In episode 42 of The Real Talk, Raquel Ramirez interviews Claudia Pernudi, a family and matrimonial attorney, as they delve into the complexities of divorce, discussing the importance of legal expertise in navigating divorce proceedings. From financial implications to the emotional impact on children, they explore real-life cases and offer valuable insights on how to handle divorce with grace and understanding.
Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the legal intricacies of divorce and how to approach it with empathy and clarity.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:22] Unique Challenges in Divorce.
[00:04:32] Misconceptions in Divorce Agreements.
[00:07:20] Understanding Divorce Entitlements and Rights.
[00:12:01] The Depth of Legal Knowledge.
[00:15:38] Friendly Divorce Misunderstandings.
[00:20:45] Importance of Detailed Agreements.
[00:22:19] Alimony and Gender Neutrality.
[00:27:32] Adult Children Involvement in Divorce.
[00:30:29] Parental Alienation in Divorces.
[00:35:18] Acting in Your Child's Best Interest.
[00:37:38] Fighting for More Time.
[00:42:39] Dividing Time with Children.
[00:44:23] Financial Planning during Divorce.
[00:48:14] Calculating Income in Family Law.
[00:53:11] Legal Advice on Marriage Deals.
[01:02:47] Social Media Challenges and Strategies.
[01:07:36] Personal Privacy.
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/
Claudia Pernudi
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/divorce_poet/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claudia.pernudi
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-l-pernudi-06bb4b1b/
WEBSITES:
The Real Talk: https://www.therealtalkpodcast.net/
Featured Properties International: https://msha.ke/featuredre
Pernudi Law: https://www.pernudilaw.com/
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. Hello and welcome to The Real Talk. My good, good friend. How are you, Claudia?
Rachel Ramirez
I'm doing really well. Raquel, how are you?
Claudia Pernudi
I'm doing wonderful, although I'm a little tired, as I'm sure you can see from my face and from all the backstory that we had going on before we got on air. But I'm really excited to have you. I know that when we talked, I don't know, months ago, we said that I would, you know, you would come back. And I'm really excited about that. We have so much more to talk about. I mean, our conversations are always great, but then again, I might be a little biased because we're good friends. That's okay. For those of you who are tuning in, I'm speaking to Claudia Pernutti today. She's a family and matrimonial attorney. She's a good friend, as I mentioned, and she's been actually you're one of the reasons I've grown so much in the divorce niche, because you've been really generous to talk to me, to guide me, to teach me, to share, you know, cases with me just to discuss and figure out scenarios. And I know I've done that, you know, for you, maybe on the real estate side, but I feel like I've learned a lot from you and I can't thank you enough. So thank you for joining us today again.
Rachel Ramirez
no thank you for welcoming me back this is awesome i always love talking to you and chatting with you we're always exchanging ideas and how we can help our clients and put them in a better situation because anyone who's ever gone through a divorce knows it's not easy even when you have an amicable divorce My clients are still stressed out because at any minute, everything can fall apart. They're worried not only for themselves, but they're worried about their partner's well-being. They're worried for many different things because it's such a precarious situation. And anything can happen. And sometimes when you have the best of intentions, a lot of times it just doesn't, it doesn't play out the way that you, you want it to or the way that it should have. Sure. Well, there's so many variables. There are, and that's why when people say, well, my husband and I worked it out, or we did this, or the people down the street from us had the same thing. So I think we're gonna do the same thing. It's gonna go this way. And you're entirely different people. With different personalities, different assets, different needs, different wants. So you can't, it's not a cookie cutter. This is a factory where you're making the exact same widget. It's going to be different. It's not a one-size-fits-all. And sometimes that's a little hard to understand because if the other couple had a good result, you want to emulate that. And I get that, but you're not the same people. So you have a 50-50 chance, but everybody has to be cooperative and operate in good faith. And if you don't, then it's not going to happen.
I'm glad you brought that up. You said you use the word emulate, which I love. And that's OK. I think it's OK to want a great outcome, but you should be shooting for just that and not necessarily copying someone else's trajectory or someone else's. I don't know, what do you call it? Someone else's plan, right? Because again, like you said, not everybody's the same. We're all handmade. Let's say it that way. We've all been handmade. And even if you were somebody's twin and you lived in, say, an identical house down the street because you happen to live in a Lagomar community or a Lenar community, And you have the same number of kids, you drive the same car, you have the same job. Even if you have all those other things that could be identical, you're still two very different people. And what triggers you may not trigger the other person. And like, I think I've told you before, I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times. I've heard it a thousand times when somebody comes up to me and says, I would have never guessed that my wife, I would have never thought that my husband would have said this or done that. I can't believe it. And it's true, you know, because you don't really get to know your spouse until you get a divorce. So those triggers, you know, those that idea that everything is going to go the same way as someone else's, you know, divorce or even good circumstances is is is not true.
Not even a little bit. No, it's not. And a lot of people find that shocking. Right. And and I get a lot of phone calls from potential clients that say my wife and I or my husband and I talked about it and we agree we have an agreement. Right. And you know, with someone with many years of experience, as I have had, I know that even though you might have the best of intentions and you think you have an agreement, you don't. And the reason why I say you don't is because people do not fully understand the law. They don't understand the nuances. There's a lot of misinformation and misconceptions out there. And they will say things like, OK, we're going to sell the house. We're going to divide that 50 50. That's perfectly fine. Makes perfect sense. And then they'll say, you take your bank accounts. I take my bank accounts because we've always held separate bank accounts. So what's yours is yours and what's mine is mine. But the balance in those bank accounts could be vastly different. What happens if he has a job where he earns three times as much as you do? and he's a saver whereas you earn less and you might be a spender and he might help you with a lot of the bills because obviously you've had a partnership throughout your marriage but he's been able to put away a lot more money so that the accounts that are quote-unquote his has, you know, one of them has $50,000, another one has $10,000, his 401k could have $400,000, and you don't have a 401k, or you have very little, and your cash accounts have like, you know, $5,000 at the most. Right. Is it fair for you to walk away with $5,000 and for him to walk away with everything else just because you are under the misconception that, oh, well, those are his and these are mine? No, once you get married, it doesn't matter that you keep separate accounts because from the day you get married until the day you file for divorce, whatever you have accumulated in those accounts is divided 50-50. So if you don't know that and you're making a deal with your spouse, one of you is going to get the short end of the stick. And then when you come to a lawyer such as myself and and it looks good on paper. Mm hmm. You know, at first blush, but when I start asking you, OK, well, I understand what you want to do, but do you know what what balances, you know, what account balances does he have? Do you know how much money is in those accounts? And a lot of times the women especially will say no. And sometimes the men, too, if you have separate accounts, they'll say, no, I don't know. Right. Okay, well, so then I have to play devil's advocate. What if he has $50,000, 25 of it could be yours. Are you walking away from 25,000? What about his 401k or retirement plan? If he's the only one that's worked and put away any money and you've been married for 15 years, you're entitled to half of that. You know, these are big concepts. Of course, there's always little nuances, but I'm just talking and a lot of, and a lot of people don't get that. Yeah. So they're willing to walk away from a lot of money. And I kind of put a wrench in their plans because they thought it was going to be easier. And then they realize, oh, I'm entitled to this. I'm entitled to that. Right. Well, what about the house that was mine before we got married? But did you have a mortgage and have you been paying it down? Well, guess what? You've been married for a certain amount of time and you've been paying down that mortgage, even though it was your home before you got married. you're creating an interest for your spouse. So they're entitled to the increase, the appreciation and the value from the moment that you got married to the moment that you file for divorce. And that's money. And those concepts, unless you're a family lawyer, you're not going to know that.
Yeah. Speaking of that, something that came to mind, just question, how long did it take you to go through law school? Walk me through what it was like to get a law degree, just because I know there are a lot of people out there who think that they can or let me rephrase that they assume they know the law, that they think, you know, that they've spoken to the right amount of people, that they've Googled just the right amount of information, that they've read the contracts right top to bottom because they can do that. I read my own contracts. It doesn't mean I'm a practicing attorney or an attorney at all. But I'm just curious, like how long does it take you to become an attorney? And then once you get your law degree, Do you really? Can you really say that you understand everything there is about the field of law? So just walk me through that.
Well, obviously you have to do college. Right. So I finished my college degree in about three years. Good, you went fast. I went fast because I had a lot of college credits in high school, so I graduated a whole year early. Although there was a slight mix up, which it's not necessary to get into it for this, but for all intents and purposes, I graduated in three years, my undergrad. And then after that, you do law school, like law school is a three year program. If you just get a regular Juris Doctor degree like I did, I didn't combine it with, you know, like an MBA or anything else. It's just a regular old lawyer. You pass the Florida bar and then you go out into the world, try to find a job, but you don't know anything. You know something. I think you know something because you passed the bar.
Even though you devoured, I don't know how many books with statutes and right.
But the reality is I forgot to plug in my computer. Sorry. That's OK. But the reality is you don't know anything. And when I started practicing family law, I had been a a criminal defense lawyer for approximately five years. And that's a completely different area of practice. So when I started family law, like fresh off, let's say I was fresh off a law school, I didn't know anything about anything. The paralegal knew more than I did. Okay, and I would have to ask questions and try to figure it out. And it isn't until you have a certain number of years of experience where you see your boss do it, or you do it yourself, there's a combination thereof, that you really start to understand what's going on. You start to notice certain patterns. And obviously, you have to do research, you write and all those other things. And you go to court, you argue. And finally, you're in a place where you're pretty good. And even then, you'll always have some weird fact scenario when people come in and they're like, fix this. And you're thinking, OK, well, this one's a new one. Or I haven't done this one in a while. I don't remember. I have to go and I got to figure it out. So I have to go and figure it out. And I've been doing this for like 19 years. You're not even a lawyer. How are you going to figure it out with all the nuances and all the other things that are out there that you're not even aware of?
Yeah, between case studies, statutes, whatever your opposing counsel is looking at and figuring out, however they're intending to address whatever situation is at hand. I actually had a great, great episode. I think it was last week, if I'm not mistaken. Are you familiar with Judge Langer, Judge Lester Langer? Yes, of course. What an incredible guy. He's been, well, he was a judge for a couple of decades and he's been practicing um attorney although now he's more he's a mediator for like something like 40 50 years he is a wealth of information and i was just really blown away by the amount I don't even know how to explain it. I guess the amount of knowledge you have to have and that you acquire throughout your law career, right? Throughout your legal career to really get to a point where you feel comfortable enough to say, I'm a pseudo authority, let's say, on a particular matter, right? It could be 15, 20, 25, 30, in his case, I don't know, 40 something, 50 years. So I bring that back to the point that just because you Google something, and you've read this contract over and over, and you've had a very in-depth conversation, even with your own attorney, does not make you an attorney, in fact.
Well, not only that, but I've had clients who Google stuff, not a lot, but I'll have clients or potential clients that come in and say, oh, I Googled this and it says X. Right. And I ask more questions or as I'm talking to them, I will say, well, let me let me Google this and I'll pull up the information they gave me and I'll say, oh, well, this is Texas law or you look at a different state. This does not apply to us. We're in the state of Florida. This is in Canada. yeah right like this isn't and i don't know if they're looking for something that suits their needs and their arguments or they just did a some wild google search and this is just you know google pulls from different sources sure it's not always florida it's whatever is out there and if you just pick the wrong one you may or may not get the full information especially if you're just reading an article it's an article it's meant to you know, like a summary of something or it could be someone's opinion. There's so much stuff out there with people blogging. I have a lot of attorney friends that blog. I should start doing that.
You should. You're a great writer.
Thank you. But that's one of those things where these are all just summaries and to give you information or for you to find other people to get more information. You're not going to get the full picture. Right. You're not going to get the full picture from something that's three paragraphs in length because there's so much more.
Right. Right. It's just it's incredible to me. What are you what are you working on lately? What what can you tell us? You know, maybe anything has changed, anything that's come up at least recently that you think might be a good, good topic for us to bring up in our conversation today?
Well, I will have to say that some of the things that I've seen lately. OK, so I'll talk about one case. I have a case that I'm currently doing in Naples. These people have a lot of assets. They have amassed a good quantity of single-family residential homes, as well as vacant land. And that's basically how they make their living. And it's a friendly divorce. Everybody's cooperating. And towards the very end, since we were supposed to go to trial on Tuesday, it did not go. But husband and wife, and their adult children, I guess, decided to get together and try to resolve it themselves. And do what was best for the family. And I don't have an issue with that, but you tell your clients, before you sign off on anything, please talk to me. Let me see it. Let me explain the pros and cons. Let me tell you the law. And then it's up to you. You're a big boy or big girl. And the person and I kept waiting for the information. It never came until, of course, like the last minute. Right. And I had to double check the math. The math was wrong, of course. And the math was done by the parties. You know, one of the parties, you know, adult children. And I I called my client and I said, I don't understand how you got X number and it was husband having to pay wife a certain amount of money. I said, when I do the math, actually your wife owes you twice as much. Right. And I, it's like school, like a math problem. I said, let me show you my work. So I, I wrote it out. I said, this is where I got this number from this value. This is how you calculate this. This is how you have to do it. And I said, this is the end result. I guess, take it back to your kid, take it back to yourself. Think about it. You know, check it. And, and of course he told his wife and his wife was crying. She was mad. She couldn't believe it. You know, you feel all these things because if you think you're going to get a certain amount of money and then you come to find out that you're not in fact getting that money and that you actually have to pay out double that amount, you're not going to be happy. Yeah. But this is what happens when you're left to your own devices and you don't know what you're doing. That's why you hired me. Why are you not letting me help you? And I'm not trying to screw anyone over. I'm not, because she has counsel. And I wouldn't do it anyway, even if she didn't have a lawyer. I would say, this is 50-50. He wants to do it 50-50. um he's actually given her a little bit more but for that particular portion of of their deal i said this is wrong yeah figure it out and and so they made adjustments and and it was corrected but you can't do things at the last minute you can't put yourself you have to have other eyes like the lawyer's eyes looking at it so that it can be done properly and then you know, the wife shows up to the hearing with their kind of kitchen table agreement type up. Right. And wants to go ahead and sign it so that they can be divorced that day. And it's like, no, I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way because the way that a lawyer writes a settlement agreement has a bunch of different clauses. And maybe you want to call it legalese, but it also has mechanisms for if you're going to keep this property, you have to do this deed. Maybe there needs to be a corporate resolution. If you have properties that are held in a corporate name, you might have to do this. What about this? So there are a lot of things that need to be written in black and white and specific because if somebody doesn't do something. And it's not written in your agreement when you try to go to the court to get relief and to say, I need this to be done because my wife or my husband isn't doing this. And the court says, OK, let's look at the document that dictates what you're supposed to be doing. And it's not there or it's inconsistent or it's ambiguous. Right. Then what? Right. What can the court do or not do? And then it either might be favorable for you or it might not. And that's why you need to do it a specific way. And luckily, opposing counsel agreed with me, his client understood. And now I have the task of doing the actual comprehensive agreement that tells you with, you know, some detail what needs to happen so that the parties definitely have a more equitable. Right, a good delineation of what they're supposed to be doing. Right. As you and I might agree, well, I'm going to keep this house, you're going to keep that house, you're keeping this car, I'm keeping my car and something else. And so you have the broad strokes big concept. But then the mechanism of how you're doing it might not be written up. But three months from now when people don't sell the house because it happens. I mean, I've had clients that come to me and it's like, we were supposed to sell the house immediately after we filed for divorce. And it's been eight years and so-and-so still lives in the house, but I am paying for it. And you're thinking, so you're paying for a house that is either no longer yours or it's yours, but your spouse, your ex-spouse lives in it. You're not getting the benefit of the sale. And it's a big mess. It's a big mess. That's right. I was going to say that. And then they don't know how to undo all these things. And you're just like, oh my gosh. But if you don't write down certain things as to what happens, timelines and all these different things, you're going to have a different recollection of what we actually intended than I am. Because your recollection is going to suit your needs, my recollection is going to suit my needs. But if you have a detailed agreement to the best of everyone's ability, because obviously you can't predict everything, but if you have something that makes sense, it really does provide very good guidelines for not only the parties but for the court if something were not to go as planned and then you can you can seek relief with the court and say oh yes if you didn't do this then this and the court can say okay you know you know ex-wife you didn't do this now these are the consequences or ex-husband you didn't do this then this
I want to go back to the example that you gave earlier of the case that you're working on. Three things came to mind, and I jotted them down real quick because I didn't want to forget. Number one is that when we first started the conversation, we were talking, you know, and we talk about it very loosely, right, where we say the wife didn't have enough funds in her account or the wife has the right to alimony or the wife has the right to child support or whatever. But the truth can be the inverse, too, right, where the wife would be, you know, the main breadwinner or the wife has XYZ in the accounts or the wife has 15 properties versus the dude who has nothing, you know, it could be that too. So just to make that distinction for people who are listening, it's not necessarily just one way always, it could be either or. Number two,
Oh, I'm sorry. And then just to add to that, the statute is gender neutral. It doesn't talk about men or women. Right. It talks about the lower earning spouse versus, you know, the higher earning spouse. Or it talks about somebody's need versus somebody's ability to pay, because obviously you could have the wife that out-earns the husband by quite a bit. And she would be the one to be paying alimony. But the same rules of how you calculate apply equally, regardless of, you know, if you're a man or a woman, if you're going to be the payer or the payee. So yes, and increasingly I'm getting more and more cases where, guess what? The woman is the one that has to pay alimony.
Yeah, I've seen that.
And and it was something that I didn't really see a lot when I began my career as a family law attorney. And now I get them. I get them quite a bit. And and it's not going to stop.
No, I don't think so. Yeah. More and more women are entering the workforce. More and more women are getting degrees. More and more women are going out and having, you know, big, grandiose careers. And yeah, that's becoming more and more prevalent. So, yeah, it makes absolute sense.
Yeah, I remember like many I like statistics. So I'm always looking for fun facts and different things to share with people. And I remember a long time ago, I was looking at statistics regarding, I guess, prenups and why women should not be afraid of them and why actually it would be a good tool for them. And one of the things that I found was that more and more women are going into college more than men. And so if you go to college and you want to go to graduate school, well, if you want to be a doctor, you obviously have to go to medical school or you're going to be like a lawyer. You have to have that specialized degree, you know, law school, med school, whatever. But you have to do college first and then you got to do, you know, your medical school or you got to do the law school. But if you don't go to college, then you can't go to that second. You can't go to law school. Right. You need one in order to piggyback off the other. So if men are less and less inclined to seek a better education and go to college because they want to be entrepreneurs, they're going to open up their own business, that's all fine and dandy and they might make a lot of money. But if it fails and you don't have a degree to fall back on, and you're not savvy enough to be able to, again, recreate that magic with whatever company you previously had, your wife is the one that's gonna obviously keep out-earning you. And now she's the one who is going to have to pay alimony in the event of a divorce. And I see that time and time again.
Yeah, I've heard of it. I've actually read articles about that too. And from our conversations and conversations with attorneys, I've seen that coming down the pike and it's happening more and more. Very interesting too. Now, the second thing that I was going to mention was, I don't know why anyone, I don't care how old your children are, why you would involve them in your divorce. That happens to be. Yeah, it happens. But I have no idea how or why that would ever come to somebody's mind that it would be fine and dandy to involve your kids in any part of your divorce.
It happens all the time.
What? You know what I'm saying?
It's I I don't condone it. I don't like it because I'm of the opinion that you know, you could be 40 years old. Your parents could be in their seventies. And for whatever reason, they now feel like it's time to part ways and they're getting a divorce. I don't want to be in the middle of that because no, you know, I, I want them to be fine and dandy and happy and, or miserable together. I just want them to be together. It's like you've lasted this long. I just don't understand.
Well, you just shouldn't be meddling in that, that I mean, you came when I say you, I mean, you as a child, whoever you are, you came way after the fact. I mean, even if you were conceived out of wedlock, whatever, you are not part of that transaction. You are a result of that transaction. You know, you should have absolutely nothing to do and no say whatsoever in how your parents are going to divvy up their accounts, their vacation homes, their houses, their operational, whatever. Stay out of it. And much less to have them meddle in the actual divorce process to, you know, I was shocked by what you just told me. And I don't think we've ever discussed a case like that where the kids are like, here, we're going to do the financial affidavit for you. How dare you? And like the parents, I think that's more, you know, a problem on the parents to even allow that. But yeah, that's just that's more personal opinion, I guess I would say. Well, these are.
Well, let me clarify. These are adult children. They're well into their their their 20s already, likely. But I but I still but I understand you still shouldn't have your kids meddling this. But I think their approach was, you know, some of it is going to be their inheritance. We're going to be paying off certain things for them. So we want them to know that they're going to be OK, that we're not taking from them. Tell them. Regardless of all that, regardless of all that, there's only so much that I can do as a lawyer. Yeah, no, of course. And only I can only tell you, look, I don't really think that this is what you should be doing. This is why you hired me. And I can present you with this mathematical, you know, right. And you do whatever you want with that. And then you can go and you talk to your wife and you guys figure it out and you figure out if you want to carve out something for your kids that you're going to be paying off. a car, you're going to be paying off on college tuition, whatever it is that you're going to be paying off for them that you think that they need, you're going to tell them, look, we're going to separate out this one piece of property for you, another one for your sister. whatever the case may be, and that's not gonna be part of the marital estate. There's a lot of different ways that you can do that without having to talk to your kids, but I'm not at their house. I can't muzzle them.
I can't do a lot of those things. But this is more, beware parents. Don't involve your children. It's nothing to do with them. Don't put them in that situation where they have to choose who's going to make more money or who's going to make less. Even if it's down 50-50, that's not your business. It's not your problem. Whatever you stand to inherit should not even be a topic of conversation. You need to let it be. And then if you happen to inherit something down the line, well, congratulations. You were very lucky, very fortunate that your parents included you in that part of the process. Unbelievable.
But remember, this kid got the... Well, kid, it's an adult. It's truly a kid. A child, but it's still a kid, got the calculation wrong.
Wrong. Can you imagine? I mean, number one, how can you be unbiased? And number two, then, well, let's say they would have agreed to that. And sometime down the line, they realized, right, that the calculations were all wrong, let's say. How do you address that later then with your kid and say, I can't believe... You stiffed me out of I don't know how many.
You're going to have to keep your mouth shut, like, you know, because. That could cause so many problems. You know, you can't because either you're going to seem biased or it was an innocent mistake, but then you feel guilty for I screwed over one of my parents when I was really trying to do a 50-50.
Or so you should feel guilty about that. But I mean, you could see how that could cause. Of course, because you have no business doing it.
Exactly. But I don't feel so bad for him because obviously he's an adult and, you know, it's out of my hands. But what really bothers me and what I really don't understand is when parents do it to their minor children. Oh, yeah. Alienate one parent from the other when they fill their heads with things or even if you're not filling their heads with bad things about the other parent, but that you constantly tell them, oh, and this is what happened in court or we're doing this or we're doing that. leave them out of it because it's going to affect them. It's definitely going to affect them. They do not need to know. All they need to know is that mommy and daddy are working it out. It's all going to be okay. It's going to be over at some point in time. And they're going to be OK regardless of what happens, but you're going to be involving them in. I'm not getting any money or somebody is a deadbeat or this one is doing God knows what.
you up on time you see yeah even the smallest things you see your dad's always late your mom never does this for you remember that i'm the one that takes you to practice uh even those little comments can make a really can leave a lasting impact on the child so it's to say that There is, I think, and I'm maybe speaking out of context, I'm not a psychologist or anything like that, but I would presume that there is a certain time frame in a person's life, let's say maybe, I don't know, six, seven, eight years old until the time, like maybe your late teens, where you're probably more impressionable, where certain things that your parents will say or do will leave you know, or will make a greater impact, right? Maybe when you're really, really young, you don't really notice, or maybe when you're much older, say your twenties or thirties, it doesn't affect you the same, but it will affect your kids and it will affect the relationship they will have with you and their other parents, whether that's their father, their mother, even their grandparents, because that alienation could have far-reaching ramifications, where you're alienating your kids from, let's say, your father, but your father's parents, who are your grandparents, are also part of that equation, and their siblings, and their cousins, and so on and so forth. I know that when people are in the middle of a divorce and they're upset and they're struggling and blah, blah, blah, that it's hard for them to see or even care about that, right? Because sometimes you're seething and you really can't understand how that really is a big part of the whole divorce when you're involving your family. whether they're four years old, 17 or 29, leave your kids out of it. Out.
Out. And we actually have- Even if they're attorneys. And you have guidelines that say, you know, you're not to discuss this. You're not to say how, you know, at mom's house we do this or that, you know, it's different. They're not better, they're different. Right. You're not supposed to pry in. You're not supposed to interrogate your kid as to what's happening at mom's house. Yep. She's dating or what's happening at dad's house. You can obviously ask, hey, did you have fun with your dad? Where'd you guys go? What'd you guys do? You know, just normal, simple things. And a lot of kids just, you know, they volunteer a lot of stuff to go. You don't really need to. interrogate them. Some of them are talkers.
They will willingly spill the beans.
Yes, they will spill the beans. Some, not all. Every kid is different, but you don't need to take it to that level where you're using them as messengers. You're not supposed to use them as messengers. You're not supposed to use them as little spies. You're not supposed to tell them your dad doesn't give me any money or your mom doesn't do this because It would imagine it would be it would feel terrible for a child to have to carry that burden of mom and dad aren't getting along. And mom is stressed because dad isn't doing this and dad is saying this and there's all this blame. And then a lot of times those little kids internalize it and they might say, well, you know, maybe it's my fault because they're fighting for, you know, child support. They're fighting over this. It's about me. Mm hmm. And, and now you, now you're going to have a kid that needs to go to therapy. Now you're going to have, you have all these things that, you know, unfortunately it happens way too often. And I, I definitely tell my clients, look, you got to keep your kids out of it. If you were doing it before, because you had no clue and you didn't know now that you've hired me now, you know, now I expect you to stop. Because there are ramifications if you don't. Because if you continue in this way, I'm either not going to represent you, fine, because you don't listen to what I'm telling you, and I don't want to lose in court, and you're going to make me lose. And I don't like to lose. And also at some point in time, depending on opposing counsel, they're going to use it against you. That's right. That's right. You're not acting in your child's best interest.
You're not. Thank you for saying that. Right. Oh, that's such a peeve of mine. I was having a conversation with someone. Who was it? I think it was another attorney at a happy hour this week. And I was talking about how I absolutely hate that. I'm using the word hate here for this. When parents, you know, arguing about, you know, their children in the middle of a divorce are claiming that it's because it's in the child's best interest. Look, I'm not saying that, let's say your soon to be ex spouse, whomever that might be, wouldn't hurt your kid if they're like an alcoholic or if they have a gambling problem or if they have any other type of addiction or something like that. You're right. Maybe it's not in their best interest for them to have full custody of this child. I understand. But when you're fighting about the dumbest shit, OK, and you're like, because it's in my child's best interest. Let me explain something to you. No, it's not. No, it's not. I can tell you without knowing the full details of that case to tell you that no, it's not. I've seen this so many times. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I get to be in the family home a lot. Right. And I get to see, you know, husband and wife, father and mother and their kids acting behind closed doors when they're getting picked up, when they're selling their property, when they just got picked up from school, when they are picking up their home, whatever. And I can see that. I can tell you that most most times people are fighting in their own interests, what they want to do with their kids, what they want about that. And so to try to just fight for whatever you want, just don't say that, because it's just so far from the truth that it it's asinine, I think half the time.
It's funny because, um, I you know, I have a social media page on Instagram, Divorce Poet. And I was trying to create content and there was one where it, the theme is that you're talking about, it's always about, it's about the money, basically. So the little, you know, caption on the, on the video is what's a divorce case all about. And the whole skit that I'm doing is that it's always about the money. And then at the bottom on the, on the, on the caption, I write, even when parents are fighting about the children, it's about the money. Because I see it so many times. Yes, there are instances where you're talking about something in particular to the child, but I've also seen it where you will invariably have a parent that is fighting for more time. Now, the law has changed. So under the old law, um you presume you you would aspire to have 50 50 time sharing now that's where you start and then you you know take away your ad from that but before you would aspire to that it wasn't a given that this is what you were going to have so people would fight for that but they fight for that because a lot of times the one who earns more money usually the guy doesn't want to pay child support or wants to minimize child support. So, of course, they're fighting for more time so that they pay less. They're fighting for more time because they don't want to do X, Y, and Z, even though they don't comply with the parenting plan. They don't comply with these things. And that's not child-driven. That's money-driven. That's You driven because if you are saying I want my kid and then you don't comply with the time sharing schedule because you're too busy, you're working, you forgot, you don't care, it's loosey goosey. That's not about your kid. That's about you. You can't be inconvenienced to do this. Right. And it's and it's and to a lot of and to like the other half, you know, to that spouse, it's very clear to the lawyer. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, because obviously I don't know your spouse. I you know, depending on when I get into your case, I you know, I'm a fast learner. And there are things that you can do in order to modify that in the future. You can do a petition. a supplemental petition to modify the timesharing because so-and-so isn't complying with the timesharing agreement. And then you'll be vindicated because you knew that all this was just a ruse so that he or she wouldn't have to pay you, you know, not alimony, sorry, child support. A certain amount of child support. They were trying to lower the amount. But unfortunately, That's what you fight about. You fight about money in all sorts of forms, whether it's alimony, whether it's child support, whether it's in the equitable distribution schedule. I have a case right now. It's an easy case in terms of they have a house, they have two retirement plans, one for the husband, one for the wife, and they have a big savings account, and then they have the husband's pension. He's already retired. It's 50-50 because it's a long-term marriage. They've been married for more than 20 years. So there's really not a lot of room for movement. And the wife is entitled to $1,400 a month from his pension. He doesn't want to give it to her. And we were gonna try to buy him out, that's not gonna be possible, so now the idea is, well, we're gonna sell the house, you split that 50-50, you split all the other assets 50-50, but you still have to give her the $1,400 a month from this pension. That's the law. Unless you wanna buy her out, you wanna do a present value of what that money is worth today as opposed to in the long term, the bottom line is he doesn't wanna give her that money. So you're kind of beating your head into a brick wall because I'm having a conversation with opposing counsel saying, well, doesn't your client understand that if we were to go to trial, I will get this for my client? And opposing counsel says, yes, but he doesn't get it. Well, has I, you know, and it's like, I can't tell you how to do your job. But now I'm in a position to say, well, I'm going to do a more formal settlement offer, I'm gonna ask for fees, I'm gonna come after this, because now you're prolonging the litigation. It's 50-50. It's costing everybody time and money, and your assets are gonna be dwindling because you're also using some of those savings in order to live because everybody is spending cash like there's no tomorrow. It just doesn't make any sense. So you always fight about the money.
Yeah. And let me go back a little bit, because there were so many things you said I want to unpack there. Let me go back to using children, you know, against your spouse and all of that. Let's assume, because I've also seen that, let's assume it's not about money. Let's assume It's not about money at all because that I could see some people arguing that point, but then they will destroy the calendar, the yearly calendar in saying, I need the kid on this day and that day and half of this holiday and half of this holiday and always on this week and not on that weekend. And it's supposed to be, quote unquote, in the kid's best interest. Tell me how that makes any sense to tear your children away or to, you know, divvy up certain holidays, like smack down in the middle. Explain to me how that works. And it doesn't. That's where you can obviously tell that it's more about what you want and how you feel about the situation than anything else. But fast forward, something you were talking about that I wanted to get to, and actually it's a really great way to tie in this point, which is, also go back to the original case that you were talking about, the family in Naples, and what you were talking about now, which is, assuming that it's not this particular case where he will have to pay the $1,400 in alimony, let's say, They've discussed it and she's like, look, it's OK. I don't need the fourteen hundred dollars. I'm OK with nine hundred dollars or actually.
Actually, it's it's not alimony. It's actually part of equitable distribution.
Oh, in this case. OK, this particular case.
And it's equitable distribution, so she's entitled to it.
She's entitled to it, right.
Right. And there's a specific way that it gets divided and stuff like that. But go ahead.
Sorry. What I was going to get to is that even if there is something in the settlement agreement or something that makes a perfect financial sense after all the calculations have been made, as a family, you can agree to not agree to those terms. You can decide that you want to give more alimony. You can also decide to receive less alimony or, you know, something along those lines. And this is obviously going back to the example you were talking about when it came to, you know, the Naples family where they were You know, she was all up in tears now. And I have actually heard you talk about this before in certain cases where the guy's like, look, this is a mother of my children. I want to make sure that she's comfortable. My kids are well taken care of. And he was, you know, two gentlemen makes great money and says, I don't want to give her 1500. I want to give her 3000 or whatever the case may be. You can do that. And that's the point I was trying to make when you were saying that. You know, you can run the numbers, you can show, you know, on paper, this is what it looks like, this is what you could stand to earn, this is what you could stand to spend. And then you have to let them, you know, accept or say, look, we want to rework the numbers, we want to have more, I want to keep less, whatever the case may be, there is that option too.
There is that option. There's a lot of ways that you can work it. And actually, when you were talking about giving more, giving less, it reminded me of another case I had a couple of years ago. And I want to bring it up because it touches on so many different things and how the best of intentions can really bite you in the ass. And also knowing how to pick your lawyer. Okay, that's important. So this person, I don't know the lawyer personally. I have heard of him, but I hear he is not a family lawyer. He probably knew enough. to get by, but did not know the finer points. And when you're working a settlement agreement, you want somebody who is going to know those finer points because they can really hurt you in the future. What am I talking about? So for this particular case, the day of the mediation, they were very hung up on how are we going to settle, which is, you know, appropriate. But they hadn't done the work leading up to the mediation. What do I mean? They hadn't done the financial stuff, at least my client, because he came to me to try to modify something in his divorce that took place eight years ago. So when they were at mediation, since they were just so concerned about you keep this house, I keep that house, I'm going to keep my business because he really wanted to keep his business and protect his business. I represented the former husband. And after the divorce, obviously. I did not handle the initial divorce. And because he was so hell bent on keeping the business, he was willing to do almost anything to just protect that. And he made a terrible deal. It hurt him. eight years later. And so when it comes to me and I'm traveling and I'm trying to unravel this, um, I warned him and I said, these are the issues that come up. So what am I talking about? His financial affidavit, which is in my opinion, the most important document that you file in your divorce case, the financial affidavit, um, spells out for the court, what your income is and all sources of income, whether it's your salary commission, um, if you're a, um, self-employed, if you were rental income, if you have royalties, like anything and everything comes in there and then from there you go over your expenses, how much you pay in mortgage or water bill, FPL, your cell phone, clothing, I mean vitamins, the gym, if you go to like You know, what you spend on doctors, what you spend eating out, what you spend at the grocery store, like basically everything under the sun. And then you're left with an amount, whether you break even, you have a surplus or you have a deficit. But that is what's going to control everything, because that's how alimony and child support are going to get calculated is based on the income. And you know, and you know, if you have a need, if you have the ability, so that's a very important document and that document was not filled out and all he wrote was $100,000 salary. Now that's a gross number. So let me start with that. That is a gross number. Anyone who does family law knows that when you're calculating child support and alimony, you do not work off of gross numbers. You do net numbers. And what everybody also forgot is that because he is self-employed, You can play with your money. You get distributions. You have perks. You have different things that increase your income, your salary, not your salary, your income, money that goes into your pocket. So if you use your corporate account to pay for your car and this and your meals outside the home and your health insurance and your telephone, guess what? You need to add that back in as your part of your income, because now your income isn't $100,000. Now his income was actually $200,000. And then to add insult to injury, they did not figure that that was his income. Now that could have been a strategic decision, a very bad one, not to do it that way. But then they said, you're going to have to pay your wife $5,000 net every single month. And because he was opening up another business, he thought, great, I have another source of income. $5,000 seems like a great deal. And everybody sold him on this great deal. What nobody bothered to explain to him, perhaps, is that you still don't use the $100,000 gross number. Because if you're using $100,000 gross, and you have to give your wife $5,000 net a month, $100,000 a month, I'm sorry, $100,000 a year is approximately $8,333 a month, a month of which you have. And that's, and remember, this would be, this would be if it was a net number, right? This is gross. This is not including taxes. This does not include taxes and your, you know, uh, Medicare and social security and FICA. This does not include any of that. So if that's what that equals, okay, 8,000 some odd dollars a month, and you have to give your former spouse 5,000, you're left with 3,000. Now out of that, you got to take off your taxes, your social security, your Medicare. Now what are you left with? Now you're probably left with like 2,000, like- $200. You cannot survive on your own. No. that is the worst deal you could have possibly made and it's the worst deal you could have made because eight years later when the pandemic hit and his businesses went down to zero he needed to come back to the court and say I can't pay it I need to modify this and the first thing the court says when you're looking for a modification is How have your circumstances changed? There must be a competent and substantial change of circumstances. And the first thing they're going to look at is what were you making back then and how much lower is it now? And because they didn't do the calculation properly.
It appeared as if he was still making. It had no change. Right.
Why? Because you didn't include the extra income that he was actually making and you didn't use net numbers instead of gross. Worse, you agreed to this number. You agreed to this crazy number and now you're stuck with it because we couldn't prove that he was making a lot less than $100,000. It was done incorrectly from the get-go and I tried so hard And we couldn't do it. And his books were also in disarray. So it took us a while to understand where he was financially. And I told him, I said, if we come to discover that you're still making the same $100,000 that you allegedly were making back then, you're going to be stuck. And he was.
It was terrible. I feel this in my gut.
It's horrible. So I'm always saying, look, you have to go to someone that practices family law and knows what they're doing with respect to family law. You can't go to someone who's dabbling. You can't go to someone who doesn't care and is going to say, oh, yeah, sure, I can do this for you for $1,500, not a problem. No discovery, no nothing. When people come to me and they say, well, we're going to do this, I want to help you and I want to be able to say, yeah, sure. I want to make that happen for you. But before I can make that happen for you, I also have to cover my behind and I, cause I have liabilities as well. My obligation to you is let me see what you want, what deal you want to make. And let me tell you what the law is and let's see how your deal or your intended deal does compares to what the law says you're entitled to. If it's more favorable, great. If it's unfavorable, let's look at it. Are you willing to take that hit? my professional opinion is you shouldn't and I will write you a letter. Hey dear so-and-so, I have advised you that this is the law. If you want to make this deal, this is not in your best interest because of the following reasons, but you are in fact an adult capable of making your own decisions, but don't come crying to me that I never told you because I was very clear. I need you know i need your discovery meaning i need to know your bank accounts your spouse's bank accounts i need to know your debt i need to do you know i need to know a lot of things so that i can properly advise you i can't just i am not a scribe meaning i am not just going to draft a document and say here you go give me fifteen hundred dollars and good luck goodbye.
Be aware of that. Yes, there are a lot of people who do that. There are a lot of people who solicit, yeah, who solicit business that way and will tell you that for a very nominal flat fee, they'll get you divorced. That, you know, so long as you agree to split your assets and, you know, to walk away from your home or whatever they have you, they will fill out all the documents for you and you can go on your merry way. And that is the absolute worst thing that you can do.
And you have non-lawyers that do that. which is probably the unauthorized practice of law. You have all these different people that might help you. If they're filling out the forms, that's one thing, but they can't advise you what you're doing, what you're stepping in, what landmines you're going to unwittingly set off and you're going to blow yourself up because you didn't have the proper counsel or advice, you know, to kind of, to guide you. And there's one that I'm actually doing now where it's less than a two year marriage and it's, you take your stuff, I take mine. We're going to sell the house divided 50 50, but I ask a lot of questions and he has a pension now. She being married to him for two years, I don't even know if he's vested. I probably not. But one of the things that I think about because I have so many years of experiences, Hey, she's been married to you for a certain amount of time. Even if it's a short amount of time, I'm going to try to close as many loopholes as possible. And if she might be entitled to, even if it's like $5 because you were married for five minutes, She's entitled to $5 for God knows how many months until, you know, for the rest of her life out of your pension. I'm going to put in the agreement that maybe she waives it or maybe you do something else, but I'm not going to leave that open so that someone can think about it and someone more astute can say, hey, you know, he didn't talk about this.
Yeah.
or what happened here? Because I am not putting the MSA together, the Marital Settlement Agreement. The other lawyer is, and I don't know what questions the other lawyer has asked. So I don't know if they're even aware of it, but I'm aware of it, and you know I'm gonna include that, and when I get that agreement, if it's not in there, I'm gonna stick it in there, and I'm gonna say she waives it. Because I'm trying to- But at least it was addressed, yeah. It's gonna be addressed. I'm not just gonna be like, oh, we're gonna keep it hush-hush. Why? Because that's called fraud. And that's the number one way that someone can come back. You know, it's like fraud. It could be malpractice on my part because I know the facts. And if I didn't advise my client because I'm going along with whatever crazy plan they got going on, who's on the hook?
That's right. That's right. And you never know which one of those details, as you said, which one of those details can come to bite you in the long run.
Like, you know, this poor gentleman, you know, but it's and it's not only about covering, you know, myself, but it's also about doing the best that our client. Yeah. For my client to be able to tell you, OK, you know, tell me everything so that I can help you. Right. and let's figure it out together. Let's put a plan of action in place because I want this to make sense to you. And it might seem onerous and unnecessary to do all these other steps. It's not going to cost you any more than what I've already quoted you, but it's going to actually save you money in the future to do it right the first time, then to have to go back and have somebody say, oh my God, I can't believe Claudia didn't tell you this, that or the other. And then, You know, and then it looks terrible. I do. But I'm going to tell you, this is what you need to do. This is how we're going to do it. If you like it, great. And if you don't, well, take your chances somewhere else.
That's right. I'm glad that we touched on this. I'm super glad that we touched on this because I don't think that we, I actually haven't had the privilege of getting that deep into a conversation with another attorney about the financial affidavit and about the ramifications of not completing one properly and not discussing really what are the pros and cons and the risks and all of that that is involved. And all of this actually reminds me of something that it doesn't really have anything to do with it, but I just saw it recently on your social media, which is that you were talking about girl math. Girl math and guy math.
Oh, divorce math.
And then there's divorce math, right? There's girl math and then there's divorce math. And some of that is really funny. And actually, I hate to admit that I wasn't really sure what that was until you brought it up to me and you actually explained what girl math was. I was like, oh, yeah, I do that all the time. But there is, yeah, there is divorce math. So for those of you who are tuning in, I would encourage you to follow Claudia because she puts out really, really awesome content. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's witty, and most of the time, not most of the time, all the time it's true, but most of the time it leaves you thinking like, oh my gosh, I wasn't aware of that. Why don't you tell us what your handle is?
It's Divorce Poets.
Divorce Poet, and we can find you on Instagram and also on Facebook.
I'm also on Facebook. I don't post. It does post automatically to Facebook, but I'm more active on Instagram. On LinkedIn, it's under my name, Claudia, middle initial L, Pranuti. I think that's basically it. I haven't done anything on LinkedIn in a while. Let me tell you something, going and having to do social media on all those different platforms is another job in and of itself. It's very tiring. So I'm most active on Instagram under divorce poet. I do have a personal one, but that's like a big mishmash of just absolutely insane stuff that has nothing to do with anything. And I haven't posted anything in like two years. So don't even bother looking at that one. Look at divorce poet. Divorce poet. But yeah, it's a whole, it's another full-time job. It's hard. It is, it is. You have to run a business, you gotta serve as clients, and then I gotta do social media content. What's that all about?
I know, I struggle with the same thing. For those of you who do follow me, I'm very, very sorry. I have not been able to keep up with social media. I used to post all of my own content, as do you, actually. And that takes time.
It takes time.
I don't trust anybody else. I just can't accept paying some, you know, sorry to say it, but some young adult, you know, hundreds and thousands of dollars to put out subpar content. And what I mean by subpar content, as a writer, you are a writer yourself, I know that you can agree that we're both very picky about grammatical errors, intonation, syntax, all the things that consist of proper grammar and punctuation and things like that. So I cannot just fathom paying somebody $1,000, $1,200, $1,500, because that's what it costs these days to help you manage your social media account and put all this content out for you that somebody actually isn't authoring. I author my own content and it takes a long freaking time. And so I've had to take a step back to be able to service my clients and to be able to do this podcast and bring this kind of information on this platform out to the public because I can't do it all. And I decided not to burn out. So I've I've taken a step away from social media. However, Claudia is alive and well on social media. So I do encourage you to follow her because she posts really, really fantastic content.
I did take a break, though, for you did here because you do burn out and you do. And like you said, you know, we're very particular about our content and about the information that we want to provide. And before I took my break, it was more informative. Now it's a little more light hearted, a little more fun. But even then, it takes time to, oh, I found an audio that I like. I want to try this. How am I going to? you know, give it the divorce bin or family loss bin. So it still takes time to be able to do all that. And I'm going to get back into the informative ones. But to kind of, you know, dip my toe into that social media lake again, I'm doing light and fun ones for now. And then eventually I'll start doing more educational ones, but it's a fine line because you would like to have more followers, you'd like to have people listen to what you're saying, but not everyone is really keen on knowing about divorce and alimony and alienation and how do you calculate this and how do you calculate that because it's not exactly a fun topic.
Yeah. I was actually having a conversation with someone over lunch the other day. He is a ghostwriter and it was actually a very informative lunch. His ghostwriting services actually extend more into, you know, the social media marketing aspect of it. And he mentioned something to me that I think kind of, you know, is obvious, but you don't really consider that because as a professional, right. And I think that same goes with you. your goal is to be informative, right? To be educational, to raise the red flags, you know, so people can be aware before they make mistakes and they call you, you know, knowing that they have a situation, right? But he was talking about how social media followers, people who actually engage with social media are far more interested in you as a person, no matter who you are. If you're the CEO of Google, they don't care to know about what's happening in Google. They care to know that you had a flat tire on your way to work that day. Like, it's legitimately about people and how, you know, they may rise and go to work every day, but they also have challenges and people. And I think it's obviously a generational thing where they're far more interested in the gossip, I guess, of the day to day than the actual service or you know what I'm saying that you provide.
It's so funny you say that because I do have a social media marketing team that helps to do the editing because I don't have time for that and I obviously don't know how to do it and I'm not going to take the time to learn how to do like you know the graphs and animations and all that stuff and they're always telling me you need to post more stories where you're like at a cafe, you know, like eating your croissants and having coffee or just, I don't know, you're passing by somewhere. And I'm thinking, nobody cares what I had for breakfast. Nobody wants to know whether I had a flat tire. Nobody, I'm thinking that's not really relevant. Now, if I travel- It's not relevant. If I travel somewhere and I like to share that, that's great. And I can understand you sharing what you had for breakfast in a personal social media account, but mine is a professional one. They're trying to get me to, I guess, blend that a little bit more to show more of my personality. It's, it's kind of like, I'm very hesitant to do that because I don't think, I don't think anybody really, really cares all that.
It's not even so much. And I think, I mean, you're incredibly brilliant. I know that, you know, this is true. Right. And I know we're having this conversation almost, you know, just for fun, but. I'm the one that doesn't care. I don't care that you care what I'm having for lunch or that I happen to be wearing, you know, XYZ today for work or whatever. I find it's, it's like you said, it's irrelevant to what I do. It has nothing and no merit, it has nothing to do and no merit with the service that I provide and what I actually do for a living and how I can help you when you need my services. So it's not so much that I am hesitant, it's that I am resistant. to this idea that I have to put myself and my private life out there for you to consider me, you know, a consummate professional.
Exactly. Do I sometimes think, oh, you know, I look cuter. I like this outfit to share it. Yes, of course. Do I? No. But sometimes I might take a selfie for myself, you know, to be like, oh, look, I look good, you know, on this day of this year. I'm not exactly running to post it on Instagram. No. Sometimes I will just I mean, I posted something on Facebook the other day and I was like, oh, look, I'm in Collier County Courthouse. And then I took a picture of me. I thought it came out good. And, you know, I posted that. I thought that was great. But that was on my personal Facebook page. That wasn't on my Divorce Poet. That wasn't even a story. That wasn't anything. You're not going to find it there because I'm trying to post other things. I'm also trying to keep it light. But again, I'm not posting that I had lunch just to have lunch and I went to some restaurant, you know. Maybe I should, I have no idea. Maybe your audience will sway me.
The marketing gurus will tell you that you must. I am telling you, no.
This is why I'm not lighting the world on fire.
I have a life to live and I'd like to keep a lot of that, you know, to myself and, you know, for my, just for my family, my friends, my, you know, my significant other to, to partake in. My business is my business, but my personal business is not your business. And I mean that, you know, as sweetly and as genuinely as I, as I can communicate that. So, but no, going back to divorce poet, it's a fantastic account. I, um, I applaud you for reengaging, um, yes, with your audience and for posting such great content. I love it. I laugh a lot. I know I comment on your posts all the time and I support you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I support you 100%. And I look forward to engaging with you outside of our podcast. But for those of you who are tuning in, once again, this is Claudia Pernutti. She's a family and matrimonial attorney. And she is just not only is she a doll, of course, I'm biased, but she is just a wealth of information. And she will help absolutely help you with your divorce case, no matter what it entails, or whether or not you have the foresight of involving your own children. Let's leave them out.
Let's leave them out. I echo that sentiment. Yeah.
Thanks so much for joining me again today.
Yes, of course. I love it. I always love coming here and talking to you. I never know where the conversation is going to take us.
It doesn't matter. It's always a good conversation. Exactly. Thank you, Claudia.
Thank you, Raquel.
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