In episode 41 of The Real Talk, Raquel Ramirez interviews Retired Judge Lester Langer as he shares insights from his extensive legal career, including experiences in family law, domestic violence cases, and the complexities of the judicial system. From the evolution of domestic violence laws to the challenges of resolving disputes through mediation and arbitration, Judge Langer provides a unique perspective on the legal system.
Tune in for a fascinating discussion on law, mediation, and personal experiences in the legal field.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:01:23] Lawyer with a Bright Perspective.
[00:05:36] Running for Circuit Court Judge.
[00:11:04] Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
[00:13:56] Domestic Violence Court Beginnings.
[00:19:33] Juvenile Justice and Rehabilitation.
[00:24:46] Alternative Dispute Resolutions.
[00:27:50] Appeals in the Legal System.
[00:33:43] Labor-Intensive AppellateCourt Process.
[00:36:42] Florida Homestead Law.
[00:39:15] The Legal Process Intricacies.
[00:44:33] Domestic violence Cases Origins.
[00:47:29] Elderly Abuse in Nursing Homes.
[00:54:42] Domestic Violence and Mental Abuse.
[00:57:39] Mediation and Arbitration Differences.
[01:02:19] Arbitration Rules and Procedures.
[01:04:46] Arbitrators in Construction Projects.
[01:10:37] Types of Arbitration.
[01:16:06] Managing People's Expectations.
[01:21:04] AI vs. Human Dynamics.
[01:22:07] Timing is Crucial in Divorce.
[01:25:34] Importance of Choosing the Right Professional.
[01:30:25] Lawyers' Willingness to Explain.
[01:34:43] Legal Contributions and Career Insights.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Raquel Ramirez
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/featured_properties_intl/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/featuredre
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquel-ramirez/
Lester Langer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lester.langer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesterlanger/
WEBSITES:
The Real Talk: https://www.therealtalkpodcast.net/
Featured Properties International: https://msha.ke/featuredre
Salmon & Dulberg Dispute Resolution: https://sd-adr.com/attorney/lester-langer/
Welcome to The Real Talk. I'm Raquel Ramirez, your host and real estate professional here to bring you insightful conversations, expert advice and powerful stories about what really goes on in life, love, divorce and real estate. Are you ready? Let's get real. Welcome to The Real Talk podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you, Judge?
Raquel Ramirez
I'm doing well, thank you. Very well. I can't complain.
Lester Langer
Oh, good. I'm really glad to hear that. And I can see from your background that you are sitting in Georgia, which is very, very nice.
Raquel Ramirez
It is wonderful to be out of Dade County for a little while.
Lester Langer
I don't I don't blame you. I don't blame you. For the listeners today, I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming retired Judge Lester Langer. who is a friend and just somebody I admire very, very much for having such an incredible career. Judge, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with me today. Of course, you are retired, but that doesn't mean you haven't stopped working and you are currently acting as a mediator and arbitrator for Salmon and Dahlberg Dispute Resolution. So I would love to get into that. But before we do and start talking about mediation arbitration, tell us a little bit about your career. I think it's worth highlighting.
Well,
I'm a lawyer. OK, lawyers these days are not always looked upon in the brightest of light, but I will tell you that lawyers are pretty good people. I love lawyers. And most people love their lawyers. It's the other guy they really don't like, but they like their lawyers. So I was a lawyer. I grew up in Miami-Dade County. I came when I was four years old. So I'm not quite a native, but I'm almost a native. OK, but I was pretty close. I grew up in Miami, the old area called Five Points, OK, which is at the end of Coral Way and 12th Avenue. Yeah. Then my folks moved to Carl Gables in the early late 40s, the early 50s. Wow. OK. So I ended up going to Carl Gables Elementary School and I went to Ponce, what they used to call junior high school, which is now middle school, of course. Wow. And I went to Gables High School. Nice. And graduated in sixty four and then. I went on to the University of Miami. OK, so I stayed home most of my time and I got a degree in business and then went on to law school and got a law degree. OK, and went on to practice law. I started practicing law in 1971. Wow. After I passed the bar. So it's been a while, just a little, a little while. And I practiced law for about, I don't know, 21 years. Around Dade County, my last office was in Carl Gables, but before that, I was down in Homestead for a while and learned how to do all kinds of different things. But at some point, many lawyers get the same feeling. You're in court. You're litigating cases. You're representing clients. You're in front of judges. And at one point, the light goes on and says, you know, I think I can do that job. Yeah. Right. Up there and making decisions. So I got sort of bit by that bug. And I put my name into what's known as the Judicial Nominating Commission. OK. And it's a group that's made up of lawyers. Some of our. Excuse me. Some are appointed by the. Local lawyers. Others are appointed by the Florida Bar. Other members are appointed by the governor of the state at that particular time. And then they and then they interview people. To make recommendations to the governor as to who might be appointed as a judge. So I put that after I've been practicing about 15 years. I put my name in that ring. Okay. And I was very fortunate that I got called to be interviewed by. all these top notch lawyers and, you know, from around Dade County at that time. And I did really well in terms of my interview with these folks. They thought I was well qualified. All that. The only thing they said is I didn't have a lot of jury trials. Interesting. At that time, they wanted judges or I was not the primary lawyer. So I was sitting second chair. Mm hmm. And I took their advice and I went ahead and I tried five or six jury trials thereafter instead of settling my cases right away. OK, by the client and I decided that let's go ahead and do jury trial. So I did jury trials. I did pretty well. Didn't win them all, unfortunately, but I won enough. OK. I put my name back in the ring, so to speak. And lo and behold, the next time I went before the Judicial Nominating Commission, My name came out and my name was sent up to the then governor of the state of Florida. OK. Martinez, I believe, at that.
I was going to say, who was that?
OK. Governor Martinez.
So this is the 70s now, right?
No, this is in the 90s now.
In the 90s. Oh, OK. Right. Because you started in the 70s. My bad. Started it.
Well, I started practicing law in the 70s. I started putting my name in the ring about 1985, 86 to be OK. And so a few years after I didn't get out, I put my name back in and ultimately I got out. And so it was in my name went up to. Governor Martinez, along with five other people at that time, and I did not get appointed by the governor. Interesting. So. Once you sort of get bit by that bug, at least for me, I said, well, I might as well try again. Why not? You keep going, right? No, you can't. I already filled out the application. It's like a 50, 100 page application. No, it's not. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Your whole life history and your.
Well, they can't make it easy for you.
No, the dog's history, you know, everybody's history. So once you fill it out, it's not so hard to fill it out again when you're done. So I did it again. My name went back up to the governor again. But I still did not get appointed. No, you did.
OK, that makes you feel any better. I would have appointed you immediately. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
So we're talking now around 1992. OK. And so. A lot of people that I knew were either getting appointed or they ran for election and they got elected. There's two ways to become a judge in the state of Florida. One is by appointment, going through the Judicial Nominating Commission. And hopefully there's an opening. OK. And so the governor gets the ability to appoint somebody to the bench. OK. Or you can run for election if there is a seat or if you want to run against an incumbent judge. You have the ability. to run for election. You know, we still have elections in this country, and so that works very well. So I said, OK, I'm going to run for election. So in 1992, I put my name out to run for election. I had never run for office. I had never been really political before or anything like that. And so I decided to run. And I ran hard and everybody was very supportive. And then, of course, an incumbent judge who had a very good reputation decided to jump into my race. I was running for circuit court judge, which is the highest judge in the state of Florida at that time, other than on the appellate court or the Supreme Court, the highest trial court judge. And a county court judge who had a very good reputation went ahead and jumped into that race. And I had to make a decision, OK? Even though I was very well thought of and everybody liked me, could I win? I mean, you always have to have that. And you can run a race and lose.
That's a fair question, of course.
And so at that time I decided, you know, discretion is the better part of valor. And I dropped down to an empty county court seat, which is a lower level judge. And I started running in that seat. It was a very big decision, a very hard decision, but between my family and other people, it kind of made good sense to do that. So I jumped into that race. I ran all the way unopposed up to the point of the day of qualifying. OK, because everybody has to qualify. And anybody in the world can run in that seat if you're the only person there. So, of course, somebody jumped into that race on the day of qualifying at. Eleven fifty eight that morning because it closed at 12 noon. No. So I ended up in 1992 in a contested race for the judge. I can't believe it. Never been political or anything like that. So all of a sudden. I'm in a political fight. You know, and I was which I was totally unprepared for because I was a kind of a naive guy that just practiced law and didn't really do much in politics. Well, you learn very quickly that Dade County is in a huge place. to run. It's the largest county in the state, technically, you know, geographically. It's larger than most electoral districts around the country because it's 60 miles across and 60 miles long. So you're running in a huge area and you have to run countywide. And it's a nonpartisan race, so you don't run as a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent. You run as a nonpartisan so everybody and anybody can either vote for you or choose not to vote for you. Right. So you have to run all over the county. So it takes time. It takes money and it takes a lot of effort and commitment. Yeah, sure. And commit you. Well, you have to be committed. Yeah. So I was committed. So I was running all over Dade County. I went to places that I had hardly ever been in my lifetime in Dade County to people and shake hands and talk about what I wanted to do and all that kind of stuff. And I ran a pretty good race. And then the week or two before the election. Oh, my goodness. OK. We had Hurricane Andrew.
Oh, yes. Ninety two.
Ninety two. Everybody. Oh, my goodness. Hurricane Andrew. OK, so I'm like at the edge of my seat here. Hurricane Andrew, in its wisdom, wiped out every polling place in Dade County. Oh, my God. OK. Especially in South Dade. you know, in Miami. North Dade wasn't hit bad, but everybody got, you know, blasted by Hurricane Andrew in some way or another. So they postponed the election for a while until they could reset up all of the polling places and everything like that. So what did I do? I went ahead and volunteered for the Red Cross because I had practiced law in Homestead and I had lived out in the Redlands for a while. And that area was really badly hit.
Yeah.
I worked a little bit for FEMA and the Red Cross to do damage assessments in that area for the next two or three weeks until the election was put back on track. OK, and I was so that they finally got the polling places temporarily and all these other kind of stuff. And I was fortunate in that the people who are still alive and not left because of Hurricane Andrew and could still vote ended up voting me in office.
Finally, all that waiting.
All that, all that. So I won the election in 92. Congrats. And I became a county court judge, what people call the people's court judge. Yeah, yeah. We handled traffic cases and lower level misdemeanor cases and small claims cases. Anything that was $30,000 and less than anybody sued anybody for what a county court judge did. And I started in Carl Gables. in the old Carl Gables police station because the court was on the second floor of the police station. Oh, man. And I started there doing county court cases, becoming a people's court judge. Handling all of those kinds of things, and I did that for. Two or three years. And then I was asked to come into the domestic violence court. Oh, wow. which had been started here in Dade County nationwide. OK. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. We started it here, just like we started the drug courts back in the day. At that time, we started here in Florida.
Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, it's definitely a good thing. It was a good thing. The fact that it started here may be telling.
Well, we had lots of things going on at that rate, like always in Florida, there's always lots of stuff going on to keep you on your toes. It does for sure. So that I was asked to come into the domestic violence course, because of my background, I had done a lot of family law. Okay, an attorney and I ended up representing a lot of people in juvenile court and dependency court. That's right. As it turns out, people who are involved in domestic violence have a lot of family related problems. Sure. And they have a lot of criminal related problems as well. So I was asked to come. I was the first male judge in the domestic violence court here in Dade County.
Oh, wow.
Well, that's interesting, which was very interesting because the other judges, the couple of judges that had been there before were all female. That's very interesting. Three of us that were doing domestic violence here in Dade County. OK, and. It was a fascinating time, I learned a lot, a lot about things that I probably never really wanted to know about how people treat each other in relationships. Yes. And things such as that that come up. But it was a fascinating time because domestic violence was new. Not that domestic violence was new. It was not right. The fact that we were doing something about it was right. It was new. Right. So we were learning. What to do. basically on kind of on the job training for all of us who were involved in domestic violence at times statewide. That's we were kind of experimental place where it was all happening here and day. So it's very interesting. It was kind of a very exciting time. Sure. And I did that for another two or three years, I became one of the administrative judges. In that division. And then in 1997, I got elevated up to the circuit court, which is now the highest level trial court.
Oh, circle judge.
Yes. I'm a circuit judge by a different governor back at that time. OK, so I got elevated up to the circuit court and I started off in the family division in the circuit court, still doing domestic violence and doing family. OK. And then because of my background in juvenile and family law, I had requested that I go to the juvenile court. Oh, that's right. And so after about six months, seven months, I was transferred over to the juvenile court. Which at that time was on Northwest 27th Avenue and 33rd Street. Oh, OK. Some of your viewers may remember that place out in no man's land. Sure. Because nobody knew it was there. Exactly. Except the people that ended up going there. Right. And that's where the juvenile detention center was in the juvenile court was there. Yeah. What they call juvie. What they call juvie. Right. So I ended up going to the juvenile court. I started off in the delinquency division doing criminal cases for juveniles. Hmm. OK, so kids, you know, accused of crimes who are arrested. Right. And at that time, this would be 1997, early 1998. Many people might remember there was an onslaught of juvenile crime not only here in Florida, but throughout the United States. They were talking about juvenile predators and people who were getting killed on the turnpike from. Oh, yes. you know, and all of that kind of stuff. And I do remember that. Dade County was sort of at the forefront again, of course, of course. OK, of how do you deal with these? Major, major crimes being committed by juveniles. Mm hmm. So the state legislature. OK, wanted to deal pretty harshly with juvenile offenders. Mm hmm. So they created what they call the direct file system, which allowed the state attorney to direct file children of a certain age to juvenile court, to adult court if. They had committed. Designated crimes, murder, rape, auto theft, armed robbery. The big one, I think it was a violent related crime. Right. And if you were 17 years or older, you could be automatically direct filed to the adult court.
OK, so that means that you would just bypass Juvie or the juvenile court altogether and be tried as an adult.
Correct. Because juvenile court had jurisdiction over people who committed crimes who are under 18 years old. Right. Right. OK. So at that time, Miami-Dade County, okay, direct filed the most juveniles throughout the United States to the adult court. Wow. Wow. So it was, again, another time where things were crazy. Wow. Had a lot of kids coming. We had a lot of kids moving. you know, to the adult court. So they had to create youthful offender programs. They had to create boot camps for young, younger offenders. All of that stuff was going on here in the middle of Dade County, including the adult drug court, which had started a few years before. So they ended up starting a juvenile drug court at the same time. Oh, my goodness. So here in Dade County, most people didn't know what was going on at the time. They kind of goes on and lives their lives, you know, unless you're involved in that or your kids in trouble, unless your kids or you or somebody were involved in something like that. We were sort of at the forefront of the juvenile justice system around the country. People were coming to look at Miami County. to see what we were doing, to see if what we were doing would have a positive impact on reducing what was going on nationwide. We'd have people come from all over the country, we'd have people come from all over the world, little Dade County, okay, to see what was going on. So I was involved in all of those things when I was at the juvenile court. I became one of the administrative judges at the juvenile court As well, Judge Cindy Lederman was there. She was the overall administrative judge, but she dealt primarily with child welfare and kids in the dependency system. Right, right. And I dealt primarily with kids in the juvenile justice system. That's how we sort of divided our time because things were overwhelming. Sure. If you can imagine. So I ended up staying in the juvenile justice system until When did I get transferred? I got transferred there in 2009. Oh, wow. So I stayed there about 10 years or a little over the criminal justice system. It was a wonderful experience, even though it was a terrible place to be, but you, in my mind, okay, you could effectuate change in people. You know, if you got to the kids early enough, if you got to families early enough, yours. You could kind of change the trajectory of somebody's life. You can't do that in a lot of other places where you practice law. I mean, you can represent them, you can do the best for them, But you can't always change the direction people are heading in. That's a very good point. But in the juvenile court, you could. So I felt very OK there, you know, and I thought that I was being extremely helpful. I then went to the civil court. in 2009, and I did what most civil trial judges do.
We handle cases, all kinds of cases from... This is at the circuit level now.
We're still in the circuit level.
I was at the circuit level in juvenile too, but here I was at the circuit level in civil. I handled all kinds of cases from a case where somebody sued somebody for $30,000 and above, It would be millions to all kinds of constitutional questions, criminal cases, theoretically, even though I didn't do a lot of criminal cases, but any kind of case that would come up, auto accidents, medical malpractice, tobacco cases were hot at that time. So all of those kinds of things were going on at that time. And so it was a- It was a busy time. It was a busy time. So I stayed as a circuit judge until I retired. At the end of 2012, so I did 20 years or so on the bench. Wow. OK. In my time, so all kinds of different cases. And like most of my colleagues, I would I had gone into something called the drop program, the county in the state. Yeah. A program where you can retire early. Mm hmm. Okay. And they paid you and you got retirement and all those are kind of good things. And economically, it made sense for me to do that at that time. So I went in the drop program, but it required that you retire after five years. And at the time I was on the bench, the mandatory retirement age was 70. Okay. So I retired when I was only 67. instead of 70. So I retired early. And of course, the legislature in its wisdom extended the retirement age to 75. Of course, of course, you know, after I was gone. But I was still feeling pretty viable and that I had a lot more to give, you know, and I thought I could be useful. So I went into what's known as mediation and arbitration, arbitration, what we call alternative dispute resolutions. Yes, sir. OK, so we arbitrators and mediators. Help people resolve cases so they don't have to go through a full blown litigation, right? OK, and litigation. I mean, people watch television and they see lawyers and they watch all the judges and all the shows. Right. I wish it was always as exciting as that, but it's not OK.
It's not like Tom Cruise and it's not Jack Nicholson. And it's not like that.
It's not quite like that. We generally can't wrap things up in an hour or two. Sometimes it takes a long time. Right. you know, to do things and litigation sometimes can take a long. When I do mediation, I explain to people, especially people that haven't been involved in the legal world. Right. You know that. You can have the best case in the world. And you and everybody that, you know, can tell you you're right, you know, and that you were done wrong and, you know, the other person's a really bad person and did really bad things. But when you go to court, there's always two sides to every case. That's right. Okay. There's your side and there's the other side. Okay. And then you're dependent on either a judge that you don't know or a jury made up of six strangers that you don't know. Right. who are ultimately going to make a decision about your life. That's right. Cherry duty. And they're going to hear from you, but they're also going to hear from the other side.
Mm hmm.
OK. And the two stories might be diametrically opposed. Right. In terms of what happened or who did what to who. Or how many times did somebody do something? Did he run the red light or did you run the red light? Was he speeding or were you speeding? You know, so there's all kinds of facts that come out. And the judge and the jury are the ones that decide the facts. Right. And sometimes I know this sounds strange to people out there, especially those that think they're right all the time. OK, the jury or the judge may decide the other way. Yeah. They may not decide for you, okay? And they may say, look, you didn't prove your case, or the other guy was much more convincing, or I didn't believe you, or the other facts made a lot more logical sense to me than what the story that I heard from you. So I decided for the defendant, or I decided for the plaintiff, whatever the case may be. But here's the rub, and a lot of, people who don't get involved in the legal system don't understand. If you don't like the outcome of the case, you have the right to take an appeal to a hired court. And so if you don't like the outcome of the case, you speak to your lawyer and you say, I want to appeal to a higher court. And if that lawyer an appellate lawyer, somebody that has experience with taking appeals, agrees that the lower judge or the jury made a mistake, you may have the ability to appeal to a higher court. Three judges decide the case at the higher level. And you go through the same thing. You file a brief. You have an argument. The panel can agree with you or they can disagree with you. They can affirm and say everything was done correctly. Or they can agree with you if you are the person that's appealing. And say, no, the lower court was wrong. We're sending everything back. So you get to start all over again. Oh, my goodness.
From scratch. Oh, my goodness. And it could be a year later. I'm exhausted already.
OK. And then, or they, there's a third thing they can do. They can remand with instructions to correct some things that may have been done incorrectly in the lower court, whatever they may be. Okay. So instead of starting over at the beginning, maybe you start over at in the middle. Right. Okay. But here's the other part of that. Even if you start over in the beginning or you start over in the middle, if you don't like the outcome of that again, you still have the right to appeal.
Is there a limit to how many times you can appeal? Pretty much.
There are two or three. It depends on the issues that come up. Sure. And then if you don't like what the appellate court did. Under the right circumstances, you have the right to appeal to. The Florida Supreme Court, right, and they don't they don't they don't take every case, but they take certain cases, and if your case qualifies. And you can afford to do it.
That was my next, yeah. Right, that was my next thought.
You can appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
Right. So, yeah, so and I apologize for interrupting, but just to go back a little bit, you can't appeal indefinitely just because you don't like the outcome of what's of the outcome that you're getting each and every time. And then, of course, there is the the matter of what it costs to get to the appellate level and then even to get it to the Supreme Court level. because I assume it's not the same cost and of course your attorneys are going to change. Actually, that's a good question. The attorney who's helping you at the basic court level, If they are not appellate attorneys, they cannot represent you in an appellate court.
Well, they can. They can. And many times people use the same trial attorney. And if that trial attorney also does appeals. OK. Very well experienced doing appeals. That's not a problem. OK. Problem comes in with. If the person that's representing you at the trial level does not do appeals. Right. Then you have to hire an appellate lawyer. You may have to hire a lawyer that does do appeals. Right. OK. And with everything else in life, everything, you know, costs. Right.
And those costs go up, of course. And those costs go up accordingly.
So you should have a very, very compelling case to see it that far. Right.
And again, because of that, you have to have somebody that will be very truthful with you about whether you have a good appeal or not. We don't have a good appeal.
Yeah.
You don't want them stringing you along and charging you in the same place you are two or three years later. Yeah. with no recovery and having spent a lot of money and not being terribly satisfied with the system.
Right. And you make a good point. You said two or three years, meaning that this isn't something that resolves itself. It's not like you're going to get a court appointment every other month or you're going to get on the calendar two or three times a year. These things take time because there are so many people, so many cases being filed continually. And some things require review, right? I'm assuming they have to take the time to review these cases. Do the judge, I mean, does the judge at say the appellate level, do they get involved before the case is brought to the court or are they informed as of the date that you make your appearance?
Well, what happens is the appellate court has a procedure. It requires that the person that's appealing file a brief and outlines the errors that were made in the lower court. Right. Right. I mean, you have a certain amount of time. Right. Days. It could be 60 days. OK, but the other side. But what they call the appellee, the other side, OK, has the right to file a reply brief. And he has a certain amount of days to do that, too. Then the appellant, the person prosecuting the appeal, has the right to file a reply brief to that brief. All of those briefs then go to the appellate court for review. Wow. And then that's a process. You as the person have the have the ability to ask for oral argument where your lawyer will go in front of the three judge panel. They will orally argue. The errors that they think happened in the court below and then the other side has a chance to have their oral argument. Right. Says, no, they didn't make any errors and then the appellate court will make a decision. Right. Right.
Interesting. So it's a.
Labor intensive. It can get to be a very long process. Yeah. Hence the need for mediation and arbitration, because mediation. OK, you as someone, a party involved in that have the ability to ask a mediator to help you and the other side come to an agreement. Mm hmm. So a couple of things. One, you don't have to go through the lawsuit because you can have mediation before there's a lawsuit. Right. In other words, you have a conflict, you have a problem. You could theoretically do mediation to try to resolve things before you get to litigation. You can go to litigation, file a lawsuit. OK, but while you're during the lawsuit, you can request mediation. Right. And you can try to resolve everything before you have to go through all the litigation. Right. If you can't do that, then sometimes people go through all the litigation and they get to that point where one party or the other has won. Somebody is contemplating going through this appeal process, which can take a long time. Right. And you can say, well, before I go through an appeal, maybe we should sit down with the mediator again. Now that all these issues have been quote unquote resolved or all these issues are still up for grabs because I can appeal. Right. And let's see if we can work out a settlement to avoid that happening.
So you can mediate at any point in time.
You can mediate at any point, even after the appeal. you can mediate because what many lay people don't understand, okay, is even though you get a judgment, an award, a verdict, okay, you want a million dollars. Fantastic, you want a million bucks. Until you actually can collect the million dollars, all you really have is this piece of paper that says you want a million dollars. You know, it doesn't I owe you automatically. Right. OK, so there's a collection process that one has to go through in order to collect on what they call the judgment or the verdict. Right. OK. And. Florida being in the forefront of many things, OK, Florida is a very good debtor state because Florida has all kinds of protections. Really? Okay. They have homestead property. Oh, that's true. You're a real estate person, right?
Yes. Yes. Homestead. Yeah, for sure. That's a big one.
Okay. Depending on how it's titled and whether you live there as your primary domicile. That's right. Okay. So you could have a million dollar judgment against you. You could live in a $40 million property.
But they can't take that from you, right? They can't touch it.
Right. OK, so many times we have people that come to Florida who are very wealthy or very litigious or very whatever. They may have judgments against them from other states and for other things. OK, but. They're protected under the Florida Homestead Law. Interesting. And that includes some personal property like a certain amount of vehicles and personal property and other things that might be contained in that homestead.
So then how does outside of the homestead, let's say somebody was awarded a million dollars and you've got this nice piece of paper that says, congratulations, you got this million dollars. How would you collect on that? Let's say that the person who owes you that million dollars does have a homestead property. So clearly that's not something that's on the table. What what other recourse then? How does how would you collect on that million dollars? Do they have to suddenly win the lottery? Do they maybe their businesses?
Yeah, you could hope they suddenly win the lottery.
But then you also have to hope that they play. Right. Right.
But what generally you do, I used to do collections back in the day when I was a practicing lawyer. You record the judgment in the public records of Dade County. Right. OK, or theoretically in any county in the state of Florida, because people don't always live in just one place. Right. And they don't always just own things in one place. Correct. So you record your judgment. OK, it's generally good for 20 years. OK, so theoretically, what could happen? The guy wins the lottery. OK, his name is there. And so you read his name and you you go, say, let me you garnish something called garnishment, you can garnish a bank account. He has other assets, maybe he owns a boat or a plane or another property, which is not his homestead property. As a business that earns income, you can go after all of those other kinds of assets that somebody may have in order to try to collect on your judgment.
So is that a separate process once you do get awarded that? It's a separate process.
Right. Oh, wow. Separate process. It's another lawyer, perhaps. OK, that specializes in that area of garnishment. And right. All of that may require some other lawsuits in order to get to where that other property. So that's a process. Everything is wonderful in that hour or two special we watch on TV. Yeah. It's not exactly how the real world works.
You mean it doesn't all get resolved in 30 minutes?
It does not all get resolved in 30 minutes. And people are frustrated by that. Sure. You know, people start thinking the system doesn't work because it's flawed. Right. You know, it's not immediate. Sure. But that's not how the system was created or designed. because everybody was required to get due process. People can't just knock on your door and knock you on the head and come in and take your stuff because maybe back in the day, they used to do that. They'd carry their club with them, right? They'd carry their club, they'd bang the guy on the head, they'd come and take all his property. It doesn't work that way anymore. Problem solved. So we have a system. Not everybody loves the system, but When you look at the system worldwide, it's probably the best, fairest system in the world, even though there are people I'm sure today that with everything that's been going on that don't really think that. Sure, they may disagree, right. You know, you might disagree, but the system's the best system that generally gives the fairest result. to the majority of people that access the system. So I'm a big believer in the legal system, the way it exists in this country. Sure. I'm a believer in the jury system. I think it works well the majority of the time, not every time. Sure. Well, there is nothing that's perfect. Right, exactly. There's always outliers. Sure.
But we can tell even from the process that it took for you to make it to become a judge, that it was very tedious. And but had it just been handed to you, had it been easy, I guess anybody could have been a judge. Right. And so you kind of have to earn your stripes. You have to go through the experience. in and of itself to really earn that spot. And I guess that's kind of the same way with the judicial process. If it was easy for you to collect on everybody every time that you feel that you've been, pardon my French, screwed over, then can you imagine this? This would be just utter chaos. I mean, we already live, at least in South Florida, we live in a very contentious city where everybody wants to sue you just because your neighbor's grass is taller than yours and you happen to trip on it. I don't know, something ridiculous. Can you imagine if we were quick to reward people, not reward, award people, that's the correct word, to award people on each and every occurrence, each and every complaint that they file? And we would do it quickly, swiftly. I mean, what kind of order would that be? It would be no order.
I don't think there would be much order. I don't think people would be satisfied with absolutely none of those things. Right. And you would ultimately not get to a place of sort of finality. Yeah. Yeah. But people would be self-helping all the time. Constantly felt it would be unfair. Yeah. You know, did something unfairly to them. So therefore, there has to be retribution. You know, that cycle would just continue to continue. And we wouldn't have any. you know, law and order or civilization or anything like that.
It's fascinating. No one's ever explained to me the entirety of that process as well as you did now. And I mean, you know very well, I'm very well acquainted with just a ton of attorneys at all different fields. But I, you know, I have limited, I guess, a limited view of what it is that you all do and how that process works. Thankfully, because I've been outside of that, I have nothing to be ashamed about. I've committed no crimes. I've lived a very vanilla life, I guess, if you will. So I don't know.
Kelly, I know that's not true. But that's what you've stayed outside you. You've drawn inside the lines.
Yes, that is for sure. That is for sure. Yes.
Yes. So tell us a little bit. Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about my legal life.
That's I mean, it's fascinating. And you said there were so many things that I want to see if I could touch on if I remember. You mentioned, of course, that you you did. You worked on the domestic violence realm. Now, I'm bringing this up because I just had a conversation with someone not so long ago that was asking me about my divorce certification and what that's like and, you know, how I deal with divorcing families, et cetera. And of course, the topic of domestic violence came up. How do I handle those cases? And in that conversation, I happen to mention that I've actually had more domestic violence cases in the estate side than I have in the divorce side, meaning that You would think that a husband and wife would be at each other's throats, literally, because they're constantly arguing and fighting over their family, their kids, their house, whatever. But I've actually had more domestic violence issues with the elderly. And it's really, really scary and really sad.
Very sad.
So for you, how did that where did you see most of your domestic violence cases coming from? What was that like for you?
Well, family cases, of course. Sure. OK. And I did a lot of family law when I practiced law. So in the early days. Before the domestic violence court, OK, you know, there was the old rule of thumb, you could hit your wife as long as the stick wasn't as thick as your thumb.
That's right.
The rule of thumb. And so The police used to handle domestic cases the way you see them done a lot on TV. The cops would come. They'd separate everybody. They'd tell the guy to go walk around the block, cool off. Right. Talk to the wife and say things like, do you really want to file charges? I mean, he's really a good guy. Must have had a bad day or, you know, some crap like that. Right. And. They would go away. You know, the next night, the guy beat the hell out of the wife or something, whether somebody get killed or kids would, you know, some kid would kill the dad because he was beating the wife or, you know, all kinds of issues would have. So hence the domestic violence court was created. So we finally started dealing with those cases. OK, whereby we just didn't turn a blind eye that somebody was being abused either emotionally or physically or financially. And we were finally doing something about that. And we were giving women primarily, OK, some rights that they had constitutionally, but were never really provided. Right. Or enforced. OK. move forward 20, 25, 30 years, okay? Now Florida is in the forefront of trying to protect vulnerable adults, elderly people, who are being abused by their caretakers, by their children, by the facilities they're placed in, okay? Because their children don't have the desire, don't have the ability, or are no longer available to take care of elderly people who are living a lot longer. Yeah. Because of science and people are a lot healthier, et cetera, et cetera. Live their children these days instead of vice versa. They have no one to care for them. Right. So the state comes in or a facility comes in or a caretaker becomes available. It could be a neighbor. It could be a friend. It could be an organization. okay, and provide those services. As a result, there's been a lot of elderly abuse, exploitation of elders, you know, scams that are run on people. And so that has become a major source of domestic violence, but against elderly people, people in nursing homes, people are being cared for by third party caretakers. people who are being cared for by their children. Yeah, as well. OK. So and I will tell you, I don't like to tell war stories very much. OK. Years ago, I handle a estate case. OK. Where the husband killed the wife. Oh, my goodness. OK. And yet. Because they couldn't prove the husband killed the wife, they couldn't convict him of first degree murder. He was entitled to petition for his wife's assets in the estate.
The insult to injury. My goodness.
But in estate matters. You can show civilly that that person was the cause of that person's death and exclude them from recovering any of the assets that they might acquire as a result of whatever their actions were that caused that person's death. I didn't know that. It's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but it's proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Okay, it's a little different standard than a criminal standard, okay? So I had that case. I had one of those cases. There are multiple cases like that, but I was unfortunate enough to have one. And the most violent arguments that took place in that estate case were between the father, who was the alleged perpetrator, and his children. the relatives of the woman that. He allegedly killed. Wow. Many of which came to physical violence between all of those people during this state matter in the courtroom, not in the courtroom, because that would have been scandalous outside the court, which was not a good place either. Right. But very, very. difficult circumstances for everybody. That's very sad. Involved in that case. But there are those situations that crop up like that. Could be in a civil case. Yeah. Partners fighting with each other. Yeah. All of a sudden, all those old hurts that had in their business together come out. Yeah. Physical violence can occur. Could be during a deposition. It could be during a court hearing. Family cases, as you know, sometimes things happen when people are changing kids during visitation or the ex or during the divorce. Somebody has a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a significant other. You know, all of those circumstances occur. During these kinds of cases, and they create. Other circumstances. which one has to be aware of. When I was in the domestic violence court, I was very weary of domestic violence cases that ultimately turned into family cases. OK, because part of the domestic violence law was providing an order of protection for the person that was being abused, which required that the other person stay away from them. Right, right. OK. So that's very difficult when you're in a family case. Yeah. Because the family court at that time, it's different now, but at that time, OK, allowed the parties to get together. Hmm. OK, whether it's for a deposition, to meet with the attorneys, to get together in the family court so they could talk about the kids and then and then all that other stuff. which was very detrimental to the abused person because they were not on an even playing field. That's right. You know, all of the psychological stuff that went on that perpetrated the abuse were present. Right. During those meetings. Very threatening.
Yeah.
very threatening so that the person was abused would generally agree to anything, even right in their best interest. They were under duress. Yeah, your duress. So the law eventually recognized that. And so now in the family court, they generally ask about domestic violence. Wow. There are ways of helping people deal with negotiation. If there's a history of domestic violence, either by keeping them separated, zooms the perfect you know, medium for allowing people to discuss things and they're not in the same place in the same. Right. Not even in the same city or the same county, you know, but you can then have that negotiation where somebody is not under threat.
Right. And you can do that even if you're in the same office. I'm told that you can do mediation in two separate rooms so that they don't have to sit in the same table. Right.
It is true. You can do it that way. The rub in that is they generally are in the same office suite. Mm hmm. They generally come through the same front door. True. And really come through the same front door about the same time when they enter the building. Right. So that you're setting you have the possibility of setting up. Situations that can become immediately dangerous to everybody involved. True. Most offices don't have you know, a protector that you walk through, a magnetometer that you walk through, most offices.
Right, unless you're going to court or something like that.
Courthouses do. Right. But most office buildings do not. Don't pat you down, right? Pat you down. They don't generally have a security officer there waiting.
Yeah.
Even though some of the better, more savvy family lawyers that I used to practice with and against when they began to understand the dynamics more of domestic violence would have a security officer. Oh, good office where they did that to make everybody feel safe. Yeah. And it's been on the news where, you know, lawyers have been killed and hurt. By clients who come in for a family case who have a. Thing, as far as the other side is concerned, and they take everybody out in the office.
Yeah, it's a really dangerous thing. I think people underestimate and I guess with reason, right? You know, if you live in a, if you have a sound relationship, you, you know, live in a safe environment, you don't, I think you tend to downplay how severe some things can be or how dangerous some other people can be, how threatened someone can feel, because yeah, it may not just, it may not be physical. You know, you may get lucky, let's say, you know, in quotes, that you're not getting physically abused, but the mental abuse can be quite severe and very debilitating. And it could really, really throw someone for a loop and put them at a great disadvantage, as you said.
People who are feeling desperate for whatever reason, and in many cases during a litigation, sometimes people can get extremely desperate. And the only way they can see out is to either take themselves out, take the other people that they blame for everything out, take it out on their children, take it out on other people that said, but for you, you know, I wouldn't be in this kind of situation. And unfortunately, you read about it many times a week around the country. It doesn't happen here in Florida. Yeah, yeah. So one of my. Big issues when I was doing domestic violence primarily was to really look at. What the other side of the coin was, what was going on with the other side of the coin? You know, did the abuser still have his job? Was he still going to work on weapons? You know, one of the things in domestic violence was you had to get rid of all the weapons. Yeah, you had to had to be put either with a third party or gotten rid of, you know, unfortunately, police officers sometimes got involved in domestic violence situations. And that raised a lot of issues that we had to work through. Sure. The police officers are supposed to be packing 24-7. Right. Be available and be ready. But right. You have a domestic violence restraining order. You can't necessarily do that. Right. Right. So there are there's all kinds of issues that are tagged around. We ultimately ended up working out a lot of those issues. When I first got started in that business, those were all very new issues and people were very reluctant. Sure. You know, to say, well, you can't do that to me. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of thing. And there are people today that say, you can't do that to me. Right. Right. You can't take my gun away. You can't tell me what I can do and what I can't do. Right. That exists today in many parts of the country still. And so But as a lawyer, as a mediator, as an arbitrator, you need to be aware of the situation that you find yourself in. You need to be aware of the situation that the parties. Are in workplace, you know, domestic violence as well, people who. You know, lose it and come to their job and they take out people that they blame for why they didn't get the promotion or why they didn't, you know, why they got fired or right at the motive.
So now mediation, yeah, mediation serves to help prevent you having to get to litigation. Mediation affords you the opportunity to try and settle your differences, your problems outside of court so that you don't have to drag yourself, your family, whoever else might be involved through this whole process and spend all this money trying to get someone else to decide or preside over your situation. And as you mentioned, then you can do, you can elect to go through mediation at any point in time, before or after even there has been a decision made on your case. And I've noticed, obviously I work on the transactional side, there are mediation clauses, including arbitration clauses, which I'd like to get to now, in all of our contracts. So even our listing agreements with our, you know, proposed customers, have a clause in there that says, should something, whatever, depending on the document we're talking about, should something happen, the parties agree to mediate, if not arbitrate this. And then there's a slew of other terms that go along with that to try to keep those things out of court. And I imagine a lot of that also has to do with keeping the levels of those cases outside of court when they can probably very likely be resolved in a very different way. So mediation obviously allows the parties to negotiate between themselves and try to figure out what's going to work, what's going to be acceptable to either or like a win-win, call it a lose-lose, whatever you want. But it's something that you can handle yourselves, whereas arbitration is a form of that. But there is a legally binding decision made. Is it by an attorney, not an attorney, a judge also in this case, in arbitration?
Well, Arbitration is different because in mediation, the parties are the ones that ultimately make the decision to resolve the case. My job as the mediator is to facilitate getting the two parties to get to a point where they can make a decision. I provide alternatives. I provide different ways of looking at a particular problem. I may even suggest ways that they can come up with a settlement. But ultimately, the two parties, together with their attorneys, if they have attorneys, will craft the agreement and will craft the settlement. You know, well, I'll take a dollar. No, I'm only going to give you 50 cents. No, I'll give you a dollar 50, you know, and I'll pay you tomorrow instead of a year from now. You know, there's all kinds of terms you can put in there that make an agreement palatable to two parties who are willing to negotiate. Arbitration on the other hand, okay, is the arbitrator, which can be a single person like me or a panel, generally three people, okay, who will render a decision that is binding on the parties. So it's like going to court but you're not going to a court of law. OK, you're not going to a formalized court of law. You're going to an arbitrator or before an arbitration panel. OK, that panel has rules that govern it. OK, arbitration rules are rules of arbitration, a similar to the civil rules of procedure or criminal rules of procedure, but not the same. OK, there are burdens of proof, but they're not as high. OK, there are requirements for the party who is the petitioner. To bring the case, so they have the burden of moving forward. The respondent in an arbitration has the responsibility to respond to the petition, so they have the ability to defend. okay, and bring forth evidence about their side of the case. And then the arbitrator makes a decision based on, if it's a contract issue, the language of the contract, so the real estate contract, okay, and based on the law that governs contracts. Right. Okay, the arbitrator can't make up their own law, right? Okay, they have to abide by the law of the land, so to speak. But when you're arbitrating a contract, like a real estate contract, you know, you have to close within 10 days, right? On the 12th day, the guy says, Oh, I'm ready to close now. You know, and the buyer says, Sorry, you're too bad. So sad. You were supposed to close two days ago. I'm keeping your deposit and I sold it to the other guy on the 13th day. You're out of luck. And an arbitrator may find factually that's correct. And then award, do an award and grant that the seller gets to keep that deposit. On the other hand, the buyer may have convinced the arbitrator that there was a reason he couldn't close. You know, on the 10th day, because he got hit by a bus and he was in the hospital. And so by an act of God, he couldn't do it. So that might be legally a reason why he couldn't close. And therefore, the seller might not be entitled to the deposit. So it all depends on the facts. But the arbitrator is the person that's going to decide those facts, not the two parties getting together saying, oh, I think that was reasonable. I'll give you an extra couple of days and let's close. That's a mediation. Right. Arbitrator says, no, you got to pay him the deposit because you screwed up. Right. Right. Or no, that was a valid reason why the payment wasn't made on that day and therefore he gets the extra time. Right. He decides what's going to happen. Right. All of that. But it's the arbitrator that makes that decision or the panel of arbitrators that makes that decision. Generally, arbitration deals with contractual issues primarily. Even though one could make an argument that you could arbitrate a car accident, let's say, and the parties could agree to arbitrate. You know, who is liable?
For the most part it's.
And they agree on who the arbitrators are and they agree on who, what the rules are that the arbitrators are gonna follow. They could arbitrate that technically.
Right, interesting. Now are all arbitrators attorneys?
No. No, okay.
All mediators are not attorneys either. Interesting. Okay, for instance, let's say You have a big, huge construction project. You're the general contractor on the construction project. It's a convoluted construction project. Okay, you may want to make sure one of the arbitrators on the arbitration panel knows something about construction.
Right, so maybe another type of construction specialist.
You know, if somebody uses a certain type of concrete, it has to have a certain amount of pressure per square inch for it to be good concrete. Makes sense. A lawyer might not know that unless that lawyer only did construction cases, let's say. Right, right. Or an arbitrator may not know that if the arbitrator never knew anything about construction.
Do you need to be represented by an attorney to get to the arbitration process? You do not.
Okay, so you can hire an arbitrator and agree as a lay person. Okay, you have arbitration, you may not understand it, but you can agree. You know, it may not be the best thing to do, but you can do it.
Well, because the arbitrator is a neutral party. Right. So they're not representing either or. But it would probably be more so.
Arbitrators are neutral parties. They're not. That's right. Dog in the fight. Right. They're supposed to be objectively neutral. Doesn't know what the law might be or they don't know what a construction case is or they don't know what an accident case is or anything like that. But as between those parties, They're neutral, they're not supposed to be biased in favor of one or the other.
So I remember I spoke to you briefly about a construction, I call it fiasco, it's actually a litigation case that's ongoing. And I can't get into too many details obviously, but it's somebody that is close to me that I, that ended up in litigation against a big contractor. And so after all this time, their attorneys decided to, they tried mediation, nothing came out of that. And so now they moved to arbitration. And I remember now that you're saying the whole thing about the arbitration panel, that they, I think it was the attorneys who I presume they discussed amongst themselves, who they were going to select to be on the panel, who they would like to propose be on the panel. And of course, I think one of them was a construction specialist, another was an engineer or something like that.
Generally how it works is the parties can agree on who the panel is made up of. And generally one side will propose, let's say they want three panelists on an arbitration panel. They can propose three. The other side can propose three. And they can agree amongst those six to pick three and reject all six if they want. OK, and more people, they can go to the American Arbitration Association, the Organization of Arbitrators. And they can ask for a list of. qualified arbitrators. People have done construction cases or aviation cases or plumbing cases or whatever kind of contract might be involved in that particular situation. They can get a list of those qualified arbitrators and they can agree on who the members should be from that list. Or in the worst case scenario, they can't agree on anybody and they go to the court, they go to the circuit court in that area and they have the judge appoint arbitrators. So none of the lawyers have anything to do with who all the arbitrators are. Right. Right. They can do that. OK. There's two types of arbitration, though. OK. There's always a wrinkle somewhere.
Yeah.
There's binding arbitration, which is what you're talking about, where everybody picks the arbitrators. The arbitrators are all objective. They're all neutral. They're all non-biased. They make a decision after hearing all the facts and whatever the lawyers want to present. And they make what they call an award. OK, it's like a judgment. It's called OK, and they award. They make findings on behalf of the plaintiff or the petitioner or the respondent, as the case may be. And that becomes the award. OK. And it's binding arbitration. OK, under very limited circumstances. The person that does not like the binding arbitration award can appeal that award. I was just about to ask that. But they're very limited circumstances and generally involve conflicts of interest that were not disclosed by the arbitrators or actual bias. Of one or all of the arbitrators, as in the process, That's a tough one. Again, they're very limited circumstances. That's tough to prove. It's very tough to prove. That's why it's very limited because arbitration was designed to be final. Wow. So that you don't have to go to litigation. Right. Okay. Now, there's something called non-binding arbitration. Okay. Same thing, you can have three people as a panel, generally with non-binding, it's one person, okay? The lawyers, again, the parties, okay, are not really part of it. Even though, depending on how you set up the non-binding arbitrage, they could actually testify and give testimony, but generally lawyers don't do that. The lawyers proffer or provide a brief or provide documents to the arbitrator. They then argue that, you know, the plaintiff should win or the defendant should win. The arbitrator then takes all the information that was provided and makes an award. It's called a non-binding arbitration award. Okay, and they can fine for the plaintiff or they can fine for the defendant. Okay, some people do what's called a reasoned award. Okay, which is like a judgment. I find for the plaintiff because. And they give the reasons why. Sometimes they'll cite law saying under case number so and so, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's called a reasoned award. The person that does not like the award has a period of time, generally it's 20 days. to petition the court who appointed, who ordered the non-binding arbitration for a trial de novo, meaning a new trial. A new trial, mm-hmm. Okay, and then they go back and they try the case, just as if the arbitration had never- Had never happened, right. Okay. The judge then, or the jury will then enter a verdict. Okay, the judge will then unseal the non-binding arbitration award. If the person that asked for the new trial fails to get at least 25% of what the non-binding arbitrator awarded him in the non-binding arbitration, then that person is required to pay all of the respondents attorneys fees. Oh, court costs are wasting everyone's time for the time of going through the nonbinding arbitration up through the trial and whatever the jury or the judge found. Right. If the person wins and gets more than what the nonbinding arbitrator awarded, then the respondent or the loser, the defendant, pays all the attorney's fees in the court. So you gotta be very careful, okay, if you decide to reject finding arbitration award, because unless you're really damn sure you're gonna do a lot better. You could be a lot worse.
End up being a lot worse.
Right. Fascinating. A lot of people think, I have a great case, I can't, how can I lose this case? Yeah. Every friend of mine, everybody I've talked to, even my lawyer told me this is a- My dog agrees, yeah. Even my dog wagged his tail, he thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, it's a slam dunk. And I lost. Yeah. Sometimes that can happen. It can even happen. Wow. The best of attorneys, sometimes, you know, you have a winner. You just know it in your heart of hearts. You have a winner and you lose.
Yeah. Yeah. Because nothing's promised, really. Nothing's guaranteed.
And many times, you know, you know, in your heart of hearts, you have a loser. Yeah. You know, so, yeah, it's it's it's it's very much a roll of the dice. Either way, when you go in, I mean, you you feel confident, you know what I mean? And many times your confidence pays off. But there are times where it doesn't.
You have to know the risks. You have to know the risks and you have to weigh the potential outcome against that risk.
And you have to the other thing you have to do as a lawyer and as a mediator. And, you know, if you have you have to manage people's expectations. That's huge. Yes. The same thing with a real estate deal. Yes. You know, you have to manage my language. And then something untoward might happen. And then all of a sudden they're in a world they never thought they would be. And you have to be able to manage people's expectations so that they are aware of what the potential could be.
That could make a world of a difference.
I think for professionals like we are, sometimes it can make all the difference in the world. But, you know, Raquel explained that that's something, you know, that could have happened to me or that this person might've come up with that at the last minute.
Or something like that. You're so right. I say that all the time, that probably the biggest and most important part of what I do is managing expectations. Because without that, I mean, it could just be, it's like throwing a dart in the dark and hoping for the best and only landing, it could go so wrong, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And that is a huge part of what I do, whether it's in the divorce niche or just a regular transaction, even rentals, managing people's expectations in that process is a really, really key point. And so naturally, I can only assume that going into mediation, arbitration, or just your typical litigation, that's just as important.
lawyers, arbitrators, mediators, all of us have a responsibility to advise people of what potentials there are, whether it's litigation, mediation, or arbitration, so that they are aware of the risks. And what the pros and cons are of taking particular positions that people might take somebody may say, you know, in mediation, it's, it's not unusual for somebody to ask for the moon. Yeah, or some media. You know, I'm injured. You know, I want everything, everything. And then the kitchen sink on top of exactly. Right. Okay. And as a mediator, you have to say, look, that may be unrealistic. You know, They only offered you X. Why did they only offer you X? Because they're only valuing the case at. X plus certainly not X plus that right that you're asking for, if you were in their shoes, what would you offer? Yes. You know, that kind of thing. So sometimes as mediator, you have to play devil's advocate. Sure. You know, you have to be able to do reality checks.
It's like a legal therapist. It's sort of like a legal therapist.
Isn't that what we are to some extent? Yes, that's another good point. You have to manage people's expectations. That's right. In divorce cases, especially, everybody speaks to their friends, well, I got this, or my judge did this, or my judge did that.
Or 20 years ago when I got divorced, yes. Exactly. Things have changed a lot.
Everybody hears that and they say, well, why couldn't you get me that? Or why couldn't you do this? Or, well, you signed this prenuptial agreement or something like that. You know, everybody's circumstances are a little different. You know, my child has a learning disability. That's another one. Somebody has a disability. Yeah, we're all very different. Circumstances and not every, As long as I was on the bench and as long as I practice law, which is 50 plus years now, you know, every circumstance, while it has some of the same elements in it, is different.
Yep. I'm glad you said that. Circumstance is different.
I'm glad you said that because I've had, yes, I've had interviews with other professionals, many other attorneys, and we all talk about the same thing, especially when we're talking about divorce. We say, try not to get advice from too many people, try not to lend an ear to your neighbor, the guy next door, the lady who got divorced, or your cousin, your aunt, because your relationship is different. Your circumstances are different. US people are different. I mean, the times are different. There's so many variables, so it can't possibly be the same. It could be similar in many respects because, you know, sure, you may have had two kids, or yeah, you may have lived on the same block, or maybe you were married the same amount of time. And so you automatically assume that maybe the law is going to be more on your side because you were married for 15 years and you only worked two of those years, whatever. But those, and as well as you know, laws do change too. And they can change from one year to the next. I mean, that's not necessarily what happens all the time, but things do change and everyone and everything is different. So you can't expect a cookie cutter outcome because you ain't not going to want that. And B, it's not realistic.
And it's not it may not work for your particular situation. That's right. Some people have a higher tolerance for stuff. Yeah. Some people have no tolerance for at all. Mm hmm. At all. Yeah. Some people are willing to be less confrontational.
Yeah.
Some people are always confrontational. Yeah. You know, some people are reasonable. Some people are not unreasonable. So part of the mediators job is to kind of get a feeling for who we're on both sides of the equation. Right. You know, so it's all part of it. You'd love it to be cookie cutter. That's why. Everybody's all up into A and I, you know, AI now and then be able to, you know, you just send them the facts. Yeah. They'll spit out the result. Right. Human dynamics just don't work that way. I agree. You know, so I think there's going to be a place for AI to be helpful. Sure. But I maybe this is just old school thinking from me. You know, AI is never going to replace the human part of this. I agree. Especially when you're dealing with humans. OK, because regardless, like you say, every relationship is different. Every person is different. Every personality is different. And timing is a big key, too. Yeah. You know, what I learned early on in divorce when I was a very young lawyer, OK, was that. Timing is everything in divorce. Hmm. Some people are ready to get divorced. Yeah. Most people are not ready to get divorced when they're told they need to leave. Right. OK, because they've been thinking about that for a while. The other person's been taking oblivious or working or, you know, busy with other things, not thinking about that all the time. Right now, generally, the person that announces it's over. The other person's staring at them in shock. Now, you know what?
Oh, what do you mean? I mean, over.
I thought we were great. Yeah. Money problems. And yeah, life is tough and all of this other stuff. But over. Yeah, you're absolutely right. We've got eight kids or we've got two kids or we've got this going on and that going on. We're buying a house where, you know, whatever's going on. And then all of a sudden it's over. So what I found early on as a young lawyer, okay, was that you got to give people time to get ready to be willing to talk about the things they need to talk about in order to resolve whatever that situation is at that time. Same thing happens with guys in business, people in business, business deals, contracts, You know, some people have already decided it's over. This guy is screwing me. And so therefore I want out. This guy has no clue. He's busy making the widgets. You know what I mean? Getting ready for delivery.
That is such a great point. I never really actually brought that up before. And I guess I missed that. But it's true. The person who who makes that decision, whether it's to leave the business or to, you know, ask for a divorce, you're right. Did not just wake up that morning and think, this is a good, this is a good decision. This is where I want my life to go. They've been thinking about it for a while. And it's usually for an extended period of time because those aren't the kinds of decisions that you make easily, they require a lot of thinking a lot of soul searching, a lot of weighing in the balance of logistical even, you know, it requires a lot of logistics. If you have children, if you think you're going to move, I mean, there's so many things that go into play. So I would say for the majority of it takes months at least. And I know, in my particular case, when I when I thought about getting a divorce, it took me two years.
Yeah, I think through that. Absolutely. So and people are expected to decide like that, right? You know, and it doesn't work that way. So when people say, well, why aren't people talking? Why aren't they doing this? Why aren't they? Because they're. trying to get their arms around all of the rest of it. They have to deal with and they're not ready to deal with any of it. Yeah, that's tough. That was a hard lesson for me to learn as a young lawyer because I'm a young scrappy lawyer. I'm going to get in there and fight for my clients, you know, and the law says she's entitled to this or that or whatever, and I'm going after it and litigating like crazy and then and justify my existence.
Yes, exactly.
You know, and then all of a sudden you're in the midst of a war. Yes. You know what that you don't need to be in. Right. Had you been more thought, hence collaborative.
Yes. The collaborative process. Yes.
process. When I first got started, you know, it was a war of the roses, right? So that was an interesting way to litigate. Most of the family lawyers hated it. But that's the way it was back then. Right. Now people are a lot more, hopefully people are a lot more thoughtful.
Yeah, yeah, they're taking a whole new approach and that's fantastic. I want to go back to something that you had mentioned before, which was as an attorney, let's say, for the attorneys to take the time to express what might be the risks what the journey looks like, what might be alternatives, things like that. And I would love to close with that because I believe in pretty much every one of my episodes, I talk about the importance of doing your research, of sitting with certain professionals. You don't have to hire the first professional that you sit and meet with. but you do owe it to yourself to talk through your process, your problem, your situation with that attorney, with that financial planner, with that agent, whomever it is that you are working with at the time and pseudo interview them and see what kind of responses they give you. I would say as somebody who errs to the more conservative side of things and somebody who is well acquainted with other attorneys and professionals such as you judge that If I sit with somebody who only wants to tell me, yeah, we're going to go get them. And, and yeah, you've got a great case and yeah, we're going to do this now. And that's all they talking about is building my side of, I'd probably think that's not the attorney. Let's say I want to hire, because I want to know Realistically speaking, what are the odds? What are the real odds? What could really affect me? What choices, what could be the worst case scenario, let's say, because as you said earlier, things may go your way, but things may also not go your way. And I would like to be prepared for that. So I think it speaks volumes of a professional who is willing to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly way up front. and be honest with you and transparent and explain this is about as far as we could probably go. Or, you know, these are your options. Understand that X, Y, Z is possible and that this may hurt you more in the long run than it would benefit you in the short run. So.
I think a lot depends on the personality of the person that's coming to the lawyer. True.
Some lawyers. Words of wisdom. you know.
Will be what you want them to be, right? You want somebody that's a street fighter and you want to get down and dirty. There are lawyers that will give you that. OK, and that's the lawyer that will tell you, we'll go in there and I'm going to clean his clock and I'm going to, you know, get you a floor, you know, get you 100 percent of what you're entitled to. And I'll take that bastard over the coals and, you know, whatever the situation may be. I'm your guy, you know, I'm your gladiator, I'm your warrior that's going to go out there and stand toe to toe in the ring and beat the guy to a pulp. Right. OK. On the other hand, if you're a more reasonable person, OK, you're going to want to. Want a lawyer. That is three things, I think one competent, You want somebody that knows what they're doing. Somebody that's had experience in that particular area of law, whether it's a car accident, a divorce case, a construction case, whatever it is, you want somebody that has some degree of experience. So when you go, like you said, interview the lawyer. So tell me about your experience. How long have you been a lawyer? What kind of cases do you do? What kind of cases do you like to do? What kind of cases are you passionate about? Okay, stuff you want to get to know a little bit about who your lawyer is. I mean, you may have gone to, you know, the Internet and looked on the Internet, gone to a Martindale and Hubble and see what kind of patient a lawyer has and all of that. But you want to kind of hear some things from the lawyer. So, one, you want to know they're competent. Two, you want to know that they're willing to listen to you. Okay. Lawyers are great, but sometimes lawyers are lawyers. You got to do what I say. You know, you got to follow my instructions. You have to, you have to, you have to. You know, like you, you have to go home and get all your papers. You have to go home and record what your husband does every day. You have to do this. You have to do that. You have to do that. You have to do that. Okay. Which is good because some of those things you have to do. Right. Right. To help your lawyer be prepared. Right. For the case. But then again, there may be things that you said he said, you know, I'm not comfortable with doing that. OK, I don't feel right about doing that. Explain to me why. That's necessary. Why should I tap my husband's phones or why should I do this? And and the lawyer ought to be willing to say the reason I need your help on this is because. OK, the reason I need you to get all of the bank statements is because, right, the reason I need you to do this is because it's going to be easier, it's going to be cheaper. If you get them today, the likelihood is I won't have to subpoena them from the bank. If you already have those documents and you bring them and we copy them, then I don't have to do that. There's reasons why lawyers are asking people to do things that are reasonable to do. You want to be able to have that conversation with the lawyer and you want them to be able to explain to you why. Because there are going to be times in a case where you're going to say, why are we doing that? Or what benefit is that to me? How does that move us forward, you know, in this particular situation? Right. And the third thing is you want the lawyer who is understanding of where the client is coming from. OK. For instance, in many a business deal that I negotiated and done as a mediator, sometimes it's not really about the money. OK, I see about the dynamics of how they got to that point. Right. OK. And sometimes somebody just wants acknowledgment that somebody screwed up. Yeah. Sometimes people want an apology that the other side recognizes that they screwed the pooch somewhere along the way or that they made a mistake, but they were unwilling to recognize knowledge that they made a mistake that caused all of this turmoil, let's say, that's now created this breach of contract or created this split, right? 20 year partnership or, you know, whatever it counts. And you need to be able to tap into that because sometimes either in a negotiation, a mediation or an arbitration, there comes a point in time where that information can be useful. But if you've never taken the time as the lawyer to dig into this, and sometimes that's not comfortable to do, trust me, it's not necessarily comfortable to do, But sometimes it's necessary to do because it arms you. In a way that might give you an advantage down the road. Right, right. But if you don't have a lawyer that's willing to do that, you never get it right. And then you end up. You end up where some lawyers end up anyway, OK, because no good deed goes unturned. Yeah. You know, somebody bad mouthing you saying you really did a lousy job. I never got what I wanted. And blah, blah, blah. He treated me like crap or, you know, whatever. It's a bad lawyer or whatever. Yeah, maybe. You know, or you don't get paid. Yeah. No. And then you're chasing somebody for fees, which is not a good place for anybody to be.
No. So but it's all part of it.
Yeah, this was I mean, Words of wisdom through and through. You certainly have had a wonderful and long career, and you've made great contributions to our legal system, I think, from different angles, which is fantastic. And I can't thank you enough for sharing your time. I know it's valuable. I appreciate it. This has been probably one of the most insightful podcast episodes I have ever been a part of. So thank you so much. I've learned an incredible deal about the mediation and arbitration process, and even just the litigation process, because it only goes so far for me. I'm on the transactional side of things, but there is a lot of litigation going around some of the transactions that I deal with. And this was very eyeopening. Truly it was. Thank you so much, Judge.
Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk. Sometimes we don't always get to talk and tell everybody things directly. And so the podcast gives me a little bit of an opportunity to do that. And hopefully it will be helpful to some people who listen to the podcast. Oh, it will. And if I've been able to do that, then I'm doing my job.
Well, you certainly helped me. So if that's even that's yes.
You I've done a great service.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm very fortunate. My listeners will be equally fortunate, if not more. And again, I thank you for your time.
Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your week.
You too, judge. Yes, sir. Hopefully. Yes, sir. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Real Talk. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't already done so, be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you found value in today's show, we'd appreciate it if you would help others discover this podcast. Until next time.