it is an aggressive move.
Becky Sampson: 4:57
Yeah, and I always say, you know, if you don't need to go there, don't go there. But in my particular case, uh during my short marriage, uh, I was in court longer than I was in the marriage, but uh yeah, it was he was not willing to give me any information. And of course, I didn't know. I was early enough representing myself, I didn't know how this worked, right? So I did discovery, um, he didn't respond. We did a motion to compel, he didn't do it. So I did another motion to compel. And finally, his attorney had sent me a without even asking me, right? So that's an aggressive move, without even asking me for this particular bank statement. I knew exactly what they were looking for. I'm a graphic designer, so as soon as I saw that subpoena request come to me, within 24 hours, I had him back that that specific um bank statement that he wanted and highlighted with an explanation of what was there for. So I mean, but the funny thing was is I was, even though I was self-rep self-represented or pro se, as they call it, um I was working with an attorney through the legal aid system. And he said to me, he says, Becky, I can't represent you. I can't, we've got too many cases. I said, that's fine as long as you would mentor me. At least tell me, like, hey, you're on the right track or you're doing the right thing, or hey, do this and tweak this. And he was willing to do that. So thank goodness I found somebody because I was willing to do the hard work to figure out how to do it. So when that subpoena came in from that attorney, he said to me, He says, There you go, Becky. There's your, there's your template. And of course, you know, court documents and everything have certain regulations to spacing and inch here and inch there, double spaced, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I threw his subpoena that he sent to me into my illustrator program, which is, by the way, not a word program, like, but I know how to make things exact. So I threw it in an illustrator, created my own subpoena, and that started my career in subpoenas. And um a lot of people don't realize this, and even attorneys, I'm finding Karen, don't know this. But uh, when you subpoena records outside of the state or the jurisdiction that you have your case in, it's called the foreign subpoena, means you're jumping jurisdictions. Most of the subpoenas, the 21 that I did during my divorce, were foreign subpoenas, and I had no idea what that term meant. And so by the time I turned my whole case over to an attorney, he said, Becky, how in the world did you get all of these subpoenas back? Like, how did they respond? And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, you needed to domesticate them in those jurisdictions. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. And um, but I now know because I specialize in those doing them and what it means. But I also negotiate and realize through my experience that sometimes you don't have to domesticate it if they'll agree to accept it.
Karen Covy: 8:07
Right. So for those people who are listening who are like, what are they talking about? Yeah. Um a subpoena is technically only has to be complied with if you're sending it to a third party who's in the same state, right? If I'm in Illinois and I send a subpoena to a New York bank, the New York bank is within its rights to say, we don't care. We're not going to comply because it's not a New York subpoena. So, domesticating it or putting you've got to open a case in New York, get the subpoena issued from New York to the New York bank, and then they have to comply and pay attention. But I love this because what you're saying, and it makes perfect sense, is that if somebody will agree to just do it, because fundamentally, at the end of the day, they're gonna have to, if you if you went through the right steps to domesticate the subpoena and you sent them a New York subpoena, then they have to comply with it. So why go through the whole dance and the rigmarole if they're only gonna have to do it anyway? It's beautiful that you were so successful. I love that.
Becky Sampson: 9:15
Well, I got 20 out of 21 subpoenas, and the only reason why I didn't get my last one was because I had subpoena, I subpoenaed his um his tax preparer, and his tax preparer, I know, did not want to supply me with his tax return because he would he was out of regulation and he would be getting in trouble. So I could have forced that, you know, done a motion to comply or a motion to enforce him to comply to that, but I didn't. Um but yeah, that that was kind of that moment where I'm like, wow, these, these are, I know for a fact, Karen, that I won my case in Hawaii court because there was no more hiding in my case. There was nothing else that needed to be revealed. We had all the information on the table, which then created the environment for him to settle.
Karen Covy: 10:08
Okay, so tell me what kind of information you got. Like what can people get with a subpoena?
Becky Sampson: 10:14
So, I went retirement accounts, uh, bank accounts, credit card accounts. Um, I also was making a case that he had taken a job in Hawaii and moved us all the way there under false pretense. So, I went and subpoenaed all of his former um spouse, I'm sorry, his former employment records, so I could show that he left in not good standings and then lied to get this new job. So, it just really depends on now. One of the things that you risk by doing a subpoena if you don't do it correctly is a quash. So, the other party does have the opportunity to quash your subpoena, which means, hey, it's not relevant. But usually when it comes to divorce, most everything financial is relevant. Absolutely. If they're not giving you financial records, there's no reason why a judge would quash it or stop you from being able to get that information. Um and to me, it was so vitally important that um I got all the financials because even going for mediation, my mediator's like, well, we need the information. And I said, I know. Like, we what do we mediate? So, we wasted $3,000 going to a mediation when he wasn't, I didn't have all the information to make a decision on what was fair and equitable.
Karen Covy: 11:39
I love there's so much that's in there that I want to dive into, but you said something about, you know, the other side, um, in this case, your ex-husband, had the right to quash that subpoena. In other words, to cancel it out and say nobody has to give you the records, right? But how do they know there's something to quash?
Becky Sampson: 12:01
Well, that's you mean in the in the subpoena of the request?
Karen Covy: 12:05
Yeah, no. How did your ex-husband even know you sent a subpoena? Are there rules around this?
Becky Sampson: 12:12
Well, by the way, I'm not an attorney. I'm gonna say that again. You are.
Karen Covy: 12:15
Yeah, I know there are, and I'm just sort of leading the question because I don't want people to think that, oh, I can just get uh, you know, some form off the internet and send it to you, you know, what are the rules?
Becky Sampson: 12:28
Yeah, so one of the things is that in order before you serve the subpoena, and of course every jurisdiction might be different, so it may be a little bit different, but in Hawaii, I had to serve that or send a copy of the subpoena first to the attorney before I sent it out to the actual organization to supply the paperwork. So, you can't just like aimlessly go and do a subpoena. When you're self-represented, usually you have to go to the court. There's two ways to get it signed. One is by an attorney, or one is by the clerk somewhere in the court offices that will sign that subpoena to then make it a court order. So, if you're self-represented or pro se, as they say, um, you need to work really closely with your um with your jurisdiction or with your courts to be able to get that so that it goes out. You can't just create a subpoena and send it out. It's not gonna happen that way. There's only two ways, through the court or through an attorney, in order for it to be um legal.
Karen Covy: 13:31
Yeah, and that's what that's what I really want people to hear is that you have created this business because you be you developed an expertise in subpoenas, but it's not so simple, right? It's not as easy as everyone thinks. And the fact that you were able to learn how to do this and do it successfully, even out of state, crossing jurisdictional boundaries, is phenomenal. I mean, it's just it's really, it's very impressive, actually, that you got people to respond to you. How did you get them to agree to produce the documents?
Becky Sampson: 14:08
Well, so here's he interesting thing. So while I was getting going through this divorce in Hawaii, I was getting my degree in peace building, um, peacebuilding mediation and negotiations. So it's like I here I was like wanting to be combative and wanting to go after his attorney because he was just going after me, all this stuff. But I would go to class, and of course, my peacebuilding professor would be like, now, now he wouldn't be speaking directly to me about my case, even though he knew I was in active court, but he would something about, hey, if we want a peaceful resolution, if we want to not see that person as an object, we need to rephrase how we say things. And I'm telling you that so many times I would be hitting myself my head up against the wall and going, okay, Becky, back up, pause, breathe, and re-go at it a different way to get what I need. And I'm just a very, very tenacious person. I'm I've now learned, this is the reason why I have that nickname is you know, bulldog Becky Brockovich, is because I came into this space not knowing anything. And then I use those negotiation skills that I even gained way back when I was a real estate agent. And I negotiate. And that's the thing that when I'm working for attorneys, this is why they want me on their team or want my company on the team or our subagents, is because not only do we do the prep and the compliance to make sure that it's accepted, we also negotiate on those foreign subpoenas and just say, look, yes, legally we would need to go through your state to domesticate it. However, would you accept it if I send it in this direction? And most people will do that. Every once in a while, they're like, no, you need to domesticate it. So then I'll go through the domestication. I just did a domestication um the other day for a deposition, actually. So not a deposition is, you know, when they're under oath and they're cross-examining and asking all kinds of questions, but we needed to do a deposition across state lines. Um and so we have to get it domesticated so that they're taking it serious. And really, when you're dealing with attorneys, sometimes they'll find those little loopholes. So you just want to make sure that you do it super, super clean. Um and that's what I do. And when statistically, and I Karen, I don't even know if I shared this with you or not, but when I was doing a bunch of research about subpoenas, one out of every three subpoenas that gets um issued gets denied. And the reason, let me just tell you, I even why I'm in business, and you may not know this, but um, soon after I met my third husband, and I'm happily, happily married, we ended up in a case for his granddaughter. And um, while we were preparing for the trial, we had an attorney, 35-year attorney, and so very experienced, and we called him and said, Hey, we need to do a subpoena. My husband says we need to do a subpoena. This is who we need to subpoena, this is the information we're looking for, so we can take it to the judge, because the judge was asking for very specific information, and it was my husband's idea. So I called the attorney. The attorney says, No, I don't want to do that. I don't why should we do that? I don't, I don't, and I thought to myself, wait a minute. Like the attorney I had in Hawaii also didn't like to do subpoenas. So the fact that this one was like, no, we're not, why are we gonna do that? And my husband's like, we need to do it. And so finally that attorney was like, fine, I'll charge you $500 if you want me to do it. And I was like, for what? Like, I did, I know what it takes to get a subpoena through, right? And so my husband's like, I don't care how much it costs, we need to get it done. And so, um, so we hang up the phone with them. I go and do my due diligence like I always do, get on the phone, do all my calls, you know, 45 minutes later, I call his paralegal back. Now, this is his paralegal who's been working with him for 18 years. So she's very experienced paralegal. She says, No problem, Becky. I already in that 45 minutes, she's already done the subpoena, she prepared it, it went off to the bank and it's been rejected.
unknown: 18:28
Okay.
Becky Sampson: 18:29
And I said to her, I said, Did you do this, this, this, and this? And she goes, How do you know? I said, Well, honey, this is what I do. Like, I know is not an option in my world, right? Like, I make sure cross the T's, dot the I's, everything to make sure things go through. So very kindly and gently, I sent her the instructions on how to do it properly. And she put it through two weeks later, we ended up with all the paperwork. Um, two weeks after that, we settled. And then my husband turned to me and he says, Becky, you have to do this for attorneys. Because it's one of those parts that attorneys need the information. It isn't expensive, it also is a very tedious job, which I love. I realize I love research. So it's like, bring me the subpoena. Who do I get to subpoena today? You know, because I know they win cases.
Karen Covy: 19:23
Yeah. So is it sounds like you work with, or tell me if I'm wrong, that you work with both attorneys to do their subpoenas for them, or individual people who are just trying to get through the system without an attorney, you'll do a subpoena for them.
Becky Sampson: 19:41
So, I don't do subpoenas for pro seas because I'm not an attorney or a paralegal. Just to be clear, I do have a resource for that, for that that I can steer them to, or I can also steer them to the self-help to learn and to ask the right questions. So, I'm very careful. I I've always been that way. I'm very careful that I don't cross those boundaries. Yeah. Um, but I do subpoenas for attorneys. And if you have an attorney, now I will say, Karen, I've got a lot of people recently calling me. Of course, I do a lot of divorce coaching. And when I talk to them about the power of subpoenas, they do have attorneys. I will allow that, work one-on-one with those people, but I work underneath the jurisdiction, or not jurisdiction, but underneath the license of the attorney. So really the attorney just orders the subpoena through me. I do all the compliance, I do all the follow-up, I do all the negotiation, I do, I can also organize and coordinate the serving if it needs to be served. I really try not to have it served, served proper, meaning the extra $100 to go have somebody hand it because I'm trying to save. My job is to save as much money as possible to the end client and then help the attorney get the information that they need.
Karen Covy: 21:00
That that is beautiful. I I love that. And I know so many attorneys who would love to have somebody doing the tedious work for them. Um, have you ever, you know, if an if a subpoena is rejected, then what? Is it game over or can you try again?
Becky Sampson: 21:21
No, I had a I had a lady the other day, and by the way, my guarantee because of that statistic, one out of every three every three subpoenas, right? It's rejected. When attorneys work with me and with my service, it's 100% compliant or they do not pay. So it's a flat fee. So sometimes it takes longer to do stuff, sometimes it's shorter, you know, that sort of thing. But it's really important. It's a flat fee so that it makes it easy for them and easy for us, right? There's no like tracking time and all of that stuff. Um, but your question is I had an attorney call me the other day and he actually bought my services and with the company, he wants, he goes, Can I just do my hard subpoenas through you? We can do our easy ones, but what about you take the hard ones? And I was like, Okay. So, I said, give it, you know, shoot, shoot it, you know, let's do it. And so he sent me actually two subpoenas that he had sent out and they were rejected. And both of them were foreign subpoenas. The first one, they were, and obviously, when it's rejected, sometimes you'll get a letter back saying what's wrong with it that you need to correct. Most of the times they don't do that. But this this paralegal, and by the way, the paralegals love working with me. They're like, oh, thank you for taking this off my shoulders. But uh yeah, the letter came back and I and I did a bunch of research and found out that they subpoenaed the wrong organization within that company that didn't have the record. So they'll find anything and everything because most people don't want to do the work to comply to with the subpoena. So that's why it's very, very detailed. If you miss a period sometimes in that legal name, they'll reject it. So I make sure I double, triple, quadruple check because I want to get paid for the effort that I'm doing. And I want the attorneys to get it back as quick as possible. So yeah, we got those done. She wrote me back a beautiful review and she's like, Thank you so much, Becky, for getting these done. Because both of them rejected and they got accepted once we got them through.
Karen Covy: 23:25
That's awesome. Just can you give me an idea of what kind of time frames people are usually looking at to turn around a subpoena? So let's say you get it, you send the subpoena to bank A, and how long does bank A have to get you documents back?
Becky Sampson: 23:42
So, what I love is time. I love having like concrete time, right? So from the time an attorney uh orders a subpoena through my service, it's 48 hours. I try to get it back within 24 hours. I'd love to get it the same day. But if it's a foreign subpoena, sometimes it takes a little bit longer, but usually around 48 hours within a couple days. They're gonna have the subpoena back prepared and all the instructions on how to have it served. Um, oftentimes certified mail is how I negotiate with them. Look, will you receive it if we do it certified mail? Because that's the cheapest all around, right? If it has to be actually hand served, which I really, really don't like that, but sometimes organizations, even in my divorce case, I paid my girlfriend $100 every time she had to go serve it to the bank. Even though this bank knew me well, I was like, seriously? I'm like, okay, well, I mean, I had to do it, but I really negotiate hard on that. Um, but from the time that you actually serve them, you need to give them legally 14 days to comply. So oftentimes, when here's the other part of it is that one of the things that I have found that attorneys don't like subpoenas is tracking all of that, right? So, and then, oh, it's 14 days, they didn't get it back to me. I didn't have a problem with people getting back because I would call them, I would say, hey, it's due next week, I'm gonna get it back. They used to get it right back right away. If there was anything missing, I'd call them back, and that's what I do for attorneys too. If there's anything missing in that, they'll call me immediately and say, Hey, Becky, they provided me with this, this, this, but they're missing this. I get on with the contacts that I have in my system on that particular subpoena, and I will say, What's going on? So I'm doing all the follow-up. They don't have to worry about any of that stuff.
Karen Covy: 25:37
Yeah that that's brilliant. And that was one of the things that I found when I was um actively practicing law is that when I would send a subpoena, a lot of times it you get a song and dance from the bank or the institution or whatever it is, saying, Oh, we need more time, oh, we have to. Now, these days, you know, with everything presumably being digital, it shouldn't take that long. But back in the day, they would say, Oh, we have to go through boxes of documents and it's gonna take us three months and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it that in and of itself became a fight.
Becky Sampson: 26:10
Exactly. And that's why I really too I I've I do this with my business and I do this with my life. Relationships are very important. And I don't just Google and look at an organization, I get on the phone with somebody, I get a name, I get a number, I get an extension. And to me, I have a relationship with them now, right? So, and the nice thing too, Karen, you may not have thought about this, but the cool thing is that I found is when I'm doing a subpoena, when I call them, I say, hey, this is Becky with Only Subpoenas. And even if they do ask me, well, who are you working with? What case is this on? And what's the attorney's name? I'm not privy to give that information out. My job is just to make sure that it's gonna be accepted. So basically, the attorney has an extra layer of protection. So, uh, because that does happen, people that know that there's a subpoena on the way, they want to know. Like, give me the information. I'm like, no.
Karen Covy: 27:08
So I like that. So you're but you're contacting the institutions, you're getting their rules, like what they need to make sure the subpoena is compliant. You draft up the subpoena, but then you give it back to the attorney to actually send, to give the other side notice, to do all the things. They take it from there. Is that what I mean?
Becky Sampson: 27:29
Well, they have to, because it's got to come out of their office. They also get all the paperwork back. So unless there's a problem, I don't ever hear anything on top of that. So they get the paperwork back to their office, it doesn't come back to me unless they want me to do forensics on the back of it, which means to analyze everything and get them all the information that they need for the exhibit that they're looking for. Because sometimes that's another problem that attorneys don't want to do subpoenas because it's a lot of paperwork. I personally love to do that. I know what they're looking for, you know. I know I have been through the process of winning my own case that I have a pretty good idea. And so we do also provide forensics, or I've got other people that that do forensics as well with that paperwork. But yeah,
Karen Covy: 28:16
You know, you've mentioned your own case and the value of subpoenas and how they made such a difference. Can you share that with the with our audiences? Like what exactly happened in your case with the subpoenas? Why did they and how did they make such a difference?
Becky Sampson: 28:35
Oh, I love that question. And I'll tell you for both of these cases that I personally am involved with, right? On my divorce case, when you have financials and you're, I mean, legally, you are supposed to, you and your spouse fill out a financial statement, say, this is what I have, these are all the assets, this is how much money, this is the retirement account. Well, when your other spouse is not giving all of that information, then you have to prove to the court that it exists. And so what I did, I knew because um at the beginning of our marriage, I'm a very organized person, as you can tell. Like I am really like so. When we first got married, I said, okay, we're now a team. I need to know where everything is so that you know we're on the same tank, even though I didn't have access to any of those accounts. I was used to doing all of the finances in my first marriage. And so this was a little different dynamic. So I did know in general where everything was. Um, and you don't need to know account numbers to subpoena things either to be able to get the information. That's what that's another question that people ask me. So I went after everything that I knew. All I wanted is all the facts, and then I put it into a spreadsheet and I started punching the numbers, gave that information to my attorney eventually when I had one. Um, and he put it into his system, you know, to be able to do that. And there was a substantial amount of increase, um, even in that short amount of time. And I had people in the court system saying, Becky, you've only been married for less than two years. You don't deserve anything. You know what I mean? Like, this is not, and people would accuse me of coming, going after money. And I'm like, but that increase would not have happened had I not been a part of this party. And I did say to my attorney at one point, I started, you know, saying all these justifications of like why I deserve to have an equal and fair and equitable division. And he's like, Becky, I don't care if you ate bon bonds, ate, sat on a couch, ate bon bonds, and gained 100 pounds, you are still entitled to half of the increase since you guys got married. And it happened to be a substantial amount, which at the time I had no idea um what it was. And so I didn't know what I was negotiating. So once it was all on the table, then he couldn't hide anymore. And it's interesting that when they can't hide how willing they are to negotiate because it became leverage, right? To going, whoa, I could lose this much if I don't settle for that much. Did I was I entitled to a lot more than I settled for? Yes. Did I settle for what I did because I felt like it was fair and equitable? And I it still left him in a good position, even though he may not feel that way, but it still left him in a good position and it left me in a good position. And my attorney said, Go for it, let's go. Now, just because they settled, this is another thing. Just because they settle for a certain amount doesn't mean that they pay the bill. So yeah, so that took me another year and a half to fight. After he settled, he still did not pay the bill. So because he didn't pay the bill, we ended up with a judgment. Now, people don't realize that if you go to a judge and say, look, you know, we can go back and forth and ping-pong back and forth and comply, you know, sanctions, all of this stuff. But finally, my attorney just said, Look, we're just gonna go get a judgment. Once you have a judgment for the full amount, you now are just a collection agency. So now I had to domesticate that out of Hawaii into another state and attach it to a piece of property and then foreclose on that property in order to get paid. Yes. I represented myself in the court, had to teach the sheriff's department and the court how to do this transaction because they had never really worked with something like this. I had to find the one attorney in this state that understood what I was doing, and he donated his time to me and helped me through the process. But I found him by going to a law library and looked up the books for the attorneys that write the books for the other attorneys. And I called him directly and said, Look, here's my situation. I need help. And I don't have money for an attorney because he's left me with nothing. I've got this settlement, but I've got to be able to get it through. And I won my case and he ended up having to pay a tremendous amount of late fees and other fees because it ended up going to foreclosure. I won the house and then he had to pay me everything back in full before he got his house back. So that was a long answer to your question. But I do have to say two things. I think, and with my second case with our granddaughter, it creates leverage. It whether to settle or to win so both of ours settled, my divorce settled, and then also this case with our granddaughter settled. Um, because I believe that there was enough leverage. So sometimes you are subpoenaing not necessarily for the information. I needed the information to go to trial, but we never ended up using the information, right?
Karen Covy: 34:15
Yep.
Becky Sampson: 34:15
And the same thing with the case with the with the granddaughter. Had we used it, had it gone to trial.
Karen Covy: 34:21
Yeah. And I think the last thing, I I know we're e getting short on time here, but can you explain for the listeners the interaction between the subpoena, a subpoena, and a forensic accountant? Because a lot of people, they think their spouse is hiding money, or they know their spouse is hiding money, and they say, I'm gonna get a forensic accountant.
Becky Sampson: 34:42
Um the forensic accountant has no power if they don't have the pay, if they don't have the information. Okay, so I I can't tell you how many um forensics accountants I've talked to, and they're like, Becky, we're missing this, this, this, and this, and the case. And I was like, well, then let's subpoena it all that so it gives you the power to do the forensics. Like you need the paperwork, the information, the documents, the numbers. Then the forensics accountants are like in a heyday. They're like, Oh, I love it. Right. Now I can do it.
Karen Covy: 35:15
Yeah, because the forensic accountants can only work with the information they have. They may be able to see, oh, here's a shady transaction. Oh, here, I think there might be something at this bank or that institution because they found a notation about it. But without the documents, that's as far as they can go. They need the subpoena to get the information in order to put the pieces, the puzzle pieces together to give to the court or to the client and say, here's where the money is, here's what's really going on.
Becky Sampson: 35:44
100%. And then there's a cog in the wheel with getting the attorneys to do the subpoenas. That's where I come in. I that's the solution. I mean, look, outsource it. And when that's all we do, even when I called my attorney that I had in Hawaii the other day, and I was telling him just how business was going, and you know, he knows I started this business. He goes, Becky, you should do this and you should do this. And I said, Nope, I only do subpoenas, sweetie. That's why my company is called Only Spoenas. That's it. Like that's all I do because I'm really good at it, and I know that I can provide a 100% compliant service for them. And there's other people out there, and just like I experienced with our, you know, paralegal, she's very experienced, and people can do them. Should they be doing them? No, they're a little bit too detailed. Most of them are too detailed for them to be doing them. So that's my thing is outsource it so that you know 100% that you're gonna get the information that you need to win your case.
Karen Covy: 36:48
That makes so much sense. You have just been a fountain of information here. Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom with us, I
Becky Sampson: 36:54
appreciate it because it's it is such a needful thing. And I just am so I'm so honored to be able to play this part in in uh people's journeys. And I know that if they can fight for what's fair and equitable, nothing more, don't play that game. I they they'll be able to uh divorce strong and be able to go on with their life and keep their heart soft during the whole process.
Karen Covy: 37:25
That's awesome. And Becky, before we wrap here, um you have a free gift that you offer to people too, if they're interested. Can you see that?
Becky Sampson: 37:34
So I right here. I was on the screen. You're pointing on the screen behind you. Um so that's my free download. And I, you know, as I was considering, like what would be of really good value for people that are going through divorce is understanding the divorce terms because so many people, the language of divorce, right? Um, if you don't understand what your attorney or the courts are saying when they're saying motion or subpoena or you know, custody evaluation, or there's a hundred divorce terms in there, specifically to a divorce case, that if you study it, you download it, study it, anything that you want to learn more about, the more you understand this, the better you're gonna understand your rights when it comes to your and that I'm all about your rights so that you have choices.
Karen Covy: 38:20
Yeah, I love that. So for those of you who are listening and can't get to the QR code that you can see on the screen right now, there will be everything is gonna be linked in the show notes. Becky, thank you again. I really appreciate your being.
Becky Sampson: 38:33
Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you for having me. And you're such a joy. I I had so much fun on when you were on my podcast as well.
Karen Covy: 38:41
So Well, thank you. Appreciate it. It was fun. So for those of you who are listening or watching, I hope you found today's conversation, I don't know about fun, but at least enlightening. Um, and if you have, you know, if you like it, if you want to hear more episodes just like this, do me a big favor. Give the episode a thumbs up, like, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and I look forward to talking with you all again next time.
