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A Wiser Retirement®
209. Alimony vs Child Support: What are the differences?
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On this episode of A Wiser Retirement™ Podcast, Casey Smith and Missie Beach, CFP®, CDFA® are joined by guest, Leslie O'Neal, Family Law Attorney. They talk about the differences between alimony and child support, the factors that determine alimony, different types of alimony, and why alimony is not as common anymore.
Podcast Episodes Referenced:
- Ep 160: How Finances Affect Divorce
- Ep 153: How to Recover Financially after Divorce
YouTube Video Referenced:
- Will I have access to money when I file for divorce?
- What is a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst®?
Other Links:
- Contact Leslie O'Neal: https://odelloneal.com/our-team/leslie-oneal/
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Alimony and Child Support
Speaker 1I've seen a situation where it was written in the pay for college . Then the daughter made some poor decisions , eventually got herself together four or five years later and then it was like , hey , I want to go to college now and the dad's , like you , squandered that .
Speaker 2Yeah , you're 30, . You're 32 now .
Speaker 1She sued him and she won , and she had to pay for college . Welcome to your wiser retirement podcast . We believe the best financial advice should always be conflict free . I'm your host , casey Smith . Joining me today is Missy Beach , the world's best financial advisor , and Leslie O'Neill , a family law attorney , here to talk to us about alimony and child support and all the things that men love to talk about .
Speaker 2Or women Of course , of course .
Speaker 1Casey , that was sarcasm . Missy , let's rein in . We're going to start the fight right now . My favorite topic Leslie , this is your first time on the podcast , welcome .
Speaker 4Thank you , thank you guys , for having me .
Speaker 1Let's let you introduce yourself from your firm .
Speaker 4All right . Well , good afternoon listeners . I'm Leslie O'Neill . I am a partner with Odell O'Neill , Hungerford and Blanchard . I've been practicing family law for 16 years . We do all kinds of different areas of the law , but that's . My primary focus is family law , which includes the issues of alimony and child support , so I've been haggling with those issues for quite some time now , so hopefully I can share some information that's helpful to your listeners .
Speaker 1We'll start with a good story . Do we have any good stories ? Oh gosh , yeah , I'm sure it's so clean and easy Every case , right ? Leslie I thought that the law is like the wild wild west of law and then , at the same time , you guys have to like reign in all these emotions with the people that you're working with .
Speaker 4Yes , oh people , there's a lot of bad behavior in family law . I've heard judges say that criminals and in their courtroom are bad people at their best and family law litigants in their courtroom are good people at their worst . And that's nice to say it . You know people tend to , you know , get a little paranoid , get a little uneasy when they're going through a divorce , and that's kind of natural . You're litigating . It's really the only time you're litigating against someone that you once swore to love and honor and cherish . So it's an emotional area for folks . So a funny story , I guess , was an alimony story . It was a pretty nasty divorce and the husband went on a trip with his new girlfriend right after the divorce and mailed his alimony check from the Champs Elysees in Paris and he was with a postcard and had his girlfriend sign the postcard . So yeah , wow Right , a little salt , oh salt in the wound .
Speaker 1But did the check cash .
Speaker 4Check cash Right . You know the important God's got to focus on what's important .
Speaker 2That's right . The check arrived on time for the horse to come , that's what I would have said Exactly Did the check cash . Did the check clear yeah . I guess , leslie , one thing that everybody wants to know is you know what's the general rule of thumb and I try to tell people like I don't really think there is one .
Speaker 4That's actually a surprisingly accurate answer .
Speaker 4I will start with alimony , because that's just we call it , the wild , wild west when it comes to alimony , I will say it's sort of a dying concept a little bit , because you've got more and more . It was traditionally awarded to women not always not required to be awarded to women , but traditionally , when you have traditional families that you think of from 30 , 40 years ago , the men would go out and work and the women would . The women would stay home and rear the children and forgo any sort of career opportunities for that . So that was traditionally who was receiving alimony ? Women that stayed home and reared the children . Nowadays there are just a lot more women in the workforce and there are a lot more opportunities for women in the workforce and there are a lot more female judges that are working and not receiving a payment from anyone else other than their employer . So I would say it's become .
Speaker 4You know , I started practicing law 16 years ago and it was a lot easier to get alimony . It was a lot more discussed topic back then Now so it's more of a buzzword . Men bristle at the concept of alimony and I think women are starting to realize a little bit more and more that you know when they go see a good , seasoned lawyer they're going to hear that it's not quite as easy as it used to be , to get alimony , and not only that , often , particularly if you're still , you know , at an age where you can work , you're sort of expected to work . So it's very dependent on your judge . Also , it's decided by someone who's just a person that puts their pants on every day like we do , and they can consider quite literally any relevant factor . That's how broad it can be .
Speaker 4Any relevant factor conduct , length of the marriage , financial resources of the parties , the health of the parties , the separate property of the parties If one party has , you know , $5 million in inheritance sitting over here in a bank account that's not going to be divided because it's that they're separate property that could play a role in whether someone needs alimony the standard of living you hear a lot about that in the community . So there's a lot of different factors . But you're absolutely right when you tell your clients it's , it's , it runs the gamut . It's hard to really nail down exactly what an alimony number would be . It boils down to does the payor have the ability to pay it and does the receiver need it ? So that's the if . You gave a simple , simple answer . It's based on need and ability to pay . Wow .
Speaker 1So the more resources you've had , it sounds like , the more clear cut it is .
Speaker 4It's really easy to argue about alimony when you've got a lot of money to work with . I will say there's a lot of upper middle class families that don't just have a ton of disposable income . They live a really nice lifestyle but they send kids to private school and they have nice cars and they want to go on nice vacations and they have a little bit of savings and a little bit of retirement . But when you take that and you separate households and now you're taking those same paychecks or paycheck and sustaining two separate households and paying lawyers and all of a sudden there's not a whole lot of money to go around , and that's when it gets a lot harder to negotiate alimony . When there's just those realities , when you've got somebody that makes you know is the CEO at Coke , they're going to pay a lot of alimony because it's a drop in the bucket you know , and those are kind of the frankly the easier cases to negotiate .
Speaker 1Yeah , so I was thinking . So what's the difference between that and child support ?
Speaker 4So child support I mean natural child support is for the benefit of the child and I would say it is a lot easier to calculate child support because we do have a calculator and a formula for child support . You're going to put in what with everything . It's . That's the easy part , but there can be complications . First you're going to put in the father and mother's gross monthly income . That's really easy when you have a postal worker and a teacher because they get W2s and you can figure out their income relatively easy . Easily when people are self employed or they work on commission or they have a bonus , that might come , might not come . That's when it becomes little harrier . There's little more to unpack there . But we start with that . What are the parents gross monthly incomes ? Then we determine who's paying health insurance for the child . That number goes into the calculation .
Speaker 4For smaller kids we have work related childcare . That can be very costly depending on the age of the children , so that can go into the child support worksheet . Other exceptional expenses , such as private school costs , things that are particularly expensive , extracurricular activities those can also be factored into the child support calculation . Parenting time can be factored in . So if a lot of times these days , folks are doing 50-50 custody arrangements not always , but that's also becoming more common because you've got two working parents that need the help and can't really do the traditional visitation schedule that we used to see decades ago .
Speaker 4So because of that , a lot of times the person that has more income is thinking well , why would I pay the full child support amount if I've got the children 50% of the time ? So a parenting time deviation is also something that can factor in . So what should be simple ? The idea is we're going to just have this calculator and it's going to make it really really simple , but there are a lot of other factors that can complicate things , but they're at least . With respect to child support . There's a formula and it's also based on the number of children and so forth , whereas alimony is a little more vague and child support is only until age 18 .
Speaker 2Is that correct ?
Speaker 4It's until age 18 or when the child graduates from high school , whichever occurs later . So a lot of times . But if the child is still in high school by the time they reach age 20 , it terminates at that point . That's usually special needs children or a child that was held back . A greater to that goes beyond the age of 18 . Usually it extends until they actually graduate from high school .
Speaker 2So , leslie , do you have any advice for post high school education ? Because I know you know those kids are no longer minors and every parent is well intentioned in saying , oh yeah , I'll provide for his or her care throughout college . But I feel like that's always a point of conflict in a lot of these debates or discussions or working out agreements , because no one wants anything in writing once the child is over 18 . It is a bit of a sticky wicked .
Speaker 4I tend to caution folks not to put anything in writing . Also . Number one the judge can't do it . A court loses jurisdiction over a child when they become an adult . So as soon as they turn 18 and graduate from high school , the court loses jurisdiction . So there is not going to be a court , a judge , in the state of Georgia that's going to order anybody to pay for college at all . It's not going to happen .
College Clause in Divorce Agreements
Speaker 4However , parties can agree and negotiate amongst themselves to be bound by an agreement with respect to college . We see that in a lot of settlement agreements For whatever reason . Hey , I'll give you the tax dependency exemptions if you'll agree to be bound for college . I know you can't get that from the judge , but you're also not going to get the tax dependency exemption . So let's make a deal here and get that . So we see that a lot and a lot of times people want to pay for their kid's college and they are embroiled in some nasty divorce and it's important to the other side that that be included in the agreement . So it gets included because they're like you know what ? I was going to do that anyway . So we actually do see it a lot a college clause . Once it's in there . The court can enforce it .
Speaker 4So they can enforce it . At that point the parties have contracted with one another . The courts adopted that agreement , so the court can enforce it by way of a contempt if they need to . I've just seen a lot of horror stories with these . First , you don't know what your financial circumstances are going to be 10 years from now . What if the other person makes four times as much as you and you've bound yourself to 50% of college expenses ? What if you and your child are at odds with one another and they , you know , aren't doing the right things and getting the right grades and you don't have the capacity to be like .
Speaker 4You know what . You're coming home and going to this school or going to community college for a semester . To shape up , you know it almost deflates your ability to be a parent to some degree as well . But primarily the changes in financial circumstances . That's a big one . You just don't know where you're going to be . You can always agree to do it down the road Malnxt yourselves voluntarily , but because a court can't do it anyway , I caution people about agreeing to be bound . I try to talk about let's figure out a way to set up a 529 and maybe do some mandatory distributions into that instead . So maybe if there's some resource or even a bank account we were going to divide this bank account , you know what ? Let's go ahead and earmark that for college now , rather than divide it between the two of you . That'll be in advance towards some college expenses . So that's another way to skin the cat .
Speaker 1I've seen a situation where it was written in they pay for college . Then the daughter made some poor decisions , eventually got herself together four or five years later and then it was like , hey , I want to go to college now and the dad's , like you , squandered that .
Speaker 4Yeah , you're 32 now .
Speaker 1She sued him and she won , and she had to pay for college .
Speaker 4I saw a very similar situation .
Speaker 1I think that was in Floyd County actually .
Speaker 4I had one in Cobb County where the child got involved and sued one of the parents . I mean so it can really go sideways if you're not careful and you just don't know what the future holds .
Speaker 2So that's a really good point and I have used that technique that you just mentioned some random joint account that they're just going to split down the middle and say , hey , let's carve this off for college and let it purple .
Speaker 1Is there a situation where you'd want to do all this in one county versus another county ?
Speaker 4Yeah , I mean , there are different , every case is .
Speaker 1You do it in a county that you're living in . Correct . One of you is living in a different country .
Speaker 4Yes , Generally you file a divorce action in the county where the defendant resides . There are times when people live in two different counties and you kind of try to jockey . For I'm going to wait and let them file , because I'd rather litigate in my county versus theirs . There are certain counties , I would say , that are more known for being financially generous to the wife or more , you know , stingy with money when it comes to alimony and those types of things . I would definitely say that the county matters . It's really the judges that matter . I would say the more remote you get this is a very general rule , broad , I'm painting with a broad brush here but the more remote you get , the more likely you're to find more traditional kind of old school judges . The closer to the city you get , the more you know liberal ideas you're going to have . So that that's kind of how we approach jurisdiction , but we're our hands are mostly tied , not always , but most of the time they are .
Speaker 2So , leslie , what are your thoughts on who files first ? Because sometimes parties are hesitant to file . They think , oh , maybe you know he was wrong , she was wrong , so he should file first . She should .
Speaker 4I think people feel too strongly about that issue and put place too much significance on it . I tell people that a lot I does it matter .
Alimony and Child Support Modification
Speaker 4There's a small , I would say negligible advantage to being the plaintiff , and the only reason I don't want to overstate it because it's really negligible , but the only reason is you just get to go first , you get to argue first , the court hears from you first . If you're ever in court , you put up your case first . A lot of times judges kind of start making up their minds early on and it's once they start to think through this you know these , through these ideas that it's hard to change their minds later on .
Speaker 4So if I had my choice , I would say I would rather be the plaintiff , but I would never advise people to just rush to the courthouse to beat the other person to file . Don't the other . If you , if the other side ends up paying the filing fee , there you go . You just saved 300 bucks . So I don't think it's such , and most cases , frankly , don't end up in court . So that's that's why I say it's a pretty negligible advantage .
Speaker 1Yeah , One of the questions we had going into this was talking about can alimony be modified ? I would add to that question child support , because I see situations where clients are divorced . They're supposed to be 50 , 50 custody , but yet 75% of the time kids with mom . But yet why do we get 50 , 50 ? Why was that negotiated ? I assume it's negotiated because they don't have to pay alimony if the , if the ink or the child support because the income was very similar , but so it's 50 , 50 , then no one has to pay anybody . But in the end , if the kids were with mom 75% of the time , shouldn't mom be getting something ?
Speaker 4for that . Yes , yes .
Speaker 1But then to go back and have multiple points here but then to go back and reopen that case is on , what cost you ? $20,000 probably .
Speaker 4Oh gosh , that depends , I mean . I think it depends on the situation , the other lawyer in the case , who the judge is ? How , how simple the finances are .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 4You know , if I like my example earlier , if everybody's a W2 wage earner , it makes it a lot easier to negotiate to figure out the child support number .
Speaker 1Right , but I'm saying after the fact after the fact .
Speaker 4Modifications are big cases .
Speaker 1So so negotiate well the first time I agree .
Speaker 4Negotiate well the first time . But I will say a lot of people come back to modify and both . It's a it's a different approach for child support versus alimony Child support . I often , I often discourage people from modifying child support because you'd be surprised as people come in and say , well , so-and-so has a a new job and they're making a lot more money . That's usually the reason is the other person's making more money , because people tend to make more money Every now and then somebody lost their job . But it's what . The dirty reality is that once they get a new job , they're going to be right back to the same income level .
Speaker 4So you're going to end up kind of spending money on a very short-term problem . So there's a cost . There's always a cost-benefit analysis , but with child support , a lot of times I'll put in a new number . Okay , let's first of all . They don't know what the other person's new income is .
Speaker 1They're guessing or basing it on About to say how they even know that Off of what the kids have said and the new car
Speaker 4and you know that kind of so we're . We're having to totally speculate on what the new income is . But I say , okay , let's just assume it's this number . Okay , let's put that in the child support worksheet . It moves the actual number not as much as you might think .
Speaker 4So a lot of times when I'll run these hypotheticals , even these kind of extreme hypotheticals , and I'm like look , you're going to end up saving . You know , if you reduce your child support , you're going to end up saving 300 bucks but you're going to end up spending 10 grand to get the $300 in savings . This goes to your kids , you know . Otherwise it goes to me and you know so . A lot of times I find myself discouraging .
Speaker 4A big time when , when child support is modified is if somebody's relocating and we're now dealing with some brand new big expense like visitation related travel expenses , or if custody is changing . All of a sudden we've got kids were with dad and now they're going to be with mom , or vice versa . We got to modify child support . Or one child's coming off the worksheet and graduating and we had , you know , four kids in the worksheet . Now we need to redo it with three . Those are the times where you really need to modify child support . Other times it's got to be a pretty drastic change in the financial circumstances . Or here's what happens in your scenario you file your lawsuit and you say I want to modify child support because you're not exercising all the parenting time . They're just going to start exercising all their parenting time .
Speaker 1It's just an invitation to give up time with your kids , so there's always a downside .
Speaker 4Alamony is modified quite often as well . I think when negotiating a divorce case and you're talking about alamony and division of assets , I caution people a lot about the fact that alamony is is modifiable and it's a lot more vulnerable , like if you get assets , you're gonna have those assets . It's a bird in the hand , that's not . You're not gonna have to give those up . Asset division is a done deal as soon as the divorce decree is signed . Alimony is not alimony can be modified or terminated . Reasons generally are it's generally terminated if the recipient remarries . So I tell a lot usually it's women , not always . But I say you know what this is going to chill at your dating life because all of a sudden you wanna go remarry and there goes all this alimony that we fought so hard to get . So let's try to get more of the assets and less alimony . If you think you're gonna be and they always say no , no , I'm not gonna be dating and then six months later you know they're calling me and how can he come stay with me ?
Speaker 4Can we move in together ? You know that kind of stuff . So I advise people about that . It can be terminated based on that . It can be modified based on an increase in income .
Speaker 4A lot of times the recipient of alimony is at a zero income level , it's not making any money , and so what happens is and I've started to build this clause into my agreements but what happens is they're making zero . Then , as soon as the divorce is over , they're like well , yeah , that's just great , I'm getting $6,000 a month in alimony , but that's not enough to live off it . I need to go get a job . They go do it . Everyone kind of wants them to do . They go get a job making $50,000 a year , and all of a sudden the payer of the alimony files a modification and says her income has gone up . I wanna reduce my alimony .
Speaker 4And you're thinking well , wait a second . We all knew I was gonna go get a job , didn't we ? So I've started building that into my agreements and saying we are all agreeing on this , particularly if we reach an agreement . We're agreeing on this alimony number with the expectation that the recipient is going to go get a job up to this threshold . So as long as her income stays below $60,000 a year , that husband waves his right or payer waves his right to come back and modify based on her increase in income . I say all this to say . Alimony is a very vulnerable thing to be awarded . It can very easily go away with even the most subtle of changes .
Speaker 2In what percent of cases do you think alimony is even awarded anymore ? Do you see it declining ?
Speaker 4I definitely see it declining for the reasons I described earlier . The more women in the workforce , just more forward thinking on the bench .
Speaker 2But less than half more than half .
Speaker 4There's different types so I guess I'll talk to that . Speak on that . There's different types of alimony . Rehabilitative alimony is probably the most common type of alimony we see , and that is your traditional . I either didn't work for a period of years or worked to a lesser degree so that you could go travel and stay out and go to networking events and really advance your career . So that's rehabilitative and the idea is we're gonna pay this to you until you can get back out in the workforce . That's just getting awarded less often because there's just a lot more working women out there .
Divorce, Alimony, and Financial Planning
Speaker 4Lumpsum alimony is when a lot of times courts don't want to award alimony . Necessarily if there are assets that we could say you know what , I'm gonna give her these assets instead of alimony . They don't like people to be tethered together financially . Number one , number two judges also know if I award alimony , I'm inviting a modification , potentially I'm inviting more litigation , whereas if I just give her more of the assets now and no alimony , they're done , they're not coming back to me . So that's one less case I have to deal with . So that's lump sum alimony . I would say you know I can't really put a percentage on it . I would you know , maybe 30 to 40% of cases , but it's definitely less common .
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Speaker 1I feel like that we have encountered more bad divorce attorneys than we have found good ones . We've talked about this in prior podcasts , but we had a client who , unfortunately for us , we ended up a couple of divorces . But they're both clients here , but they don't want to leave here , so we have to split the parties down the hall Got it Firewall , firewall between the two of you .
Speaker 1But I was in a case several years ago where new client says hey , you take on my ex-wife . And we're like , yeah sure , we have to do that . And I'm meeting with her and he's got equity in this business with partners . It's a $50 million company and so I'm expecting that she's going to have some type of not equity , but some type of payout from that , and we just need to restructure some things , get her back on track . So she has a list of assets which is really not much , and I said so how was the equity in the company divided ? And she says , oh , I didn't get any of that . And I said , well , why not ? And she said , well , my attorney said that it's easy to manipulate those numbers and for what I'd have to pay him it wasn't worth it $50 million .
Speaker 4Oh no , yeah , oh no , I mean is valuation , could ?
Speaker 5not be done .
Speaker 1Yeah , that is really surprising , and I was like wow , and it's one of those cases where you can't say anything really , because you can't change anything at that point .
Speaker 4No , it's not going to help .
Speaker 1So you just kind of keep it to yourself . But I was like , wow , that's a really bad attorney . And then we've encountered others that we see the end product and we're like somebody here really screwed this up and didn't see the big picture . But I have a thing and I didn't bring you all the way across the square in Marietta to offend you but I have a thing that attorneys are really bad at math .
Speaker 4That's true . We're not financial people . That's true , except billing , except billing . It's the one time we got the billing down pat right .
Speaker 1But sometimes I sit here and I'll look at these numbers and I'm like , why is no one else seeing this ? Yeah , no , that's very true .
Speaker 4I mean honestly , that's why generally , if it's a larger asset case , we're going to hire financial experts to assist us . We don't know there's a lot of accounting issues that underlie divorce agreements that we can't advise capital gains and the restructuring of businesses and whatnot . So I mean generally , if it's a high asset divorce case , we're going to hire a financial advisor to assist us or an appraiser for a business . The downside is it's just folks don't want to spend that much money . Often you're doing a balance . They're already having to pay us a lot of money , so you have to weigh the value of the estate . I mean , if I knew that there were any time there's a business , I'm going to get it appraised or I'm going to strongly advise my client in writing if they declined to pay for that that that's not their best interest .
Speaker 1But even that is a little subjective sometimes , because I look at what industry says a business is worth and then what these business appraisers say and you look at it and like , do you know anything about business ? I've never seen one that I agreed with .
Speaker 1Really no , and I don't see a lot I don't see what you see obviously . I've maybe seen 10 in my entire career , but whenever they came across . There is subjective determination and I'm just like there's one case we worked on together . I came up to your office and I was like this isn't right . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 4I know , and a lot of times we have what we call the battle of the appraisers .
Speaker 2Each side hires one .
Speaker 4And the person that the appraiser that represents the business owner miraculously is appraised really low and then the person that's appraised . The party that's getting bought out has a really high number , and so we have to figure out how to meet in the middle or go to trial and see who's the more credible expert .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's true , I guess in a trial case . But that's expensive too .
Speaker 4That's very expensive I just go back to .
Speaker 1There's so many things you can hide in a business P&L and when you stare at them all day long you go , ok , well , that's where they're hiding that and that's where you kind of see it right .
Speaker 2That doesn't make sense . How could that be ?
Speaker 4Well , and actually the statute on child support addresses that . Small business owners and people that are not small business owners , but people that receive self-employment income , can obviously manipulate what their gross income is . It's harder to manipulate gross receipts , but gross income .
Speaker 1Or net income . Yeah , you manipulate the net Gross and net of taxes . The gross you can manipulate too , but only for a short time . At some point you do have to run it through the books .
Speaker 4Correct , unless you're just laundering cash somewhere out .
Speaker 1That's a whole different thing , right , but that's a different podcast , that's podcast number 220 . How not to laundry money ? Yes .
Speaker 4How not to laundry money Exactly . But yeah , I mean so . Judges have been directed by the General Assembly that if there is self-employment income they are to closely inspect the books , not just take what they say on their tax returns as the gospel truth on income and inspect what's being spent on different areas and then add that back to income . And the statute actually says on child support that the number for income on child support is often different in a self-employment income scenario than what that person reports to the IRS . Not to say they're doing anything wrong . There can be some liberal rules on write-offs with the IRS , but it's still financial resources available to support the family too .
Speaker 4So , I'm glad our General Assembly has recognized that and directed judges to look further into it so that all the financial resources available to the family are being considered when determining child support .
Speaker 1How often do you guys working with people like Missy , who has the certification ? I always forget the definition .
Speaker 2CDFA .
Speaker 1CDFA .
Speaker 4thank you , Quite often I would say . I would say the biggest scenario is there's . I've had a lot of I would call them gray-haired divorces older folks that are getting divorced after 40 years of marriage .
Speaker 4That was my parents , yeah , Really , yeah , it surprises , and I guess they just kind of wait until everybody's out the door and college has been paid for , and there's really a lot of them are right when the folks are retiring . So we're really not even having an alimony discussion anymore because nobody's working and we're really just dividing up assets , but a lot of those scenarios . Usually the woman is receiving a lot of money and has never really managed money , and so a lot of times we're having to put her in touch with a financial planner to just figure out what to do , and they're usually very concerned about making sure everything lasts until the end of their lives . So I would say a lot of times that's the scenario where I would bring you guys in .
Speaker 1Yeah , or even beforehand . We have several cases now pending where we're trying to work out before they've even filed or worked with the attorney .
Speaker 2Because I feel like in a lot of cases , if we can get them to an asset division before they even like go down deep with each of their attorneys . It saves a lot of cost . Because there's not , we can have the discussion . You're going to spend so much , more than $10,000 , you know going back and forth about that stupid savings account . Just you know . Let it go .
Speaker 4And I will say you guys have a lot more freedom than we do . You're talking sort of like a collaborative divorce type of concept which , if you've got the right people , they've got to have the right mindset and both be ready to discuss the exes and those of the divorce . A lot of times emotions get in the way of that and paranoia or anger or whatever . But if everybody's got the right mindset and wants to do this amicably that you have , you're in a good position to help them along . I can't meet with two different people that I'm legally prohibited from representing two parties . I have to pick one , so to speak , and just say you know , I'm your lawyer , I can only advise you . I cannot give you legal advice . So because you guys aren't bound by those same ethical requirements , you're able to sit down with both parties and say and have this kind of frank dissonance and almost mediate a little bit as financial advisors .
Speaker 2We're kind of therapists .
Speaker 4Yeah , I know , I am too .
Speaker 2Yeah , and you know the way I always try to approach it , as , like you just want the best for the family unit .
Speaker 2You know the more adversarial you are with one another , the less your kids get one day and the less or the lesser your lifestyle is , because you're just paying to fight one another and it's not doing anybody good . So figure out what you want , what's really meaningful , come up with a couple line items that you're willing to give on , because you know that happens in any negotiation , right . So have some things that you know he wants or she wants and hold those back because you got to be willing to give some to , because it's never as easy as a 50-50 split .
Speaker 4It's always a give and take . There's always concessions that have to be made if you want to reach some sort of consensus that everyone can live with .
Speaker 2And it may be something stupid , Like you know the painting you bought in Italy on your honeymoon .
Speaker 1Okay , or the dog .
Speaker 2Oh people , oh no , I felt a jury demand over a dog once .
Speaker 4I'm going to say because they couldn't agree . They just could not agree and I was worried that the court would just sell it .
Speaker 4Oh , the judge would have been so mad that we were trying a case over a dog . But a jury would , and George is the only state in the US where you can get it . You can demand a jury trial in a divorce case . So I thought well , I know this judge , they're going to just order the dog sold as punishment for the parties for not being able to like make an agreement on this issue so .
Speaker 4I demanded a jury trial and the others said I'm fine , fine , you can keep the dog . Yay , oh my God , they couldn't even work out , I know . No , they worked out everything , all other issues . They couldn't agree on division of the dog .
Speaker 1No , I was keeping them together , I guess for a while . No , they wanted to win . I don't know this person directly , but I have a friend of a friend that got arrested , for I guess she lost the dog and so she just went over to the house , broke in and took the dog .
Speaker 2Oh no , and got arrested for breaking an entry .
Speaker 1Yes , got arrested for breaking an entry .
Speaker 4Again , like I said , divorce .
Speaker 5Good people other worse .
Speaker 4Yeah , people other worse .
Speaker 1So , leslie , if you're a person that's going to have to go through this process , how would you choose an attorney ? Because I feel like most people go to Google these days and maybe they look at ratings or whatever .
Speaker 4That's certainly something that I wouldn't start there . I would start by finding a friend or a neighbor or a colleague that has gone through it themselves and that can give you advice on exactly what they experienced with this particular lawyer . So did they return your phone calls ? Did they keep you informed about what was going on in your case ? If you went to court , did they seem prepared ? Did they tell you what to expect ?
Finding the Right Divorce Lawyer
Speaker 4So if you're getting a referral from someone who has gone through it already , you're getting some pretty realistic feedback on what to expect with a particular lawyer . So I would really put feelers out with , even if you don't know somebody that's gone through divorce , everybody knows somebody . So ask your friends to ask their friends 50% supposedly .
Speaker 4Yes so I mean you're going to be able to find a handful of people that went through it and so ask those folks who did you use ? That's where I would start . Even if you ask a fellow lawyer , honestly they didn't usually use that divorce attorney so they don't necessarily know . I would say somebody that's gone through it is going to know exactly what they experienced with that particular lawyer . So that's where I would start . I think that hopefully you can get five or six names from that and then you can always go online and look at profiles and look at reviews and see who kind of gives you the warm feels and schedule two or three consultations . Most lawyers charge for consultations just because we would be doing free consultations all the time if we allowed it . So you're going to there's going to be a little bit of an investment there , but finding the right lawyer that you jive with and that you feel comfortable with is really important .
Speaker 2Okay question . So if someone just schedules a consultation and pays you for that , that's not the same as retaining you and staking their claim in you right , correct ?
Speaker 4I will say once they consult with me if the other spouse tried to hire me I would be conflicted out .
Speaker 1So there are those folks out there that lawyer shop , yeah , I know the lawyer .
Speaker 4Shopping does happen , just like consult with everybody . Yes , everybody , every , yeah , all 400 lawyers in the metro area . Well , that's kind of .
Speaker 1My next question is I would think that if you're divorcing into county , you want an attorney that was well versed in that county . But you don't . You know who works in the county , who knows the judges right .
Speaker 4But that's a helpful at the same time .
Speaker 1If someone comes up from Atlanta to Cobb County that's you know .
Speaker 4I would say most , most lawyers in Cobb . We practice in all the Metro Atlanta County . So it really doesn't matter not really in Metro Atlanta , I mean , if I'm hired what if you're in the sticks ? If I mean I've had . I've had a Houston County case where I drove down and stayed in a hotel the one time I traveled for work .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 4You know not or traveled overnight , but you know I've had some .
Speaker 1Are you the outsider ?
Speaker 4Where I'm , the fish out of water a little bit .
Speaker 1The city girl the big city lawyer coming in .
Speaker 4But I will . I will be honest , I I'm not as familiar with the judges there so I can't necessarily say , well , judge so and so does this or that . A lot of times we have resources and networks , we can reach out to lawyers in that area where we can say , hey , give me some feedback on this judge . But I will say , every time I've gone to the more remote counties that I'm not familiar with , I've had really great experiences .
Speaker 1So Okay , so maybe it's not a disadvantage then .
Speaker 4I . I almost think they're nicer to the people coming . They're so nice , I know I mean , it's just that southern hospitality .
Speaker 1So Exactly , that's funny .
Speaker 2Okay . So talking about retainers , leslie , what about in the situation where one spouse is not financially savvy and has no view into the finances , but needs to hire a lawyer ?
Speaker 4Okay , so that and that does happen pretty frequently .
Speaker 4So first I I that the lawyer that's hired in that scenario needs to file a motion for temporary attorney's fees immediately , because that is the quickest way to put yourself at a disadvantage in a divorce case is if you don't have the resources to pay a lawyer , your lawyer is going to stop . You know I , you're there . We're going to focus on the cases where we're getting paid . We're not going to . We still have to make payroll to . We're still businesses so and so you don't want to have to worry about how am I going to pay for legal representation ? You don't want an uneven playing field . Judges will award attorneys fees , temporary attorneys fees , they really will . They want both parties to have quality legal representation . It makes their job easier . They want the local lawyers to get paid . You know they don't want to to to have a local member of the bar stiffed because or do legal work . That's not that they're not getting paid for .
Speaker 4So usually a pretty easy motion to prevail on you . But you got to file it right away . You got to email the judges staff or get up and get on the courts calendar and do it right away . So you don't let that issue get out ahead of you . If the person right then and there does not have the money , I mean at the very initial meeting . Usually I'll say have you tried to open a credit card . Have you tried to call a family member ?
Speaker 4We at least get me to that first hearing where I can say , judge , not only do I need fees from the other side , but he also had to put money on this credit card . I need you to order him to pay off this credit card . Okay , good , so , but that at least gets me going , so that I'm not in the hole right away . So usually
Navigating Emotion in Divorce Proceedings
Speaker 4we'll start there . Now , if it's a really big estate I know the money is there , I know I'm going to get paid I might consider taking it without an initial retainer . That's a very , very rare instance .
Speaker 2Yeah , that's going down , yeah .
Speaker 4And , frankly , because clients can change their minds , they , the parties , could reconcile you know , there's all these things that could that crazier things happen . So we like to at least get paid . But I usually a good lawyer , is going to get that immediate hearing to get attorney's fees on the front end , so that it's a level playing field and every everybody feels like they don't have to settle their case just because they don't have enough money to pay their lawyer .
Speaker 2That's a really good point . Thank you for explaining that .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think I don't know . I see it as kind of a it's a game . In some sense it's a negotiation .
Speaker 2Oh yeah .
Speaker 1And then and then that's that's something that I've . The advice that I've given to clients is they've gone through this process is this is a business transaction and once you are done with this , you can mourn the loss at that time . That's true , but you've got to take all the emotion and put it aside and you've got to just go make a . You got to conduct business .
Speaker 2Yeah , plow through .
Speaker 1And then I think that's the hardest thing for people to do , because then fluffy gets involved .
Speaker 3The dog right and all the other things , but we decided this is the end , you're just going to make a business transaction .
Speaker 1It can be kind of cold about it and I think and I think that's what happens in the cases that I've seen that have that were not favorable to our client . Again , they're usually coming here after the fact but I would say that , oh well , he was crying at the table that he's never going to see the kids and so I gave him this , or you know , or a situation where you know , well , I just didn't want to hurt his business and you know , I know there's a lot of emotion .
Speaker 4I have a case right now where we're dealing with lifetime alimony because , um I've I've done this in a lot of my cases , my gray hair divorces that I've had for whatever reason a lot of recently is I try to um equalize their social security payments because that's an asset Absolutely the social security administration is not going to divide it for you , but what I argue is this is a 40 year marriage , and why should he get twice as much as her every month ?
Speaker 4when they she she didn't work this whole time so she wasn't paying into social security , she can get half of his .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 4But , but why ?
Speaker 3why , should .
Speaker 4He get 4,000 a month and she get two , when they basically live their whole life together . So I argue for a uh , an equalizer , and it has to be called lifetime alimony , because this is the security administration isn't going to direct a payment his payment to her . So I just , I just um , put in my agreements that he's going to transfer whatever amount is necessary Usually it's about a thousand dollars to equalize their two retirement or social security payments as a lifetime alimony award . But in addition to that I say he's got to secure it with life insurance , because if he dies tomorrow she's not getting that lifetime alimony anymore . So , um , I had a case recently .
Speaker 1That can get expensive too .
Speaker 4Can't , particularly at that age , at that age bracket , and it doesn't have to be much . But you know a hundred thousand dollar policy or whatnot . But I had a case recently where my the wife was was guilt tripped that you know , if you , if you're the beneficiary of this life insurance , you're stealing money from your children . You know you're .
Speaker 4And so she came to me and really was very adamant . You know I don't want to be the beneficiary of his life insurance . I'm , you know , and it's everybody in the family , I guess was buzzing about this and I said you just , that's an emotional reaction , you have to protect this is a big asset that you need . You need to get these monthly payments every month and if he dies you're not going to get them and you're going to be in in a world of trouble . So you're just going to have to move on from these emotional you know feelings about that type of thing . But children and family members in the community and gossip and all of those things kind of cause these emotional reactions , I think that's true .
Speaker 1I think when you have adult children it really changes things . You can actually have , you can actually have a conversation about things , and people get fired up very emotionally .
Speaker 4They do and I think frankly , people feel freer to talk bad about the other parent with their adult kids . You know they're not dealing with like fragile children anymore . So , like yeah like the mud starts flying at that point and then people are taking sides . I shouldn't laugh , it's not . It's not a funny thing , but I do see that , like adult , children get kind of take sides and get pulled into it . Sadly , that shouldn't happen , regardless of whether they're adults or minors .
Speaker 1So what do you do to disconnect from all this , because I see your world as being very chaotic . People have to talk right away , right now . What do you ? What do you do ?
Speaker 4Well , when I first started practicing , I took all my cases home with me . I really empathize with my clients or sympathize with them , and I did have a tough time separating myself from their situations . I finally had to realize when people are going through a divorce it is just their , their valley in life . You know , some people get cancer or some people get hit by a bus . Some people go through a nasty divorce . It's not everyone kind of has those valleys in life that we have to to kind of slog through . And this is theirs . I'm helping them through theirs . But they're going to be , they're going to find a better place , we're going to get through this .
Speaker 4So when I started looking at it that way , I was able to sort of separate myself a little bit and have a have a more direct attitude to to my cases . I'm still very empathetic to my clients . I know what they're going through is one of the more difficult things they they will ever probably go through in their life . But that's but it's something we all . You know some some level of of tragedy is something we're all going to experience , most likely . So you know that that sort of helped me reconcile it in my head . So I didn't lose sleep every night over every single case , yeah .
Speaker 2Interesting Cause . That's the similar approach that I take with the divorce clients , because I tell them you know it's okay to feel hurt and down and go through all those emotions , but realize this is your like . One time in life you get to press the reset button .
Speaker 2Now it's all about you you know , remake your life , remake yourself , and you're in charge of your own destiny now . So I think by reframing it like that for them , we can help them , like , get through that grief process and look at the positive path that they have in front of them , should they choose to take it . So you can dwell in your misery and all the bad things about the process Cause , yeah , we know it's miserable and no one wants to go through a divorce but by having a good divorce attorney and a good planner on your side , like , oh , you can make the most of it and you're going to be so much happier on the back end Once you're through that battle . And you know in some of these cases , like decades of a bad marriage , so it's all your own now and just spin it .
Speaker 1So what do you think ? What do you think your best advice is to someone who is about to go through this process ? For both of you .
Speaker 4I would say what I said earlier start with getting referrals for a good lawyer . Schedule some consults with some good folks and find somebody that you feel very comfortable with . Make sure establish on the front end you know how informed am I going to be in this process ? How much are you going to communicate with me ? Have questions going in that that person can answer ?
Effective Communication in Divorce Proceedings
Speaker 4I would , if you're able , I would try to keep an open line of communication with your spouse . That's not always possible , but the more that you and your spouse can get along or things out , and even if you can't settle every issue , narrow the issues , the less you're involving the lawyers you can always , the more money you're going to save and the more likely you're going to come out of the end of the process being able to get along and go to the graduations and the weddings down the road that everyone knows you're going to have to be at together . So if you can keep some of that goodwill with one another , that's going to be huge . So I would , if it's possible , obviously if there's some , you know , domestic violence involved , or the emotions are just too high or it's going to impact your ability to grieve the process , you know , or your mental health , to have a discussion with the other person . You know there are those situations . But if you can keep an open line of communication with the other party and just talk through some of the issues , you don't have to reach an agreement . You can still get feedback from your lawyer and get guidance from your lawyer .
Speaker 4But those are the cases where I see a lot of success . As they come in , they kind of get some guidance from me . Okay , what , what do you think a reasonable outcome would be ? And I tell them well , if I sit down with my spouse , what do we need to talk about ? We need to kind of come up with these answers to these questions Are we going to sell the house or is somebody going to keep it ? And if so , you know what's the , what's the buyout number going to be ? And then you got to figure out , you know , are you guys going to be able to agree on custody ? If answer these five questions , you know who's going to , where's the child going to go to school , what's the school district going to be . But I can kind of give them a framework where you got if you guys sit on the kitchen table and kind of reach some sort of consensus on some of these . You've eliminated half the work for the lawyers . But you also both have to convey the same messages to your lawyers . You know your spouse has to be willing to tell their lawyer the same thing ,
Speaker 4Like we both want this to be collaborative . But surprisingly , most people want that . Most people inherently want to be amicable in their divorce , and don't ? Most people don't want to spend a lot of money on a lawyer , I mean . So I tell people that they're always like well they're , you know they're going to want to fight , they're going to want to , you know , make this miserable for me . And I'm like you'd be surprised . I very rarely have a client sit in my office and say I want to make this miserable for the other side . That rarely happens . And I very rarely have a client in my office that says I can't wait to pay you a whole lot of money .
Speaker 4That just doesn't happen so most people intuitively want to keep this amicable and affordable and move on with their lives , and so you just have to kind of keep your emotions in check , like you said , and treat it like a business transaction . The more you can do that , the better .
Speaker 2I would say from the financial side is just gathering good data upfront . So you have the DERFA , the divorce related financial affidavit . That's collecting all the income , expenses , assets and liabilities from each side . And I feel like that's the hardest for a lot of stay at home spouses to ever figure out how to put together . So if they can just start getting their maybe annual credit card statements , that's the biggest ticket into the window of where your monthly money goes . Just get that in the checkbook ledger and you should be able to categorize your monthly expenses . So that's a big step into that world .
Speaker 2And then , in terms of assets and liabilities , find last year's tax return , start getting all the joint and individual account statements and just throw it all on a thumb drive . You don't have to be sneaky or underhanded . It's all marital things . So don't feel like you're going behind your spouse's back doing this . You are entitled to this information . It's all going to come out during the divorce process . So go ahead and start gathering those records . Get it all in one place . I just recommend a thumb drive . That way if you go see your attorney or your CDFA , you can take it portable with you . You're not going to worry about passwords and all that stuff . So just start getting information .
Speaker 4And that's a good point . I will say I mean a lot of times I say to people well , I think I'm on this account , I'm not sure . I say , go to the bank as soon as you leave my office , go to Truist Bank or Wells Fargo or wherever the bank is , and say do I have any accounts in my name ? Here's my social security number . They will tell you and then , even if it's an account that you haven't been intimately involved in , you can still get the statements . They'll give them to you there , and so that's a good way to bypass a lot of the difficulty in getting it from the other side . But also figuring out your budget , because , you're right , the monthly expenses and the budget is what sort of creates and starts to build the framework for an alimony discussion . What that need is .
Speaker 1Leslie , if they want to get a hold of you , how would they do that ?
Speaker 4Well , they can call my office . My number is 770-405-0164 . I'm on the internet . Leslie O'Neill Last name is spelled O-O-Postrophe-N-E-A-L . I'm here in Marietta , right off the Marietta Square , about a mile off the Marietta Square at Odell O'Neill , hungerford and Blanchard . We've been around for over 10 years and , like I said , we litigate in most of the Metro Atlanta counties , so we're very familiar with all of these jurisdictions and happy to assist .
Speaker 1We have some other podcast episodes Episode 160 , this is 209 , by the way , we're doing this , wow Episode 160 , how finances affect divorce . Episode 153 , how to recover financially after divorce . And then on our YouTube channel , ays and Retirement , we have Will . I have Access to Money when I File for Divorce . We kind of answered that a little bit today . And what is a certified divorce financial analyst ? I have to listen to that one . Did you do that one ? I guess you did .
Speaker 2I guess I did . I know I didn't do that one .
Speaker 1I know I didn't do that one . That's on the YouTube channel all linked on our show notes . Anyway , you're listening to this podcast . Also , we'll link to Leslie O'Neill's contact information as well . Thanks for listening today to this episode . If you're interested in learning more about Wiser Wealth Management , you can find us online at wiserenvestorcom . If you'd like to schedule a consultation with one of our financial advisors , you can do so by hitting the schedule link online . Thanks for listening and , Leslie , thanks for joining us .
Speaker 4Thanks , guys , I appreciate you having me .
Speaker 3Thanks for listening to a Wiser Retirement podcast . We hope you enjoyed today's episode . Make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening . That way you don't miss any new episodes . We'd also appreciate if you could leave a rating and review . If you have any questions about anything that was discussed today , head to wiserenvestorcom and reach out .
Investment Podcast Disclaimer Information
Speaker 2This episode was produced by Edward Versundes .
Speaker 3This podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and is not to be considered as investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any financial products , securities , digital assets or any other investment vehicles or a basis to make any financial decisions . Wiser Wealth Management Incorporated is a registered investment advisor with SEC . The host and or guest may personally own securities , digital assets or other investment vehicles mentioned on this podcast . Neither the host nor guest of the show are compensated for their participation and no referral fees are paid to or received by any host or guest for clients , listeners or similar interests . Investments involve risk and , unless otherwise stated , are not guaranteed . Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor , tax professional , insurance professional and or legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein . Test performance is not indicative of future performance .
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