Morgan L. Stogsdill (00:00)

When the time is right, get aggressive. File that motion. Put your money where your mouth is because talk is cheap.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:07)

if you don't do something different, then you're gonna keep getting the same result that led you to this place.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:15)

If you're going through a divorce or you're thinking about going through a divorce, then this is the podcast that you've been waiting for. Hosted by Morgan Stogsdill, the head of family law at the largest family law firm in the country, and comedian Andrea Rappaport, we are gonna help you avoid the biggest divorce mistakes with our expert guidance, along with the laughter and levity that you need to get through this process. So let's go.

This is How Not to Suck at Divorce.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (00:45)

You know, Andrea, the biggest takeaway I hope that people get from listening to this podcast is that they make better decisions, being proactive and not reactive.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:53)

but being proactive about your divorce can come with a lot of really big, uncomfortable feelings, especially when it pertains to your kids.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (01:03)

that's why I want you to consider using the co-parenting app to help with communication. Not just any co-parenting app, We want you to look at the most court-respected app, Our Family Wizard.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:13)

just visit the landing page that we created together. There is a ton of useful information and when you're ready to make the next step, our family wizard is ready to support you.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (01:24)

visit ourfamilywizard.com backslash not suck 20 to save 20 % off your first year of the essentials package.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (01:32)

So I just got on to start recording this episode with Andrea and the minute that I saw her, I burst out laughing. Why you ask? mean, Andrea is usually so fashionable. I mean, I feel like we both are, but today she is not. If you can't see her on YouTube, which you probably cannot, I'm going to describe what she's wearing. ⁓ She is wearing a gray sweater with a dog painted on the front of it. Very hip, very fashionable.

And then it looks like matching gray sweatpants. I don't know if she got this from her grandmother's closet, from Goodwill, or maybe somebody off the street. But right now she is struggling. she's taking it off. She's embarrassed. And I think I can see her getting red. ⁓ she just threw it at the camera.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (02:05)

I don't know.

Yes.

You're coming for me already. First of all, I love that instead of starting this episode with a hook, you're just coming right from my fashion. That's my first note. Number two, there's no paint involved in my outfit. The dog is embroidered in part of the sweater and that is very fashionable. That sweater is like,

Morgan L. Stogsdill (02:18)

What do you have to say for

How Not To Suck At Divorce (02:39)

designer. I don't know. can't. It's like, I don't know who that is. It's like Vince or someone like it's like, no, it's not Vince. Hold on. It's somebody.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (02:49)

It's not good.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (02:49)

Well, shut up. It is. And that is so fashionable right now. The bears are back. Everyone's wearing the Ralph Lauren bears again. It is a thing. And I'm sorry that you hate my, I'm embracing my preppiness this year. Remember? This is my year of like the yacht club prep vibe. And that includes dogs.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (03:14)

and your grandmother's closet.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (03:15)

Hey, let's not bring her into this. She would never have worn a dog sweater, I could tell you that much. She wouldn't have been caught dead or alive in a dog sweater.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (03:23)

So,

okay, fair, but bringing this all together. What if the other side of your divorce case is stalling on not getting onto Andrea's fashion vibes? They don't wanna wear the embroidered bear or dog shirt. What do you do? I mean, I'm just joking totally, but what we're talking about today is what to do when the other side is stalling or not responding. sometimes structure is the

only thing that moves a resistant party forward and aggressiveness, filing a motion, pushing it in court and getting aggressive, unsticks those stalled cases. judges perk up when you get tough.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (04:03)

This week in our private community, we had men and women on fire. We had a lot of people talking about situations where their soon-to-be ex was not responding to their attorney or their soon-to-be ex were using some other tactics to stall and delay the case from moving forward, which is clearly really annoying, but...

This is a big enough issue that we're like, you know what, we've got to dedicate an entire episode to this because we want to help you figure out what can you actually do about it.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (04:35)

That's right. And I want you to know that at the beginning, no divorce lawyer likes it when somebody is stalling on the other side, whether it be the lawyer, whether it be the client, et cetera. It makes us almost just as crazy as it makes you. And sometimes we just need your green light to get more aggressive, file the necessary motions, et cetera.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (04:55)

There are many reasons why somebody would stall a case or have a delay in getting back to you. And I know you're like, I don't really give a shit why they're doing this, but I want you to give a shit just for a moment so we can give you just a little bit of insight, a little bit of psycho education here, because it might help you reframe what's going on. So some of the more common reasons that somebody would not respond in a divorce case,

number one,

because they don't have their shit together. They don't have the documents they need. They haven't done the work that they're supposed to do, like turning in the financial affidavit. It might be because they don't know how to do it, so they're just not doing it, right? Number two, they think that the longer that you wait it out, that you're gonna become more panicked, that you're gonna get desperate, or you might agree to even worse terms because you just wanna get it over and done with.

The third reason, it's kind of connected to the second one, is that it's just a power play move. For somebody who has more high conflict behavior like ongoing, some people use silence as a form of control. So let me ask you first, Morgan, how should somebody approach their attorney to help them figure out what they're dealing with? Meaning, why is the other side

Morgan L. Stogsdill (06:17)

think the first thing they can do, which is super simple, is say, I'm frustrated by how slowly this is moving. And is this delay normal or is this strategic stalling? What do you think? And this is what I want you to ask your lawyer. What do you think is going on? And I want you to know as a divorce lawyer, there are certain lawyers out there that I know point blank when they're on the other side of the case, we are going to have the biggest delays ever.

And I know that some lawyers are so difficult because sometimes it's a lot of times when it's, you know, a solo person, they can't handle the inflow, the outflow fast. Or sometimes I just know that they're not going to respond. And those are the people that you have to push to court. So a good lawyer will be able to tell you, OK, I've worked on the other side of this person. This is what we're going to be dealing with. Or potentially this might be stalling. And here's what we can do, because

Those two things are handled very differently. If it's a logistical issue, maybe it's like a court issue or maybe it's a normal delay, we want to push for some structure and there's different ways to do it. If it's strategic, meaning we don't think that they're responding on purpose because remember this, your spouse knows you better than anybody. So if they know that them not responding is just gonna piss you off, they might be doing it for strategy.

So if it's strategic or we think it is, we want to counter with aggressiveness and get that leverage.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (07:41)

how often is the stalling because of the attorney and not because of the client? Do attorneys do this as a power play move too or do they do it because they're not organized?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (07:53)

That's a good question. Most of the time they're not organized. I would say that that's the majority of what I see. However, there are certain times when it might be more strategic from an attorney's point of view. Specifically, let's just think about it. We're kind of in the season where bonuses are paid out. An attorney might not want to push this financial settlement forward quickly because if they wait and the bonus comes to fruition, that might be marital property, more money in the box to divide.

So those are some things to think about as to why there might be a delay or if it truly is strategic. But I would say probably 75 % of the time you're dealing with somebody who is unorganized on the other side or just can't handle the case flow.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (08:35)

Okay, so let's start there. Let's say that it's either that the attorney is not organized or that it's the client who's not organized and doesn't have their shit together. You mentioned structure. What is the action step here? What do we want people to do? How do we want them to communicate with their attorney? And what would we want their attorney to do to help put some fire under both?

opposing counsel and their client to get that to respond with whatever documents are needed.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (09:07)

Well, if we're talking about documents, the first thing we want you to do is ask your lawyer, is this normal, this delay? Because sometimes when we're talking about on my cases, documents, it does take a little bit of time to get them in. And we don't want to go out of the box being overly aggressive on something that's pretty standard, like just this is what happens. So you want to see first is, is this normal? Your attorney should be able to tell you, yeah, this is normal or no, this is totally unusual. If you're more in the unusual,

camp or it's delaying, you then can do certain things to push it along. The first idea is that you could get into mediation. If both parties are open to mediation, a good mediator will actually take the reins from the court and say, these are the deadlines and I'm going to hold you to it. If you have someone on the other side that's not cooperative, the only road it all leads to the courthouse.

and you actually have to spend money with your lawyer, unfortunately, to get that progress and structure.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (10:06)

I hate that. That's so dumb.

And I know that, I mean, it's dumb because I hate that people have to spend more money just because somebody else isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing. I want to make this really specific because it's already starting to confuse me. Let's say, I don't know, that it's the financials. I mean, it hasn't been that long since I got divorced. Aren't there deadlines?

I don't understand. Isn't there an agreed upon date? Everyone get this in by this date. And they don't do it. what? I don't get it. Isn't there some sort of structure already built in?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (10:37)

Yes.

Yes, there is a structure already built in. And sometimes, at least where I practice, there's a little bit of leeway in that structure. So I would be telling my client if, for instance, the deadline was two weeks prior and they haven't met it or they are asking for more time, usually, depending on the amount of documents, it is standard practice, at least the first time, to give them a little bit more time. If this is something that continues to happen, you have to take a hard stance and say, no, I expect this. And if you don't give it to me,

There are steps in the law as to what you take. Maybe where I practice, you have to send a letter saying, one, you're deficient, and two, I'd like to set a time to talk to you about this. That's the first step. If you still cannot remedy it, they still don't give you the information, the financials. The next step for me is to file a motion to compel in front of the court. It might be different in your jurisdictions, but know that there are steps in which to force somebody's hand if they're not giving you the information.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (11:41)

here's where I can already foresee a client feeling really frustrated because they want their attorney to go like full tilt boogie, right on them. And they're like, pound them, pound them with the paperwork, more, more, more. And I know sometimes attorneys are like, whoa, easy there, tiger. We don't want to come at them hard. We're going to send an email asking them to please respond.

two weeks from now, 21 days from now, whatever, right? And then the person still doesn't. And then the other client is like, well, I don't understand. Why aren't you forcing them? File a motion in court. And then the attorney's still like, well, no, hold on. So why are some attorneys

passive and why are others more assertive?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (12:28)

That's like asking what the difference is between you and me. mean, the differences are vast. First of all, I would never wear a sweater on the ear.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (12:34)

I knew you were going to say that. I knew it was coming back to the dog sweater. God damn it. God dang

Morgan L. Stogsdill (12:40)

first of all, what you're describing is a, I would say an issue with the attorney not setting expectations with the client.

because the client should know that if they blow deadlines, the court really isn't going to jump down their throat. So it's going to at least at first. So it's going to be a waste of your time and money. Here's the steps that we do to get them to comply. And then if they still don't comply, that's when the court is going to get upset. And that's when you have good money being spent to force it in court. So you need to know it's an issue of understanding the law and understanding what happens.

Now, of course, some lawyers are more aggressive than others. I think that we always talk about this. We hate the term shark. I think it's a big waste of your money and time. You need a very competent strategic attorney. That's your best bet. But what I would suggest to you is that you have a really good conversation with your attorney about what to expect, what's normal. Because the worst thing you can do is tell your attorney after they blow the two weeks, go in guns blazing.

So your attorney does what you're telling them to do,

tell you, hey, okay, the court's not really gonna do much. So then you spend all this money, you get to court and the court's like, yeah, I'm gonna give them another two weeks. And that makes you feel even worse. So you don't wanna go to court and start being aggressive unless you know you can win.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (13:58)

And something that you glazed over, but I know this holds true, a really good attorney is not going to just do what you said. A really good attorney is going to say, OK, kitty cat, I know you want me to go guns blazing right now at Chad,

but that's not the best move here. And let me tell you why. It's going to cost you

fees that you really don't need to pay.

to get nothing. Am I right? I mean, that's the attorney's job.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (14:32)

Yes, absolutely. And it should be their job. if they're not telling you those kind of things, it's your job as a client to ask the right questions to get to that answer so that you can make the best decision for your case.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (14:45)

So now let's dig into what if the silence, the stalling, the whatever the hell they're doing is more of a power play move. Cause here's where I think it starts to get into like psychological warfare.

What do you do? What do you do? What do you, what's a realistic expectation for a client to want their attorney to do in this case?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (15:10)

First, want you to know that you cannot settle a case by yourself. Hear me out, you just can't. So you can wanna settle this case so badly, but if that other side does not want to settle the case, the only road that you have is to get to court, get to that end date, get to that trial date. So you have to ask yourself, is it just me that really wants to get this thing settled? Because I am so desperate and the Chad,

Chad's of the world know that I'm so desperate and they're going to do anything to dig their feet in. If you're suspecting that that's the case, you've got to get to court. Same thing with if opposing counsel isn't inclined to respond. If they're not moving this case forward, you have to get to court.

Remember this, you can always settle the case at any point if you have two willing parties. But the only thing that's going to get people to move is when court dates are looming and that pressure is over them.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (16:06)

This sounds like

you're telling everybody threaten court. Use it as a leverage court. Let the other party know that you're not afraid of going to court.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (16:15)

Yes, but I also think that there's a lot, talk is cheap. So you can talk about it and opposing counsel might be like, well, okay. Or opposing side might be like, okay. But when you file the motion, that means something. When it's actually filed and you show you mean business, that means something. So in my mind, you can do those baby steps leading up to it, but nothing hits the way that a motion or a petition does that's filed in court.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (16:39)

So

where I feel like we really have to divide the energy because when somebody is

doing this stalling tactic as a strategic move, either to get you to wear down, go crazy so you agree to something that's less than what you should be agreeing to, or they're just being a dick, or it's just a power play move because they love power, automatically it makes you start to feel powerless.

because someone else is controlling the reins, right? And I think what's so fucked up about it is they're grabbing control by doing nothing. It's like that silent power that is so obnoxious. So I think we have to look at this both like what we were just talking about, the legal steps that you can do.

and then more of like the mental health and emotional shit that you can do to help yourself so that you don't make a major legal mistake. So beyond filing emotion, what else can, is there strategy, like let's say for example, Morgan, that the two attorneys are getting on just fine. It's really just one of the clients that's being a strategic pain in the ass. What else can you do?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (17:53)

There's other things that can do depending on what jurisdiction you're in. first of all, you need to know what kind of pushes their buttons. it is it that you're requesting things from them and that they have to comply with it? Is it that maybe you're sending a subpoena to their bank accounts or maybe their employer and that's going to really piss them off? Those subpoenas are one way to really get their attention. Another way is to issue various sorts of discovery.

There's something where I practice that's a request to admit that you have 28 days once it's issued to respond. If you do not respond and you blow it and it has to be responded to in a certain way, if you blow it, it's all deemed admitted as long as the questions are very black and white so you can really trip people up there. Another thing you can do is send a notice for deposition. This again is the same kind of thing like a trial. don't, you can always wave off a deposition.

if it's your deposition, but sometimes just sending that notice is enough to shake the other side up. So those are just the tip of the iceberg. There's plenty of other things that you can do. You can issue a notice of deposition for somebody else, a third party that maybe your spouse is very protective of. Those are ideas for you. It's not just easy, just go to trial. There are steps before that that you can think about. And those are things that you should be talking to your lawyer about. What are strategy plays for us? How do we get aggressive?

if we're not going to file things in court.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (19:14)

So here's something

that actually wasn't in our outline to discuss, but it came into my brain. You remember the episode we did not too long ago with the attorney, Kerry Mogerman, and we talked about understanding the importance of the question why and how you can use that question to your advantage or it can get you really tripped up and cost you a lot of money. Here would be an example.

of how you and your attorney could use that why question to your advantage to really look at, why are they doing this? And like you said before, you know your spouse and your spouse knows you better than anyone else. So if you have any indication as to what their end game is, what do they really want here? Maybe that's pretty important information.

to share with your attorney to use that as a bargaining chip to get them to get back in the sandbox.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (20:13)

I have had cases where, let's just say the Chad in the case. And if you don't know who Chad is, we always use Chad and Brenda and are there are a resident divorced couple, even though they're fake. But we love the name. So anyway, so Chad has a business. Chad doesn't want to hand over documents. He's he the reason he doesn't want to hand over documents. The why is because we know that he's out there spending tons of money.

on things he shouldn't be spending them on. Women, boats, travel overseas, all those things. He doesn't want Brenda to see it. So he thinks in his mind that if he just doesn't hand over the documents, we're good. Brenda not gonna see it, we're fine. Well, guess what? Brenda has subpoena power.

As long as she's filed her divorce case and handed over the documents, at least where I practice, that she needs to, she can send that subpoena out. The minute she sends it out, the tone has changed. Now Chad's involved in the process and he's trying to figure out anything he can do to make things right so that Brenda will back off of that subpoena.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (21:12)

leave Chad and his boats and women alone. I just love that Chad's got women, boats, and travel. What a picture we're painting for Chad. I bet Chad would like my dog sweater.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (21:15)

Yeah.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (21:25)

Okay. I want to talk about mental health for a minute because when you're managing,

I just said, I was about to say when you're managing someone who's not responding to you and then I stopped myself because I'm like, wait a minute.

We don't want you to try to manage them. You can't manage them. That, in essence, is what the fuck we're talking about

I think we're so used to trying to manage them because you've been married to them. And we want to jump in. And you know what that does? That puts us on the roller coaster, which if you listened to the episode that we covered a few weeks ago,

I gave the very unpopular opinion that rather than talking about this emotional roller coaster of divorce, don't get on the roller coaster. Don't become so emotionally attached to this. You've got to have more emotional neutrality. And so look at this situation. Like I just had to stop myself from saying, we naturally want to jump in and manage the fact that they're not responding.

You don't have control over what they're doing. No matter what you do, no matter if you get really upset or you have like a, fuck it, then don't fucking respond, Brenda. Let the chips fall. I think that I was trying to think of a good analogy and

The only one that I came up with, because I came up with all these examples, one of them involved a Barbie dream house, which I'm not going to embarrass myself by sharing because it made no sense. But I just want you all to know that I tried hard. Okay. The best analogy I came up with is an office setting. If you can pull back and look at this situation of your soon to be ex-spouse not responding, stalling, imagine

that you guys work together in an office. Everybody who works at the company has their job. Well, what happens if one person at the company stops doing their job, just starts slacking off? You don't hide in the break room and cry over it. You're not sobbing over the Xerox machine because, know, dummy over in cubicle 45 isn't getting his shit turned in on time. No.

The dummy in cubicle 45 is first warned, redirected, redirected again and again, and then he has a meeting with HR. And then eventually he's probably fired. The cream will rise to the top and the losers lose. So as much as you can take your emotions out of it, put your trust in your attorney and let the chips fall because

Morgan L. Stogsdill (23:56)

Thank you.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (24:02)

the more emotional that you get, the more that you are crying in the copy room, the more expensive you're going to make things for yourself. And the more that you're going to get on that roller coaster.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (24:13)

if you're in that situation where you're like, good God, I can't get anything to get moving whatsoever. Everything's just sitting there. There's been a million continuances. It's going nowhere. Push your attorney to get a trial date and know this not all trial dates stick the first time. That could be the other side that's discombobulated that asks for a continuance, but yet the trial date.

and have that end date going. That's the best you can do because I have clients all the time that are frustrated with the other side. I say to them, the best you can do is get a trial date. That's it. And so from now till the trial date, sit tight. I don't want you crying about it. I don't want you wasting attorney's fees asking why they're not responding. We have an end date. We have this trial date.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (25:00)

And here comes another unpopular opinion. Sometimes your attorney's not being assertive enough. Sometimes it is on them. Sometimes you'll be in this situation and you'll look at all the choices you'll made and you'll think, fuck, I don't think I aligned myself with somebody powerful enough to go up against what I'm currently dealing with. That is okay. And thank God you realized it.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (25:25)

I like that unpopular opinion and I'm going to say, I agree with you. I think in life, unfortunately, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. It's the truth. It's the truth in your case. If you don't have an aggressive enough attorney, the first step to say is I'm unhappy. This is the behavior I'm not happy with. And this is what I expect if we're going to keep working together and let them talk to you about it and make sure you can get on the same page. If you can't moving attorneys is okay. And we have talked about that.

in our attorney guidebook on this podcast. There's lots of things that we've discussed on options for next steps if you're in that position.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (26:02)

God, we have coached so many of our listeners who have gone through this exact situation and they're like, my God, I feel so bad. My attorney is so great. I like her so much, but she's like too nice and nothing's happening. Or we have situations where

They're like, feel like my attorney and opposing counsel, like I know they're friends in real life, but they're like hanging out and having lunch together during mediation breaks. And that's making me feel uncomfortable because I don't know what's going on. You can voice this. It is okay to voice this and get an answer. And sometimes the path of least resistance is just seeing if there's somebody else at the same firm who can step in.

and assist in your case.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (26:49)

I agree with that, but I want to say that it is generally my experience when you have two lawyers and if they're having lunch together, that's better for your case. That's a better way to get your case done. And there's one thing you didn't mention, Andrea, which happens all the time. And when it happens, I cringe so bad. There are lawyers on the other side that are so aggressive and so inappropriate that they just cost the case so much money.

It's inevitable that you're going to have disputes at some point on something, but the reality is if your lawyer's the one that's causing all the drama, continually causing issues with the other side, and you're getting that feeling in your gut that's like, ooh, I just don't know if this is completely necessary, go with your gut with those types of lawyers.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (27:33)

I like that you brought up the other unpopular opinion, which is that having lunch with opposing counsel, the two attorneys, is not a bad thing. And yes, we've talked about that several times. And of course, I agree. And I'll say, to my point, if it bothers you, you can say something and let your attorney explain why this could benefit you. And of course, your attorney has a life. They're allowed to do whatever they want to do.

But you can say, hey, I noticed that you and Brenda's attorney were making out at the bar the other day. Is that going to help me or are you just attracted to them? There's nothing wrong with asking what's going on. And they might say, yeah, we have a really friendly, professional relationship. OK, cool. And Morgan's absolutely right. Two friends.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (28:19)

Okay.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (28:25)

are likely to come to a resolution a lot faster than two people who do not work well together.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (28:32)

And we've said it numerous times. There are a few attorneys, not many where I practice, that I refuse if they come on the other side of a case, I refuse to be involved. And unfortunately, I step back on the case, even if I love it.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (28:43)

Name them.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (28:51)

I will not name them.

But the reason is because it doesn't help the client when I can't stand the other side. All right. Moving on to how to get their attention, how to move this forward. Here are some action steps that we want to

think about and we want you to think about. The first one is let's look at the situation logically. Let's figure out first with your lawyer whether this is a normal delay or whether something else could be going on. This is an Amazon Prime. You're not going to get instant delivery on your divorce.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (29:27)

What a bummer because I wish it were. Can you imagine? What if we're totally out of business in a few years from now because you can actually order a divorce on Amazon Prime?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (29:38)

Do you get a free sweatshirt with a dog painted on it too?

How Not To Suck At Divorce (29:42)

No, but like if it comes from like a distributor in China, they're like, delivery date between and it's like four months from now. You're like, or you could pay the expedited fee and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that one. And then like some unmarked car comes to your house, throws your divorce papers at it you're like, yay, I got another dog sweater and a divorce. Okay, yes, there's a process to this, but

Easy tiger, you're going to get there. Flying off the handle and jumping on the emotional roller coaster is not going to help you get there. Lean on your attorney. It all goes back to even if it's a logistical thing, even if the case is being stalled because somebody doesn't have their act together. Ask your attorney, okay, in your opinion, what do you think this is or do we know for a fact?

that it's because they don't have their shit together. What's the structure here? What's the structure? What are we doing? What's the realistic expectation? And what happens if they still don't comply? At what point do we need to file a motion? Because like Morgan said, at some point, you got to go before the Wizard of Oz here being the judge.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (30:51)

Right?

Yep. And number three,

don't show them that you're feeling the sense of urgency. This happens a lot with settlement proposals. What I hate seeing is a settlement proposal that goes over and is like, and this offer is open for seven days. Like that's a bunch of bullshit. Okay. Stop it. Putting fake deadlines on things. There's nothing more that irks me in a case because we all know as lawyers, that's a fake deadline. Why did you even put it in there? There must be some kind of urgency on the other side of the case.

So don't show them that you are feeling that sense of urgency. And I'm gonna add a fourth thing.

When the time is right, get aggressive. File that motion. Put your money where your mouth is because talk is cheap. When you put your money where your mouth

is, in these types of cases, you are going to see the other side perk up.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (31:37)

Yeah. And just an added thing here. When there's silence, our brain gets really uncomfortable. Our brains don't like silence. So we automatically are going to fill that space, nobody responds to silence with joy, right? think about it. Morgan, if I send you a text message that's like a picture of, don't know,

Let's say a dog sweater and you don't respond and then I see the ellipses, right? Dot, dot, dot, and then nothing comes. And then again, dot, dot, dot, and then nothing comes. Do I? Right. But do I think that you're speechless in a good way? Like, my God, she is so obsessed with this sweater that she doesn't know how to tell me. She's over the moon. She thinks this is like going to take over Paris Fashion Week. Probably not.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (32:09)

It's because I was speechless.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (32:26)

Your brains naturally go to, she hates it and she doesn't know how to tell me she hates it, right? It like takes us back to not that any of us had cell phones when we were dating unless you guys are like babies. But you know, I mean like dating like in high school, but like it's that like, is he gonna call? Is my phone gonna ring? The silence makes us think that the cute guy doesn't like you.

Don't let yourself go crazy with that story. Our brains are going to fill in the gaps with the worst case scenarios. Get rid of that. Lean on the facts. Lean on the facts. Don't go into these stories. Getting on that emotional roller coaster and filling in the blanks with shit that you're making up is going to make you more erratic, is going to cost you money even if it's just you firing off late night questions to your attorney.

They have to charge you for that time, so don't do it.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (33:21)

I agree, don't do it. And if you do it, because most of my clients can't handle that silence, it's okay. It's okay. But you want to talk to your lawyer and say, essentially, am I being reasonable or is this unreasonable? That's the starting point for you to understand. And if they say, this is reasonable, this is not a delay, then that's it.

That's it, because I have clients that will still push, well, no, no, this is unreasonable. This has to be done. And what we want to say to you, which is unpopular, but we're going to say it as lawyers, is this is the law. I can only go as fast as the court will allow me to go. There's no emergency here. There's no big problem here. It's just that you don't like how fast it's going. And so that's one thing that you have to know. Is it you or is it truly an issue?

How Not To Suck At Divorce (34:12)

And that part sucks. mean, I just had a friend go through this with a post-decree issue, and she was so frustrated at how long it was taking for the court to do stuff. And it is frustrating. And we don't have control over that. The attorneys, I don't really know actually that the attorneys get frustrated anymore because they have that realistic expectation that this is going to take weeks, but it sucks. And I know we just

filled your ears for the last 30, 40 minutes with like, don't get emotionally involved. And that's gonna feel really hard sometimes, because it's your life and it's your kids' lives and it's your money and it's your boats and women. So I understand all of that. But

if you don't do something different, then you're gonna keep getting the same result that led you to this

place. So you gotta listen to us. We're doing this because we want to help you

change the way you're looking at the situation so that you don't end up wasting thousands of dollars unnecessarily. And like we said towards the end of this, sometimes it is on your attorney. Sometimes it is because your attorney isn't being assertive enough. And if you think that that's the case, guess what you can do? Send us an email or join our private community.

And pop a question there, we are happy to help you suss out the situation.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (35:33)

That's right, because sometimes we respond to messages and this is what kind of started this whole episode, which we were getting a lot of messages like, this is what's happening in my case. I'm really frustrated. Is this normal? And on Tuesdays, thank you, Andrea, for offering my services up. I do respond to any private community information or questions that we receive. And we're receiving a lot about that. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, this sounds pretty normal to me. I don't have all the facts, but this sounds normal.

Other times I'm like, absolutely not. You need to have a discussion with your attorney right away.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (36:05)

That's right. Tuesdays are not just for tacos anymore. And I did change it to every other Tuesday because every Tuesday I think was just really starting to overwhelm you and your beautiful blonde hair was starting to fall. So I'm going to pay you in hugs and dog sweaters. Friends, remember this, this process that you are in, It is a marathon. It is not a sprint.

especially if somebody is delaying installing your case.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (36:35)

If that's the case, you're running in mud and you're frustrated. And that is so normal. You don't need to sit there and just stew about it. You need to talk to your lawyer or talk to us. We have a private community. We have lots of guides on our online website. We answer all DMs. We answer if you need a new lawyer, we give you ideas. We want you in the best hands possible here. And we don't want you to feel alone.

Please rate and review us. It helps us continue to bring these amazing episodes each week. And remember this, on your worst days, you have got this.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (37:12)

And we, my friends,

have got you.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (37:18)

The How Not to Suck a Divorce podcast shall not be copied or rebroadcast without consent. This podcast does not contain legal advice. The information heard on this show shall not and should not be used as legal advice.