$Andrea Rappaport (00:01.583)

Me and my naked sweater are ready for this episode. I look naked, don't I?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (00:06.432)

Okay, so when I first popped on for all of you who can't see Andrea, I almost started laughing because the color of her sweater, if it is even that, legitimately looks like skin. And she has a V-neck sweater going on with skin colored. And so when she came on, all I could see was like this lovely hairdo, her flowing, she must've gotten a blowout, and two necklaces. And so it looked like she was joining the podcast Buck Naked with two necklaces.

Andrea Rappaport (00:31.249)

you

Morgan L. Stogsdill (00:35.97)

And I was like, wow, we're doing it like this, huh? This is what we're doing.

Andrea Rappaport (00:36.049)

with your necks.

huh, we are. Well, what's funny is that it's actually not, it's not a naked sweater because I think cause the light is shining on me right now, it makes the color of the sweater lighter and look like the color of my skin, but it's really not. I mean, it's not, this doesn't help, but like you can see when I put it closer, you can tell that I am in fact wearing clothes, but can I just tell you, thanks to my best friend, Semiglutide, I am like buying,

all new clothes this season and I'm loving it but I am spending money like fucking water. Like just...

Morgan L. Stogsdill (01:17.23)

Okay, wait, so because you love semi-glutide, now you're buying naked sweaters. That's where you're at. You're feeling so confident that you're wearing naked sweaters.

Andrea Rappaport (01:23.271)

There you go. am. I am barely there. Barely there in more ways than one. I am wasting away. I'm almost thin enough to the point where people are worried about me, but not quite. So we've got a ways to go. But I have been spending money and that's exactly kind of what we're talking about today. But like, and I'm not spending, like I'm not going.

crazy buying designer clothes. We're talking like I'm spending money on TikTok shop, on Chic Wish, TJ Maxx, my usual haunts.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (02:03.884)

Yeah, you're killing all the saving money places. You can buy more there. So you can get like three, four times the amount of naked sweaters if you shop at those places.

Andrea Rappaport (02:15.141)

That's right. And if Steve and I ever get a divorce, which God willing, that will never be the case. mean, dividing these assets like baby. Who gets my sheen, my sheen cheetah pants? Who gets them? I do. I do. That's what. So, God, you guys, buckle up. Here comes the conversation that it's such a fucking pain in the butt to talk about. But what we did.

was what we're doing is trying to take a concept that is really overwhelming and we want to make it as simple as possible so that you feel like you have some sort of guidebook that you can use when you're trying to keep your head straight about dividing assets. We get a lot of questions about money. We get a lot of questions about dividing assets. So we really want to break down for you what you need to know.

and what you can do to avoid some big mistakes when it comes to money.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (03:17.698)

That's right. And I want everybody to know from a divorce lawyer's perspective, it doesn't matter if you live on Park Avenue or the park bench. Money matters to everyone. It doesn't matter what's in your bank account because at the end of the day, everybody needs to eat, everybody needs a place to live, and everybody wants to feel secure money-wise. So that's why it's such a big deal. So everyone always worries about if you have children in a divorce, that's...

probably number one worry, but money's right back up there because people want to know that they're gonna be okay. And that's what we're kind of talking about today.

Andrea Rappaport (03:54.834)

What I wanna do is what, I'm gonna give you an acronym. And as you saw, the title of the episode is the ABCs of dividing assets. So here comes an acronym. It's ABC. The A stands for ask for help. The B stands for think like a business person. This is a business decision. And this C stands for calculate, don't catastrophize.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (04:22.432)

I like it, I like it. Let's talk about one of the biggest mistakes I see right off the bat. And it kind of relates to your A of the ABCs, which is ask for help. One of the biggest mistakes I see is that somebody might not know about their assets, about their finances. And instead of asking for that help, they just kind of put their head in the sand. They either don't fill out the documents right, they don't get it in on time, they're kind of delinquent.

then at times they say to their lawyer, why do we have to do this? Let's not do this. I'd rather just move on without knowing anything or getting any of the documents. And those are big potential red flags that you need to be aware of if you're doing that, why they're important to actually get some help.

Andrea Rappaport (05:07.867)

I think though that it's not just about that people don't want to do it or don't think that it's important. It's that it's overwhelming. It's scary. And so we put our head in the sand because it feels threatening. mean, every single time we have a money person come on the show, they always talk about the shame that people have when they show up to the office and they're like, I don't know about this stuff. And we don't like to do things that make us feel stupid.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (05:34.594)

Yeah, that's so true. But the only thing I would say to you this, wherever you were in the past on the financials, it's not where you're going to be in the future because the only shame in a divorce case could come from and should come from if you decide that you're not going to understand and start learning about your own finances. And we'll talk about that more. But short of that, I mean, that's going to be laid out on a platter for you, hopefully by your divorce attorney with your help for you to learn.

And so really there should be no shame except for not learning about what your financials look like.

Andrea Rappaport (06:10.139)

When we're at the beginning of the process and your attorney says, okay, now I want you to do the financial affidavit or what, mean, I know it's called different things in different areas. What are the other terms?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (06:23.342)

could be a financial disclosure, it could be, some people might call it balance sheets. What it is is basically, there's two really key important documents, at least where I practice. One is what we call the financial affidavit. It's basically a document that breaks down all of your expenses, all of your income, all of your assets, so that you can kind of figure out what are you spending per month and what kind of assets do you have. The other document is a balance sheet, which just lists all the assets and is

close to the values that we can get on those assets. So there are two different documents. A lot of times the reason that we have financial affidavits done is one, so we can understand what people's expenses are. Two, we can understand what they're earning and whether they can meet those expenses. And three, to get the assets so we can start this balance sheet.

Andrea Rappaport (07:12.795)

I think the issue that a lot of people have is, you the financial affidavit is basically what's coming in and what's going out, right? I think that people feel very frustrated when they're presented with this and they're saying, fill this out, be specific. I mean, cause if you guys haven't gotten to this part yet in the divorce, this motherfucker is a beast. I mean, it breaks down like how much do you spend every month on grooming?

How much are your haircuts? How much are your hair colors? What about your nails? What about this? What about your naked sweaters? I mean, literally everything. And you're going through all of this, right? You're answering it to the best of your knowledge. But then in the back of your mind, you're thinking, why am I doing this? Why does this matter?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (07:59.694)

Yeah. Well, it matters for numerous reasons. One, it matters for divorce settlements to understand, okay, if you walk away with this amount of money in your bank account, in your investment account, in your retirement account, or a combination of all of those things, you're going to be okay. You're going to meet your expenses. Or it might show us numerous other things. One, you're overspending. We got to cut down your spending.

We need to get you more money in the divorce settlement because the money that's being offered is no way, or form going to meet your needs. Three, maybe it's saying, okay, wow, your kids really have high expenses. Besides child support, how can we meet those expenses? Maybe we do some creative things like one person pays the majority of certain expenses. That's why it's super important. And where I will tell you, I understand what Andrea is saying. It is overwhelming. I mean, if someone threw one at me and said, go fill it out.

It would take me weeks. I mean, assuming I had no work and kids and family crap to do at all times. I get it. And one of the confusing parts too, that I hear a lot of people talking about is it's not so easy anymore. It's not like we just pull our checkbook up and our check register and we, yeah, I wrote 25 checks last month and it's all right here. That's not how we do it anymore. I mean, we are spending on Amazon like crazy.

and we are going to Target and making huge runs or maybe it's Walmart or wherever you're located, it's the big box store that has everything there. So if you're not in the United States, I know we have lots of listeners all over, it's the store where you can get everything from toiletries to clothes to food. Those are the stores that are really tricky because if you go make a big purchase and half of it might be for your kids and maybe you have a few pieces of makeup for yourself and maybe your husband needs or you know.

whoever needs underwear, it's hard to parse those out because who keeps those receipts? And that's where people start to lose it and kind of fall off. And in addition to spending on so many different forums.

Andrea Rappaport (09:57.808)

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Rappaport (10:05.288)

So let's apply this. Let's apply the acronym here. our A, ask for help. Let's start at the very beginning, Morgan, and what are things that people can do? How can they ask for help? And what are the things that they need to be looking for?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (10:23.052)

Yep. So the first thing that you're going to get is probably from your divorce attorney's office, whether it's from them directly or a paralegal where I work, you're going to get some kind of document that says, hey, we need you to start filling this out and let me know if you need help or have questions. That is when you're going to say, if you look at the document and you're like, I have absolutely no idea, you are going to want to ask for help.

start with the person who sent it to you and say, can we sit down for 15 minutes, have a call so you can walk me through different ideas if you are feeling uncomfortable. That's the first place to start. Let's just say I've had clients, you know, I would say the majority of clients can fill this out after a good amount of work by themselves. But there are certain clients that just physically cannot get it done. Whether it's that they've spent on way too many mediums,

They're so overwhelmed, they just can't focus, whatever it is. And at that point, you're going to want to talk to your lawyer about potentially other options to get this document done.

Andrea Rappaport (11:27.368)

Could somebody, I'm thinking about how we can guide people to use their money most effectively. I'm thinking, do you take the document, do you take a first stab at it, and then do you respond to whomever sent you the email and say, what would be the best use of my money in having some assistance here? Is there an associate who can help me? Is there a paralegal? mean, can paralegals?

weigh in on this stuff or is this something where you're like, no girl, terrible idea?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (11:58.273)

So no, they can. I mean, at least if I'm thinking about myself and my team, my paralegals are fantastic. They're super well-trained. They've got financial backgrounds. They've done this a million years. So the way that we try to save people money is to be starting out with a paralegal working through it. And they're doing exactly what you said, Andrea. They're taking that first crack at it. They're doing the best they can. And then they're sending it to the paralegal.

At that point, the paralegal is going to look at it and they're going to say, okay, I see that there's questions or, and don't be afraid to write questions like when you're going through it. So for instance, if it's like the line item is how much do you spend on grooming or naked sweaters? And if your question is, it's not how much, it's how many naked sweaters do I have? Write it in the margins. I mean, I'm making a joke about it, but at least it's flagging your memory when you want to talk to the paralegal or the lawyer if that's where you're at.

Hey, this is why I'm confused on this number because I don't know how many naked sweaters I've purchased or I purchased so many I'm embarrassed or this is another one I get. I've been living like very frugally and I want to purchase way more naked sweaters in the future. So what do I do with that?

Andrea Rappaport (12:57.608)

There's no telling.

Andrea Rappaport (13:10.632)

Okay, that brings up an interesting point. One of the things that I think people feel some shame about when they get this financial affidavit is they're like, I don't want to be honest about how much I'm spending on this shit because someone's gonna be judging me. Let everybody know why it's so important that they are telling the truth and not downplaying their spending.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (13:34.36)

So yes, the number one thing is tell the truth. I don't care if it looks bad. What's gonna look bad is if you don't have the money and you have the money in the divorce settlement that could have gone to you, but doesn't because we think that we've met your needs. And then afterwards you realize, my God, I can't meet my expenditures because I totally undercut the amount that I spent on plastic. Plastic surgery is the biggest one, right?

especially for women. And men, where I see it for men is usually they downplay how much they're out and about, how many games they're going to, beers they're drinking with their buddies, or maybe travel. Like that's a guy thing. Females really are downplaying Botox. A lot of them are downplaying plastic surgery. A lot of them are downplaying their grooming expenses because the reality is grooming for women and keeping up with all the things is so expensive. And so what I said,

or what I say to people is just be honest, be honest, back it up with the documents. If it looks weird, your lawyer will flag it. So a lot of times the way that we work is our paralegal works with the client first. They get it into a position where they think it looks pretty good. They've got the backup documents to go with it. Then they hand it over to the lawyer. And that's when I start tearing it apart, asking questions. And I might even have a meeting with the client to say, hey, this doesn't look right. Why is this so high? Why is this so low?

that kind of thing.

Andrea Rappaport (15:04.807)

At any point, if there's a lot of assets at stake here, would anybody involve their financial advisor when they're going through any of this?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (15:12.856)

So if there are a lot of assets at stake or a lot of times this is what happens, you know the client that just can't get it done. You know, they're just so overwhelmed. They've never been involved in anything. All they've been involved in is spending, right? They've just had unlimited spending and they have absolutely no idea what they've spent on or how to even get the information. First of all, I feel you. I have plenty of those clients. I don't want you to feel bad if that's you. There are people out there, divorce professionals that help

Andrea Rappaport (15:20.23)

Yeah.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (15:42.562)

do these documents. Yes, you're going to pay for it. They're expensive. They're way more expensive than using your divorce lawyer's office to work through those things, but they are out there and I have used them many times. I will tell you the downfall. The beauty of it is that generally they're pretty specific, right? They're like, these are the people that are taking every credit card statement, every Amazon, and they're going through and putting it into spreadsheets. So it's pulling through this computer program.

onto a document. So when we get these documents, they're pretty detailed. The thing that's the pain in the butt about them is again, think about the Target purchase or the Amazon. How many Amazon purchases do you have, right? So those, you have to sit down with these people and say this pair of slippers was for my son. This razor was for Brad or this, you know.

Chad, whatever your husband's name is or your wife's name is, you have to go through and actually flag these things. And that is a big pain in the butt, but ultimately you get a document that's pretty darn accurate.

Andrea Rappaport (16:50.278)

far back are we going? Like how many slippers for Chad do we need to have documented here?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (16:56.462)

Generally, we're looking at the last year. So that's what we want to know. if, again, want to flag one thing for everybody, if your last year is an anomaly, never happened. What do I mean by that? totally...

Andrea Rappaport (16:59.08)

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Rappaport (17:06.664)

you

Andrea Rappaport (17:11.976)

Well, go back to surgery. Go back to the surgery thing though, right? If surgery is in there, like somebody, you know, got a new chin, right? You don't get a new chin every year. How, so doesn't that play into it?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (17:23.704)

Right, maybe, but I would kind of argue, hey, if you're out there getting a new chin, you're probably gonna do more plastic surgery in the future. So it might be something to keep on there. What I'm saying is like, let's just say last year you made more money than you've ever made before and you went bananas and spent like crazy, or maybe at the opposite. You didn't make as much as you ever have in the past. You had the worst year ever. So your spending was so much lower.

Andrea Rappaport (17:32.603)

Mm. True.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (17:51.554)

Those anomaly years, if that's you in the last 12 months, you want to be telling your lawyer about that so that we can figure out together what our strategy is going forward to make sure the document is accurate.

Andrea Rappaport (18:05.628)

When we're talking about the balance sheet, what are the key assets that we're looking at?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (18:12.066)

That's a great question. Okay. So the balance sheet, if you want to build it out and your lawyer's office should probably be doing this for you, but you might want to say, Hey, I just want to give it a shot myself. Usually the first balance sheet document or the first, I would say grouping would be real estate. So we want to know what the addresses are of your properties. How is it titled? Title is very important. We want to know how things are titled. It matters.

Andrea Rappaport (18:13.576)

Thank you.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (18:41.058)

We want to know what is the debt on the house, if anything, if you have a mortgage or a home equity line. And then you can say roundabout what you think the different values are, just to give your lawyer an indication. Ultimately, if you're going to go into negotiations and you have enough money to do so, the gold standard is always to get a real true appraisal. And then you put that appraisal number on the balance sheet. So that's the first grouping on a balance sheet. The second would probably be retirement assets.

You want to parse those out. They're totally different than investments. They're totally different than bank accounts. Those also are groupings. If you have any trusts, you want to list that. And then I would also put on any vehicles or things of value. And finally, I definitely want you to list any business interests, insurance, and any debt that you have. So if you're carrying credit card debt.

Additionally, if you have funds for your children, plans for college or up my accounts or things like that, I want you to list those as well because we'll have to deal with those in the divorce.

Andrea Rappaport (19:50.704)

Anything else we need to mention about asking for help?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (19:55.82)

I don't think so. think we've hit it. Listen, if you've got that gut feeling like I'm embarrassed, I'm ashamed, I don't know what I'm doing, I just want to put my head in the sand, that's when you know you should be asking your lawyer or someone on their staff for a little bit more guidance. I promise you, you are not alone. You are not the first to do it. And you will walk out of any meeting or discussion with more guidance and feeling more comfortable.

Andrea Rappaport (20:20.904)

Okay. We got the A, now the B. Thinking like a business person.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (20:25.048)

The big me. That's right. So thinking like a business person, this is the key because this is the thing that Andrea and I always say. You're so amped up during this process and for good reason, we get it. We're not saying we don't get it, but what we want you to do is look at this, especially the financials, as a business deal because it's going to help you take the emotion out of the decisions.

Andrea Rappaport (20:51.75)

And that is really hard to do. And that's why we're doing this episode. So you're hearing this right now and you're thinking, okay, think like a business person. Great, wonderful, easy for you two to say, this is not a business, this is my life. And what you just opened this conversation with is everybody needs to eat. Everybody needs money. Money makes the world go round. Well, how am I gonna be calm and look at this

Morgan L. Stogsdill (20:58.318)

That's right.

Andrea Rappaport (21:21.392)

Like it's not going to affect me in some really real personal ways. My best answer for you is that you have to, because if you don't, you're going to fuck this up. So whatever works for you, whether you need to channel somebody who's not you in order to start thinking this way, whether you...

really need to lean on the A of our acronym, whoever is helping you through this. I think for most people and what I've seen in talking to people is that people start out looking at it as a business, but then as soon as they get triggered, as soon as they hear something that they don't want to hear or they crunch some numbers and the answer comes out as something that they were not anticipating, they plummet.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (22:16.974)

Yep. And here's some specific tips when it comes to thinking like a business person, man or woman. Number one is I want you to take a step back and I want you to think about, know, if it wasn't me with my emotional baggage right now, what would I tell, you know, Brenda, my friend down the street to do? If Brenda came to me and said, this is what we have in the bank, this is the balance sheet, what would I tell Brenda to do? I also want you to ask yourself,

how will this decision or decisions that I'm making affect me long-term? Because it's so easy to get stuck in the now. Well, this doesn't work right now. This doesn't work right now. So because of that, I am going to, for instance, keep this house. And you've got a lawyer that's saying, hey, this is not a smart idea for you because one, you're going to basically have to refinance at a higher rate. Two, you can't afford this house. So you're gonna be trying to fire sale this.

And this is the best time right now to sell this house. So you have to think in the future. And so that's one of the things you're going to be asking your lawyer about. What could happen in the future with this business deal if I'm going to take this deal? What kind of tax implications come up with any division of assets or if I'm taking certain amounts of certain accounts, should I be thinking about taxes? So those are things that I want you to be thinking about.

long term and also what could affect me in the future.

Andrea Rappaport (23:48.892)

You know, going back to the house, this is a good example because you might really want that house. You might not want to move out of the house. You might not want to sell this house. And I'm not saying that lightly. That's the biggest asset you have. And that's an emotional asset. That is your home. That is where your babies live, right? So you might want it with your whole heart. But if you're thinking and not feeling doesn't make

financial sense to keep the house. And here's where I'm going to link A and B together. I want you to utilize A asking for help to B. Ask the person you are helping to help you think like a business person. I would say B, proactive so you're not reactive and say, hey, I am a

emotional about this stuff. So I need some help thinking about this logically and as a business.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (24:50.734)

Yeah, I agree with that completely. And I will say that as a divorce lawyer, I've seen this, especially around the house. I've seen this around the house where they just get stuck on the house because it's their home. That's your home. I get it. But ultimately, when I have them step back sometimes, I'm like, this is a really bad deal. So I had a client once with a huge house. And this house was everything. Raised all of her children there, a lot of kids there.

They had a lot of money. And this was kind of back when our real estate market was a little different than it is now. And I just saw the writing on the wall. I was like, this house is too big. It's super, it's in a super desirable place where yes, many people would want to live where this person lived. But the home size and the home shape, it kind of looked like, remember the guy's name was Don. It was like from the eighties. was Miami Vice. What was his?

Andrea Rappaport (25:48.956)

Yeah, Don Johnson?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (25:49.782)

Okay, Don Johnson. It looked like Miami Vice inside. Like somebody gave her the reins to just make Miami Vice inside of her house. it was impressive. So I said, I'm like, this house is great. You have your kids there. This is wonderful, et cetera. But I don't think this is gonna sell like you think. You really think this has high value. And I think you're gonna be stuck holding this thing and to run this house.

Andrea Rappaport (26:00.772)

God.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (26:19.512)

per year is going to eat into most of your financial stability. It took me, I would say probably, I mean, this was a big divorce and a long divorce, but it took me a good year and a half probably to convince her. And it was the best decision that we made.

Andrea Rappaport (26:36.136)

want to piggyback on that with making good decisions and being a business person and having to break up with an idea in your mind. So let's say that we are arguing over a settlement or arguing over something, some sort of asset, right? And you've done the math. You asked for help. You did everything correctly. And when...

the first offer comes your way for maintenance, you're like, the fuck? Did he not see the same affidavit that I submitted? Because that's not in line, right? And then you ready to dig your proverbial heels in and start arguing because you want, you want, want, and justifiably, right? At some point though, and again, this is where I want you to ask for help so you can think like a business person.

You have to keep in mind, is my investment in this fight worth whatever I stand to gain? Now, in a lot of times, especially in the beginning, there's going to be back and forth. That's totally natural. In no means am I saying, take your first offer. It's going to be great. Or no matter what it is, that's all you're going to get baby cakes. you know, be grateful for what you have. I'm talking about people who are going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. At some point,

You have to say, how much freaking money am I spending here versus what I have to gain? Think like a smart business person.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (28:10.296)

Right, risk reward, right? It's always good to keep that in mind for sure. So just think about that risk reward is huge because yeah, you might be at mediation and you might say, I don't really care, I'll just fight all day, but what's a full day of mediation costs? What's like four days of mediation costs? And then if you don't come up with a deal, and I do a lot of mediations that are full days, numerous days, and if you don't come up with a deal, you're basically starting from scratch and going to court.

Andrea Rappaport (28:27.656)

Yikes.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (28:38.69)

So the risk is huge and what are you leaving on the table? A few thousand dollars a month? Think about it that way. The other thing before we, right, and before we move on, I wanna say one other thing. When people are making deals, when you're thinking about yourself as a business person, I want you to think about this. Nobody thinks about this. Everyone thinks about how much can I get? How much money will I have in the bank? Which I get, I understand that. But nobody bets on themself.

Andrea Rappaport (28:45.158)

Right, not so many naked sweaters.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (29:07.136)

Nobody bets on themselves. And what I mean by that is nobody in those deals say, you know what, this is fine. This amount of money is fine because guess what? If there's anyone I can bet on, it's myself that I am gonna go out and I am going to kill it. I am going to make money. I mean, Andrea, you went through the same thing. I mean, right?

Andrea Rappaport (29:25.608)

Yeah, 100%. And it's so interesting that you framed it up that way because you're right. And I think it's really hard to bet on yourself when you're feeling so low because you're at like your most vulnerable. And so at that point, like you can't even really bet on you because you're like, I don't know, I'm lying here on the floor of my bathroom. Like you have to know you are not going to be in that place forever.

You are going to get it together. You have every single ability in the world to make money. Nowadays, I got to tell you guys something. As I'm getting closer to my mic, if you want more money, go make more money. Make money. Find a way to make money. And don't hate me. Don't hate me for saying this because, I mean, you can. I don't really care, actually. But.

I'm saying this from a place of attempting to empower you. Don't just rely on someone else for your money. And I know that I'm not saying this across the board. Of course there are circumstances and everybody does deserve marital funds. But I'm also saying, don't think of this as like, well, then I guess that's it. Now I guess I'm just gonna live in a shoe box with all my kids.

And that's how life is gonna be. And we will only eat ramen and wear naked sweaters because we have to, not because we want to.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (30:58.414)

Well, and I had a case that I want to tell you about. That's exactly that. The case went on and they probably spent $200,000 extra that they didn't have to spend on this divorce. And the reason was, I will never do that. The reason they did that is because the wife in this case, and I'll call her Brenda, because we always call everybody Chad and Brenda, Brenda felt like if she didn't get every last dollar out of any settlement,

Andrea Rappaport (31:09.842)

Give us their names. Tag them.

Andrea Rappaport (31:20.466)

So, thanks.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (31:26.954)

even though she had a job already, then she was going to have no money the rest of her life. mind you, Brenda's in her mid-40s, early 50s, et cetera. And Brenda could have used, I didn't represent Brenda at that point, I was representing Chad. And Brenda could have used that advice. If there's anyone to bet on, you get, yes, get a good settlement, okay? We're not saying take low money and run. We're saying get a settlement that's business-like, but if there's anyone you can bet on, it is yourself.

Andrea Rappaport (31:35.89)

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Rappaport (31:55.666)

Do you remember how much I got in mine?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (31:59.662)

I do. And I was not going to disclose that. No, I will not.

Andrea Rappaport (32:00.124)

Do you?

Andrea Rappaport (32:05.49)

Go for it.

I got zero. That's a zero. There's nothing less than zero. And I am 100 % okay now and I'm not okay just because I remarried. I worked my butt off. And yes, it was hard, but I make money and I'm okay and you will be too.

So, and and God willing, you don't get zero, because I'll tell you that was not a fun day. But sometimes that's what happens. And that brings me to C. Calculate. Don't catastrophize. Zero is a number, which sucks. Didn't like it. But guess what? It's a number. A number doesn't have a feeling. It's a number.

You're attaching big feelings to these numbers and it's really easy to fall down the rabbit hole of, my God, this is so overwhelming. I don't wanna do this. my God, this is so unfair. Zero? Are you fucking kidding me? Zero? I am getting so screwed. But going down any of these rabbit holes is not gonna help you. And what's at the bottom of a rabbit hole? Dirt. That's all that's down there. It's dirt and it's dark and that sounds terrible.

So don't do it. Stay above ground with the rest of us. And how do you stay above ground? Going back to the beginning of the acronym, ask for help.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (33:42.464)

Okay. Okay. I've got a lot to say there. I love that C is calculate because that's it. You're being a business person, you're calculating, you're looking at a balance sheet. But I got to tell you, you got zero. To me, that's a catastrophe. I mean, you said calculate, not catastrophize, which is, I don't even know if that's truly a word, but to me, zero is a catastrophe. And so I'm glad that you're not stuck in the rabbit hole or in the dirt or whatever you just came up with because good God.

Andrea Rappaport (34:11.568)

You can't though, Morgan. don't care if you are. Listen to me for a sec. Okay, you get zero, right? What happens if I go down that hole of, my God, zero, zero, zero? Then I am gonna be on the floor of my bathroom a lot longer. My kids are gonna suffer more because then mommy's fucking lost her shit and you're wasting goddamn time.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (34:34.936)

that you could be making money.

Andrea Rappaport (34:36.498)

Go to work. Go to work. Start an OnlyFans. Start two. I don't fuck, yeah, foot fucking finder. I don't care what you do. Go find a way to make money. You'll feel so much better. here's the thing, and I don't know at what point, Morgan, you do this with clients. And also your clients are in kind of a different pool because there's always high stakes if you're working with them.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (34:42.232)

Feet Finder.

Andrea Rappaport (35:04.7)

But at what point do attorneys say, you gotta stop here? Like you're spending so much money just to quote unquote win. And it's, you're not winning. You're just losing more money and mainly in what you're paying me.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (35:22.136)

Right. I think that's a good lawyer. what I do is, and like you said, calculate, that's C. So when you have a balance sheet, if you're negotiating and I want to tell you something, putting together documents and a balance sheet, it's a pain in the ass, but it's so important. Again, I don't care if you live on Park Avenue or the park bench, you need a balance sheet. And if it says nothing and you have no money,

Okay, but at least you've looked at it because when you're talking in generalities, and that's where I see my clients really lose it when we're negotiating, they need specifics. They need to be looking at something on the paper. That is a balance sheet. So that's the only way that you can kind of walk them through it. And the way that we do it when we're getting down to the nitty gritty and maybe we're, you know, I don't know, a few hundred thousand apart or maybe it's a thousand apart, whatever it is, we say, okay, we're here.

This is what I think a court would do. Yes, could you maybe get a few extra dollars? Sure. But what are you going to spend going forward if we don't make a deal today? And you have to consider that. That's the risk in this consideration. And generally, before we're negotiating, when we're looking at a balance sheet, I'm always telling my client a range before we're going in. This is the range of reality where I think that this thing could settle. If we're not in this range, then we have other conversations to have.

And so if we do get into the range of settlement and the client, my client is being difficult, then I have to, it's my job to say, hey, this is the range that we talked about and this is what will happen if we don't make a deal. Again, it's your decision, but when we're $100,000 more in legal fees down the road because we're in court, you made that decision.

Andrea Rappaport (37:08.552)

Going back to the business person, a business person negotiates, even when they don't want to. Think about all the movies we've seen about business, right? Think about like, we've seen this time and time again. My brain always goes to Working Girl because like that was like such a movie for such a moment in my upbringing. But you have to negotiate and you're not always negotiating with your best friend. So channel that energy.

of how do I get closer to what I want here? know, Morgan, a long time ago, we talked about some, think it was an episode we did on mediation where you talked about you need to know what's really important to the person you're divorcing and have that in your back pocket to use as a possible negotiation tool. There are gonna be things that'll happen while you're.

dividing assets that are not gonna feel fair. You're gonna do this balance sheet and you're gonna do your financial affidavit and I promise you that something is gonna come back to you you're gonna be like, are we on the same planet? What are they talking about? React for a moment and then you gotta get it together and put that business hat on, start calculating and don't blow this up in your mind to be the biggest deal ever.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (38:34.53)

And before we recap all the ABCs, I want to let you know one other thing. When you put a balance sheet together, so let's just say you put it together because your lawyer's like, all right, let's get these documents together. We'll put a balance sheet together. And the balance sheet is basically dated, let's just say May of 2025. Great, everyone feels good about it. Everyone knows what everyone has. We're ready to go. Well, let's say that you don't get to mediation until October of 2025 because...

There's other things you're doing in the case. Maybe you're negotiating parenting time, whatever it is, but you don't get there till October. Don't be lazy. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Update that balance sheet. Those money or that money, I should say, moves at incredible rates, especially if it's invested, your bank accounts move, et cetera. Update the numbers, your retirement moves. mean, in the last few months in general,

Andrea Rappaport (39:14.94)

Mm.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (39:30.038)

as a divorce lawyer, I am scrambling to update because the market has moved so much. And so we had a case, you know, at one point many years ago where they didn't want to update the balance sheet. We got the updated balance sheet. It was only a few months, I would say four or five months outdated. There was an extra million dollars on the table that if we didn't do our due diligence and update the balance sheet, and yes, it costs a little bit to do it.

we would have left a million dollars on the table when we negotiated. So make sure you're playing with all of the right cards. I will tell you business people do not go in to negotiate a deal without updated information and you shouldn't either.

Andrea Rappaport (39:59.525)

Yikes.

Andrea Rappaport (40:09.638)

Yep, all right, let's recap our ABCs here.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (40:12.896)

All right, the ABCs of dividing assets. So number one, or I should say A, A stands for ask for help. Ask your attorney for help, ask their team for help, whoever you need to ask for help, and don't be ashamed to do it. B, think like a business person. This is a business decision, especially the financials. We're not saying that everything's a business decision, but your financials are a big, big business decision. And C, C stands for calculate. Just calculate, be calculating.

A business person is calculating when they're making deals. That's how you should be too. Think about your next move. Think about where your move starts. And if you want more information on that, go back to our mediation episode because we did a lot of this in that episode.

Andrea Rappaport (40:58.04)

So true. Okay, my head's about to explode and I bet yours is as well. So I have to tell you, this is going to make your head explode. There are some wild things that people have done when dividing assets and like things like petty shit in terms of like money. And I have to share some of these with you guys because this will just make you laugh and hopefully nowhere near compared to what you're going through. So there is a case.

where husband and wife are divorcing, there's millions of dollars in personal assets, right? And the wife is like obviously going for what she thinks is half hers, only to find out that the husband moved everything into his son's name years earlier, and the guy donated all of their savings, millions of dollars to a children's hospital. He did it.

in his soon-to-be ex-wife's name just to burn her. So it's like the Roberta Sloan wing. And the judge said that what he did was technically legal since it was community property and no freeze had been in place. But morally, it was totally unconscionable. And then her attorney said that in his entire career, he has never seen such dramatics because while this is all unfolding in court,

The husband's face had the biggest smile on it the whole time saying, I just wanted to help the children.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (42:36.294)

What is she going to do? Go to the children's hospital and say, need my money back? There are crazy stories out there. These are the cases that you hope you never see. I mean, I've had cases where there's a billion dollars in the bank and they're fighting over cords in the house, like extension cords. Well, I would like three from this house. I'm like, go buy yourself a new extension cord with your billion dollars in the bank. Are you nuts?

Andrea Rappaport (42:39.752)

Right.

Andrea Rappaport (43:04.464)

Isn't that so wild? Okay, there's one other story that I have to share, which is so funny. And I feel like this is one that we talked about a while ago, Morgan. This has to do with the person who stole all of the knobs and the cabinet handles in their ex's house. Do you remember this?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (43:27.02)

No, but this sounds great.

Andrea Rappaport (43:28.89)

Yeah, like he got to keep the house and she got petty. And so she went around the house and removed all of the doorknobs and all of the cabinet poles and all of the, what is it? A handle on all of the drawers, everything. So he got the house, but he couldn't open any door or access anything in the house.

And even his attorney found it hysterical, like obviously wrong, but so funny because the husband called up his attorney and was ranting and raving, screaming, she took all my fucking knobs.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (44:10.208)

My knobs. That is actually kind of genius. It's kind of like that one guy who had to send his ex maintenance or alimony checks per month, right? That was part of the deal. So what did he do? He got married to his new wife, put their picture on the checks, and every time she got a check, was the picture of the two of them to her front door, which I'm like, I'm sorry. I can't even get mad at that because it's so great.

Andrea Rappaport (44:38.439)

I know. But again, going back to what we said a while ago, who writes checks anymore? I don't even write checks. Now we like, sell each other in naked sweaters. mean, I mean, God, now, and now all I can do is look at myself in this camera view and look, I'm like, yeah, I do look 100 % naked, but I'm going to send you the link to this sweater because it's actually so cute and it does come in other colors that are not nude in more than one way. Okay, fine. Look.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (44:42.38)

I don't know, my mom?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (44:49.251)

Mm-hmm.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (45:04.654)

Good, because I'm going to pass on the naked sweater otherwise. So thank you.

Andrea Rappaport (45:08.219)

Look, whatever, whatever. As long as you remember, Morgan, that divorce is a marathon, it is not a sprint.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (45:15.91)

I could not agree more with that. And if you need more community, check out our private community. You don't have to put your name on it. You can just join it for extra community. Put a few questions out there. We even take polls about what people want to hear about on this podcast. And we actually do it. Another thing, if you need referrals for attorneys anywhere in the world, yes, I said it, anywhere in the world, we will get you referrals because we want you in the best hands. Please rate and review us. I know it seems lame.

You don't have to put your name on that either, but it matters to us and to this podcast. That's how we bring on great guests and we continue doing what we're doing.

Andrea Rappaport (45:52.167)

That's right. We do this show for you. This is why we are sitting here. I sucked at getting divorced. I don't want you to suck at this process. I don't want you to hurt more than you have to hurt. I don't want your kids to unnecessarily. I promise you that you can do this. Even on the days when you think you can't, you can.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (46:12.206)

That's right, some days are day by day, other days are hour by hour, and guess what? That's okay. You're going to come out of this on the other side.

Andrea Rappaport (46:19.951)

And remember my friends, you have got this.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (46:22.966)

And we, my friends, have got you.