Settling Your Divorce Outside of Court (Ep. 42)

Justin Sisemore  00:00

Hey guys, we’re back to you today with In Your Best Interest. I’m Justin Sisemore, we got, as usual, Mary Maloney and Andrea Jones. We’re going to talk to you today about settling divorces outside of court. Really, the meat and potatoes of what we do and the different alternatives there. So Mary, why don’t you kick us off?

Mary Maloney  00:18

Well, I would say, first of all, it’s a lot of people don’t realize that that’s even a possibility, right? So, and being that most family law cases are settled out of court, can you kind of start out by explaining what that means in general, because there’s different types of things that you can do, but just maybe a broad overview of what that means to settle out of court and not just go hash it out in front of the judge.

Justin Sisemore  00:39

We actually brought some valuable merchandise, ie, the family code today.

Mary Maloney  00:44

Can we read through that?

Justin Sisemore  00:46

I could just read it to you guys.

Mary Maloney  00:47

It is fascinating.

Justin Sisemore  00:48

So mainly the things we need to think about when we’re talking about alternative dispute resolution is the terminology that lawyers have created. I call it just getting it done without going to court or settling. So we have, really three to four main vehicles that we use. One is what we call arbitration, which is kind of privatizing the courthouse, meaning that you’ve got an arbitrator that can actually come up with binding decisions. We also have mediation, which if the parties agree, and usually they’re in separate rooms, you got a mediator bouncing back and forth, they’ll come up with binding and irrevocable agreements. And if approved by the court, which nine times out of 9.9 times out of 10, the courts will approve. You also have informal settlement conferences, which basically that’s that part in the family code, that’s 6.604 and I’ll kind of break that down in just a minute. In the family code on informal settlement conferences and the do’s and don’ts with that, and we also have rule 11 agreements and just agreements between the parties, right? So some of those are kind of thrown into 6.604 which is the settlement conferences or informal settlement conferences, but there’s actually terminology that that’s really important there.

Mary Maloney  02:07

Okay, so let’s kind of take a deeper dive into some of those different types of Alternative Dispute Resolutions, the first one being mediation. And I think it’s interesting because in different states, mediation is approached differently, or even in different counties in Texas. So what does mediation mean for parties to a family law dispute in Texas?

Justin Sisemore  02:25

Yes, I think there’s this like wild conundrum that we’re either going to be really amicable or we’re just going to be at war with each other at all times. And the reality is, we’re really trying to get the dispute resolved. Family lawyers that are good are covered up with business both since COVID, before COVID and post COVID, certainly. So you know, the ability to be able to get something done without waiting a year or two to get to trial, in some cases, is always beneficial for several reasons. Number one, in mediation, you can’t wake up the next day and have buyer’s remorse when you sign that dotted line. You’re stuck. And what I do hear people say sometimes as well, I couldn’t afford litigation, so my attorney forced me into the mediated Settlement Agreement. You got to really remember, and everyone needs to know, mediation is signed by the parties and is irrevocable because all of those prerequisites. I’m not being forced, you’re not coerced, you’re not under duress, you don’t have you’re not drunk, you’re not on drugs, and that’s actually in the mediated settlement agreement in big bold letters. And so the good mediators are very good about the warnings that happen. And so sometimes what happens is somebody wakes up the next day and they’re like, Well, I felt pressured at the 11th hour. So mediation is, is the tool or vehicle that we use, probably, I would say, 90% of the time. And of the 90% 90 to 95% of the cases settle. So it’s a great it’s a great tool to be able to lock in and not revoke what the agreements are. You sit down in one place. You’re with your lawyer all day. You can talk through different scenarios. You can get evidence ready. It’s just a very good place to control the outcome.

Andrea Jones  04:05

Isn’t that ordered by court because you shared that before?

Justin Sisemore  04:07

Yeah. So, so most courts will actually have what’s called a pre trial scheduling order, which basically dictates our timelines or our KPIs or key performance indicators of like, how well the case is tracking. And I know clients, I had a client yesterday was like, Well, it’s been seven or eight weeks, and there was this lag time. And I know seven or eight weeks feels like an eternity, seven or eight days, seven or eight minutes in a family law case, but in court time or in lawyer time, because you have these gap periods, it’s really not that far out. And keep in mind, you’re trying to get your inventory, all the backup documents, because you’re going to get to mediation sometimes, and they’re like, Well, I don’t believe your numbers, so you’ve really got to kind of get the case ready, like you’re going to trial. But in civil litigation, cases where, and I know divorce and family law is civil litigation, but in real civil cases, big civil cases, you’re actually kind of present. Hearing, certainly opening statements and whatnot like you would be adversarial in trial. We don’t do that very often in family law, but some courts and some states like Colorado, for example, they mandate mediation before you can set a hearing unless there’s any family violence or emergency situations. So the courts are very much in understanding that even if you think you can’t reach an agreement, we’re going to try to make you do it. And most of the time, people get surprised by the the benifactor of the other side, even if there’s a lot of emotion.

Andrea Jones  05:28

So So for somebody who has never been through divorce, and hopefully many people don’t have but if you have to do it. So what does it look like, if I’ve never what does it look like? I go to a different place, I do it at my lawyer’s office. What does it look like? Mediation?

Justin Sisemore  05:42

It really does depend on the logistics of the parties. You know, I see lawyers try to posture sometimes where it’s like, over mediating their office, so we’re giving up ground. And usually it’s no, you just have more space, right? Or available space, like, we’re really trying to save costs. You know, our building, we’re lucky and fortunate to have two conference rooms that are on opposite sides of the building. You’re not crossing ways, going to bathrooms and all that stuff. So you know it’s, it’s, it’s important, because even when you exit the building, for example, you know it’s, there’s still fear there, there’s still angst, there’s still emotion. So it’s nice to really think through that. And you know, lawyers that we’ve worked with in the past, they know that there’s no advantage to being in my building or theirs, and a lot of mediators are former judges or former lawyers. They don’t have fixed facilities anymore, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go and pay for a fixed facility if we have one, free of charge, in my opinion, but that sense of comfort, like our other conference room, where the other side would go in, it doesn’t have my picture and all the stuff on the wall about how great I am. Like, I go,

Mary Maloney  06:48

does the other one?

Justin Sisemore  06:48

Oh, hell yeah, I walk in there. It’s like a shrine of some somebody. I’m like, Man, that that makes my client feel great, thatwe’re staring at that for eight hours, right? So I’m very careful to a degree on which which rooms will enter, and then things like bathrooms, how thick the walls are. I mean, I’m thinking about all this because that may be the last time I actually have face to face, or my team has face to face interaction with the client, and I want them to feel comfortable. Do they have good snacks?

Andrea Jones  07:14

snacks?

Andrea Jones  07:15

Good so I go into one room with my attorney, and then the opposing side goes into another room, and then the mediator goes in between. How does it work?

Justin Sisemore  07:23

Yeah, so, I mean, the formal, the formal way we do it in family law, is probably a little bit typical of most cases, but we don’t really, I don’t like to see, you know, parties go in the same room and stir up the emotion in the first five minutes. I don’t think it’s very helpful. And oftentimes there’s a lot of emotion just by the physical site. Because, you know, by the time you get to mediation, they may not have seen each other for 4, 5, 6, months sometimes. So it can that just one first visibility can stir up all the emotions. So we try to stay separate. I think the good mediators are very cautious of that, and they definitely understand it. And the mediator will ping back and forth. And so the petitioner or the person that brings the lawsuit is usually the person that starts in on the negotiations as far as the offer. And oftentimes we as the petitioner or movement have floated an offer already across the bow. And so we’re kind of like, well, we’re not going to keep doing it. We’re not going to negotiate against ourselves. Want to see what they’re after and what their what their issues are. So the first couple, you know, runs of that you’re going to get, what I call the dry run, the terrible offers and all that stuff. And so I just tell people, hey, just be patient. Just listen. Just hear this stuff for a minute. Don’t get mad. Don’t get up. Don’t get angry. Now, if we’re getting the runaround or that monkey business. I will pack my stuff up and jolt out of there with the client as quickly as they want to. If it’s just off the wall stuff and we’re not getting anywhere, somebody’s not even coming prepared. I mean, I’m not going to waste a client’s time and money on that,

Mary Maloney  08:54

right, for sure. So just kind of a recap quickly on mediation. I just want to in Texas A lot of times the judges will order mediation. And also, most of your cases do settle in mediation, correct, right?

Justin Sisemore  09:08

That’s correct. Yeah, probably I would say, I always tell people 90 to 95 but it’s maybe even more than that. You know, the child custody cases where you can’t saw a child in half, or the business valuations where, you know there’s house differential of the house value between the parties, because one party knows they’re going to have to write the other party a check. And you know they don’t sell the house per se, or they don’t have one party doesn’t have the financing ability. Those are where you see, you know, limited issue mediations happening to where sometimes you can resolve part of it and not all of it, but you’re still trying the process.

Andrea Jones  09:42

And the benefit, the way I understood it, the benefit in the mediation is I have a mediator that really knows the case by the time you get there, or learns the case there, and sees the differences. And really you had, you said, a whole day. So I have a whole day where the parties can negotiate, so everything is on the table. Compared to a judge who might only listen to you for an hour or two hours, and then make a decision, and maybe never read the whole file or has all the information. So is it? Is it better? That’s why it settles, because it’s a better solution.

Justin Sisemore  10:10

Well, so I to say that mediators are fully apprised of all of the facts in the case, is probably a bit of an overstretch there, you know, and that really depends on how much the lawyers on the front end are giving information to the mediator. What I try to do, especially in a property case, is get everything really organized and to where we can easily disseminate the information, transfer it to files and send it across the bow, and then, like I say, I’m a big spreadsheet guy, so if you have a 35 page inventory, I want to see it on one or two pages, and when we start to move items, I can do that via computer, but I’m a very visual learner. I like to have the documents printed out in front of me and not be staring at a computer screen. So the mediators themselves, what we got to remember is a lot of them are former judges. Okay, so you know, they know how I’ve been in front of them in a courtroom. They know they they feed off emotion, you know. And if you know, sometimes if a mediator is really trying to push an agenda, it can be to your clients, like, big time surprise. I mean, there’s some forceful mediators out there that were former judges, and they’ll, they’ll be very firm and stern, and the client’s like, wait a minute, I’m paying for this to be a peaceful process, and sometimes mediators have different styles or not, sometimes all the time, and so you’ve got to really know that going in. And I think prepping the client for just, hey, this, this is a tough judge. They’re going to say some things that their delivery may be off. Don’t take it personal, but do understand when they’re pushing you in an issue, they’re trying to get you to a space of agreement because they know what that other side is going to do or say, and they’re not allowed to share that across the the different rooms, unless you consent to it. So stylistically, you know, we really do think about the mediator themselves for sure.

Mary Maloney  11:54

Okay, well, let’s hop on over to rule 11 agreements. We talked about this extensively just the other day, and a lot of people like Andrea, you said a lot of people call and ask about it. You obviously deal with that all the time. You know what rule 11 agreements are, but the average person isn’t going to so we kind of want to talk about what those are and as it pertains to for family law and how they’re used.

Justin Sisemore  12:17

Okay? So rule 11 agreements are enumerated by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, rule 11. It’s basically just a formal, procedural element that allows lawyers to come up with agreements. It can be something as simple as you’re going to pay for the air conditioner bill or the injunction says you can’t go buy a car, but we’re going to make a rule 11 agreement that says you can so, you know, I don’t, I use the word CYA, but really what it is, is covering your basis to make sure that you know, if clients, you know, I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes clients don’t remember their agreements, and sometimes they just don’t honor them, and sometimes they just go against what they were going to do. And there’s not a meeting of the mind. So rule 11 agreements are a vehicle to really get everything down in paper that you’re orally negotiating, and then they can be enforceable, just like orders. Okay, the challenges, and you haven’t asked that question yet, but the challenges of rule 11 agreements, and one of the things that I get frustrated with a lot in my business is that rule 11 agreements in civil litigation and other areas of civil litigation are very, very strictly construed by other courts. In family courts, because we have child custody provisions that are required by the court to be approved by the court and required by the code to be approved by the court. There can be revocations, or you can revoke your agreement up until the entry of the order. Now, just because you can, the family code says you can, doesn’t mean, in my mind, that the court shouldn’t say you spent a bunch of money to get these agreements. You worked through this, you spent attorneys fees, you worked through the headache. But we’re just going to say because this case, said you could, and you’ve revoked it at the 11th hour. Now it’s fine, right? That’s where I get really frustrated, same promotions for new trial and various other elements like that.

Andrea Jones  14:09

So, but again, the rule 11 happened. So I start the divorce. I have temporary orders, and then the rule 11 basically is a way to not honor but to make different changes. For example, if you ordered that you cannot touch the investment accounts, but you need money, the rule 11 would say, we both agree that you can take money out there to buy a car, some that’s about the so it’s the second step. So there’s an order in place, a temporary order, and then the lawyers agree to do certain things that are actually according to order not allowed to do,

Justin Sisemore  14:38

yes and no. So the the rule 11, agreement can actually be the underlying document that gets you to a temporary order, or it can be you have a temporary order and you’re making agreements outside of that, or in addition to contradict the order. So you can use it both ways. But again, you know, I’ve, I’ve had cases where the clients are like, Why am I paying to do the order? It’s, I’ve already got. This a rule 11 agreement, and my answer is, because they can revoke it until it’s a valid order, and you can still modify an order. You can still file to go do that, but then the burden of proof changes, right? You got to show that the orders are unworkable. Well, that’s a different standard than, hey, we tried that. Or, you know, we haven’t put anything into writing yet, into order. So I like to get them reduced to orders, or I like to have mediated settlement agreements if we’re dealing with or disposing of final issues, but even in temporary, I mean, some of my cases have, you know, 20 and $30,000 a month coming in spousal support and so you know, and you’re paying all these expenses, and we’re going and running businesses and acquiring assets. So I want to make sure that you know those rule 11 agreements are binding and enforceable, and you’re not just going to wake up tomorrow because you have kids attached. And you found this little case that says you can revoke it at any time, so taking that extra step is sometimes necessary,

Mary Maloney  15:50

right? And I think you were saying too the other day that it’s really important that when you’re writing the attorney is writing those agreements, that they make them as, I guess, unrevocable as possible, right? I mean,

Justin Sisemore  16:03

yeah. I mean, I don’t know how many more times we need to write disagreement as binding and not subject to revocation. We put it in big bold all caps. I mean, the family code is like, has a bunch of these, this language that needs to be in there. The challenge, of course, is when you have kids, you know, the court approves it. So you know, to me, the property stuff should be binding and you should have enforceability. And I’m not saying it at all times. I’ll never enforce it if you revoke it. But what I see, but most often, is somebody gets frustrated right before trial, and they go, All right, well, I’m just taking all my deal off the table. And so that’s where I’m like, No, we’re gonna pop a mediator in here real quick. We’re gonna pay him a couple 100 bucks, and they’re gonna sign it. You’re not gonna do that to our client if, if that’s happening, right?

Mary Maloney  16:48

Are there any other like, just briefly, can you give some examples of rule 11 agreements that are kind of common,

Justin Sisemore  16:55

sure, Discovery extensions. So you’ve got a discovery deadline, you’ve got an agreement that, you know, maybe you’ve got 30 days to respond, but you’re going to extend the timetable to to respond. And again, that’s providing the paper trail so that when the other side says, Well, I didn’t agree to that, my attorney didn’t know that. I didn’t, they didn’t talk to me about it. Attorneys can use rule 11 agreements to make deals. And I want to be clear, part of the reason you hire an attorney is to make a deal on your behalf, because there’s emotion involved, and you might trip over your own shoes a little bit. So if opposing counsel this happened to me last week, my dad died, okay, and I’ve got people, well, I need the discovery today. Well, I I’m not excited about going into court and letting them know what a jerk somebody was, but I absolutely will. And the rule 11 agreement was just, hey, listen, you know, his dad passed. He’s got a funeral. I can’t get to answering all this stuff today. Would you extend it? No, well, we’re gonna have some fun now, right? And that’s when you really awaken that Sleeping Giant, if you’re, if you’re the client that, like, really wants to just go, you know, I’m going to say balls to the wall on everything. If you’re that client, remember that your lawyer’s job is to take some of the emotion out of it and think like the court will think. And so you got to, you got to really try to use these, these avenues to solve the problem. I mean, the black robe doesn’t want to see you in there all day long, every day, over every issue. And they’re not going to come through with a scalpel. So we can come through as attorneys with a scalpel instead of a meat cleaver, and carve out some specific details that matter

Andrea Jones  18:28

makes sense in the hospital and they can’t deliver the stuff. Then there’s normal thing to say, hey, we give them a little bit longer time to do

Andrea Jones  18:34

to

Justin Sisemore  18:35

Yep. And then things like, you know, refinancing the house, you know, selling property, allowing somebody to go and take a loan out, buying an asset, you know, moving a key member out of a company. Those are all things that I, you know, I like to just have a paper trail. And even with a client, I like to memorialize our conversation, because, you know, eight months later, when you’re mad about something else that was out of our control. And you say, well, y’all haven’t done anything for me, right? And that that’s very rare, but it does happen when people get that that mindset. And I like to be able to go back to all the emails, and, you know, I had a conversation two days ago on this very issue with a client, and they they were very, very upset. And I, believe me, I’m the first to admit when we make a mistake, we try to make it right, but there’s some things that we just didn’t do, and sometimes it just gets distorted or confused. And so for me, having that paper trail and a rule 11 is a great example of that doesn’t make me say, Hey, I’m right and you’re wrong and you’re an idiot and your perception is wrong, but it lets me say, Hey, this is why we did this, and this is how we did this, and it provides that paper trail to let the client sometimes see, okay, maybe I was a little caught up in something else.

Mary Maloney  19:43

Okay. So there are different types of settlement agreements that that do come into play, informal settlement agreements or revocal settlement agreements, and those can occur at different stages in the legal process. So can you kind of touch on some of the other key ones that. Happen in a family law case.

Justin Sisemore  20:01

Yeah. So when I talked about the immediate settlement agreement, you can create binding and irrevocable informal settlement agreements, the parties can do it. The family code actually says the parties to a suit for dissolution of marriage may agree to one or more informal settlement conferences and may agree that the settlement conference may be conducted with or without the presence of the parties or attorneys, if any. Okay, so if I’m a paying client and I’m going wait a minute, I can do a deal. Okay, that that seems really nice at first glance, because you’re tired of paying lawyers. You don’t want the lawyers involved in it. You think they’re muddying the water, whatever the whatever’s going through your head. And if those are the case, I’d highly encourage you to sit down with your lawyer and try to just kind of hammer that out and get out of the relationship if you don’t feel like you’re getting that treatment, or if you feel like you’re getting the incorrect treatment. But when it comes to parties reaching deals, I never I love when parties reach a deal. It’s awesome. I mean, I’ve had cases where there’s 40 million bucks, and the client, the client, spends 25 or $3,500 on the case. Well, that’s why wouldn’t you want to do more work? Well, we, there’s, we have 300 people that will fight about the weather, right? I say that all the time, but for real. And so if we can utilize our team members to just help paper up the deal, that’s way better than having to listen to people scream about whatever’s going on and the hardships that they may face, and you know that they’re getting the deal they want. Now, what I don’t like is when somebody pushes somebody into a deal, manipulates them, has been manipulating them for years, and they say, you need to take this or else I’m going to do this. That gun barrel to your head, right? So what I tell people is that’s fine. Take a breath. Let’s take a minute. I don’t like to ever see a party feeling like they need to do a deal without their attorney present. It’s just bad business. I love the fact that when you have no assets and no kids, and I very much appreciate the idea of being able to do things yourself, but there are so many intricacies that are involved in these cases. When you try that you really get in a tough situation quickly,

Andrea Jones  22:08

and you shared that before. Sometimes you do it yourself, or you really do it yourself, and it’s not enforceable, meaning, if there’s something wrong in there, I can’t go back and I can’t force the other party to actually do it or do an enforcement so it’s important.

Andrea Jones  22:19

You said, and you said, before a divorce, once the divorce decree is final, you can’t go back and just change it, right? It’s not that easy to say, like, oh, once the divorce decrees entered, so I make the agreement, it’s entered by the court, then it’s final. I can’t go back and said, oops, unless it was fraud.

Justin Sisemore  22:19

Well, that’s why I brought up that. You know, you can do it with or without your attorneys all the time. I get, hey, we’ve reached a deal. We’re ready to do this deal. I’m like, Okay, well, we don’t have a sworn inventory. We don’t have discovery. I can’t sign my name to a deal without sworn inventory unless it’s very, very different circumstances, because if you miss something, and you put that all encompassing language in there about they keep their bank accounts, they keep their credit card statements, and all that you’ve divided the assets. So these informal settlement conferences all the time. When I get get them back, most of the time, they’re Hey, did you think about this? What are we going to do about this? Well, I don’t know. We didn’t talk about that. I’m not trying to stir the pot, but there’s still stuff to resolve, right, right?

Justin Sisemore  23:15

Undoing divorce decrees very challenging. There’s actually provisions in the family code that you know, if you, if you sign to agreement as to form and substance, you know what that means, as far as your right to appeal. And we could go on for days about that, but, but the idea there is that, let’s say you want to change something with respect to property. Well, there’s a period of time, it’s called plenary power, and if the court loses plenary power, you can’t go back. They can’t go back and substantively change the the the agreements or the decree, okay, they can go back and make clerical corrections and they can enforce the decree, but making changes post plenary power is not within the court’s discretion or purview, so they can’t do it.

Andrea Jones  23:54

And we had people calling absolutely, I have a divorce decree, and then I want to change it. And that’s not that easy on

Justin Sisemore  24:00

the cabin. The cabin, two months ago sat on two pieces, a lot and one, and they just said, you’re awarded the cabin. This was a $2 million property, and parties just well, we’re going to do this ourselves, because we don’t want to spend 10 grand. And I get it, believe me, I if I can save $1 I’ll save $1 but we’re halfway through that, and we’ve just now got the parcels of land bifurcated into two separate parcels, then we go decide who gets what. So I mean, it’s like, what did you save there? And you don’t have jurisdiction over the people or the property, so it’s harder, right?

Mary Maloney  24:33

Well, my final question here kind of dovetails into that, because we really want to talk about why it’s important to get legal advice. When you are going through a family law matter and you want to settle it out of court, like you said, people can tie DIY perhaps, you know, but it’s really usually a very good idea to get legal advice. Can you kind of explain that?

Mary Maloney  24:55

Yeah, you know, there’s so many resources out there that I really love the fact that we’re. Using AI, and we’re using Google tools, and we’re, you know, Googling Google a petition right now. Go Google a petition. Go Google a counter petition. Go Google an answer. Go Google a divorce decree. You can pull all that stuff and see much of the content and the work product, in my mind, is some of that. That’s a very, very small fraction of what we do, most of what we do is the behind the scenes to back up and verify values and amounts and horse trade within accounts of what’s really best for the client. So that’s they say just and right division. We’re not allowed to say fair, but it’s just and right division the marital assets. So if you’ve got you know, let’s say wife is non breadwinner, and husband was the breadwinner for all these years, and he’s got this business, and All there is is one house, you know, that she can’t afford, and you know, it’s a multi million dollar house, and he’s going to go on with this business that he started with his parents before they started, before they got married, or he’s a doctor, and he makes a million bucks a year, and she’s been a stay at home and taking care of the family. And I’m not using men and women there. We can interchange those, but, but, but those situations create a significant imbalance of one party’s ability to navigate the financial waters post divorce. So that’s the stuff. That’s the meat and potatoes of what I’m looking for when I’m doing these divisions and in mediation, unlike in a courtroom, you know, where I’m just chopping it up, I can go, Hey, you do this. But we want, you know, potentially contractual alimony over here. We want some maintenance claims over here. We want to balance the tax burden here. I can do those things. They’re not even in the confines of the purview of the court, and that’s where the informal settlement conferences really, you get the bang for your buck, man.

Andrea Jones  26:43

Look how big this book is. Because the reason you guys go to law school for a long time, it’s like, safety Google. What kind of illness?

Justin Sisemore  26:49

Well, this is just one of them too. This is just the plus one. Yeah, plus plus. And then civil procedure and all.

Justin Sisemore  26:56

Because I look

Andrea Jones  26:56

Because I look at laugh, and people do like, Oh, I’m gonna go to Google and see what illness I have. Is the same thing. I mean, good luck. You can try to figure it out, but maybe you need to go to a doctor and do that in the same thing with lawyers, you need to kind of get the advice and not to do it yourself, even though it seems appealing.

Justin Sisemore  27:10

But this lady that hired me yesterday, and she’s super cool, goes into court and she’s like, Hey, I didn’t want to bring all this stuff up about my husband. He had a lawyer. He got primary, this dude has three DWIs. He he has guns in his house, and he is drinking like a fish. She was like, Well, I didn’t want to bring that up, but I did ask him the question, like, do you think that somebody with three DWIs has an issue with alcohol? I did ask him that, and they objected, because the objection is just relevance. Who cares what you think on that, unless you’re going to forecast the next question, which is, well, you have three DWIs, what do you think you’ve got to lay the foundation? And it’s not that she’s dumb, but now, now we’re in Wise County, right? Or Wise or some other counties. Be careful. We’re in Wise or maybe some other county. And the temporary hearing has already been had, so getting the court to go back and say, All right, Justin, now you’re here. Thank God. Let’s just reopen this case after I’ve already almost heard nothing is the reality. But now these kids are in a tough spot, because I was gonna DIY and, I mean, I try to DIY my bathroom walls took me twice the amount of time, twice the money. So sometimes that DIY needs a little not the IY.

Mary Maloney  28:27

So finally, Justin, if there’s one reason people should listen to this podcast today, what would you say that that would be?

Justin Sisemore  28:34

I mean, I think at the end of the day, what you need to remember in one short thing is, you can do it yourself. I want people to do it yourself if you can, but don’t, don’t waste, don’t waste a minute of trying to do that without doing the consult. Do not do that. It’s such an easy part of the process. And I will absolutely steer them if they can go do it themselves, because I’m not going to, we’re not going to add value, right, right? So that’s my one piece of advice, I guess.

Mary Maloney  29:05

All right. Well, if you would like to get a hold of the Sisemore Law Firm, you can reach Justin and his team at 817-336-4444, or visit www.lawyerdfw.com We also invite you to follow a podcast and share it with friends who might find it helpful. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.