The Akiona Law Podcast Video: Featuring Jesse Deason

In this episode of the Akiona Law podcast, Ululani “Lani”  Akiona speaks with Certified Divorce Financial Analyst and owner of Serene Divorce Planning, Jesse Deason.

Jesse explains how financial neutrals use "what-if" modeling to help clients in Collaborative Divorce navigate real estate and cash flow considerations. She outlines the essential prep work required, from gathering tax returns to building a realistic post-divorce budget. While Jesse emphasizes the value of neutrals for complex assets such as equity compensation, she also clarifies when a simpler case might not need one. The conversation highlights how professional financial guidance provides clarity and confidence during a difficult life transition.

Jesse Deason, CFP®, CDFA®, EA  
www.serenedivorce.com
www.sereneplanning.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Family Law and Divorce Cast, the Family Law and Divorce Podcast, Aciona Law, and I am your podcast host, Ululani, or Lani Akeona. And with me today is Financial Neutral, Collaborative Divorce, Financial Neutral, Extraordinaire, Jesse Deeson.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to my podcast, Jesse.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Thank you. And Jessie is uh now she's got she's got a lot of letters under underneath her name, and she's gonna explain what they are. She is a CFP, C D F A, and E A. She is the founder of Serene Divorce Planning right here in Everett, where she provides specialized financial consulting for those navigating the complexities of divorce and uh also financial planning for those who are about maybe 10 or 15 years out from retirement. Um, and again, as well as I start off this podcast, she is a financial neutral in collaborative divorce, and we're gonna get into that about what is a financial neutral and collaborative divorce and why do you need one? But first, Jesse, could you please explain those acronyms behind your name? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Uh, so I've done a lot of financial education over the years. Um financial neutrals come from a lot of different financial backgrounds. I happen to be a financial advisor, so I'm a certified financial planner. Um, I'm a certified divorce financial analyst, which is the credential that most of us have, you know, expertise in the divorce process. Um then I'm also an enrolled agent, which is a tax designation recognized by the IRS for proficiency and personal taxes.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Oh my gosh. So that just means you're really, really good with numbers, right? Yep. Yes. All right, let's just get right into it, Jesse. Uh so what is a financial neutral?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

So the financial neutral is a joint hire on the professional team. So that the joint joint hire means that both clients hire the financial neutral. So they're not hired by on one side or the other, they're hired by both clients. And the role of the financial neutral really is to collect financial information and then organize it into what-if scenarios. So, what if scenarios about the pro about the settlement, what if scenarios about the property division, and then if applicable about um spousal support or child support. And these what-if scenarios are how clients put their arms around, you know, the potential financial pros and cons of different settlement paths forward.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Okay. Again, so I'm going to repeat that because that's really important. The what-if scenarios are the financial pros and cons of a of a settlement scenario. And and I think that's a and you know, a really clear distinction between that role of a financial neutral and the role of a divorce attorney is that the divorce attorney really can't go into that pros and cons in as much detail as you, the financial neutral, can. Uh, a lot of times, you know, when I'm looking at what is scenarios, I'm looking at a single spreadsheet uh that typically my paraligo has created for me, where she just kind of inputs all the different numbers, right? This is what the the house values were, this is the bank account as of the data separation, these are the Kelly Blue Book values for the cars, this is a retirement account. And I can only operate on a very narrow set of facts on what if meaning, what if this is a 50-50 division, but then what if one spouse had 60% of the assets and the other spouse had 40% of the assets? What's the equalizing payment that one spouse needs to give to the other to make it equal? So, so narrow. And you're talking about what ifs, because you and I worked on a case together, was that that, oh my gosh, it was just amazing how we went in real time and we were doing the what-ifs.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

So I mean, collaborative divorce, you know, one benefit is that you're having real-time discussions and able to look at real-time, you know, scenarios and move numbers around. And so you get to a spreadsheet, you know, maybe someone's getting the house, the other person's getting other things, and you're able to have a real-time discussion of, you know, what does that actually mean in terms of future taxes? What does that mean for cash flow? Meaning, if someone's going to get the house, what does this mean for their monthly budget moving forward? Um, what does this mean for their ability to pay bills in the future as far as you know the amount of cash they're getting? And so, you know, taking a, you know, a what if this asset, you know, asset and debt division and kind of taking it another layer of what will this mean in so many different perspectives? Liquidity, taxes, um, etc. So people really kind of have a sense of this is what my future will look like if I go this route with this property division and this support scenario.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

And that kind of that, and you just answered right there the question about why do I need a financial neutral in my divorce, also. And I think another thing, and I don't I can't maybe you already said this already, but the fact that working with you, you also prevere, like I just I mentioned earlier, I just have one spreadsheet, one spreadsheet, it's one tab, whereas you can have multiple tabs. And one thing I've known from working with you that you had this gorgeous tab of restricted uh stock units, RSUs. And you can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Right. So where we live in the Everett area, it's really common that one or sometimes even both spouses will get paid in restricted stock units or RSUs. And so it's a you know multidimensional conversation. Sometimes, often we're catching up one spouse. What is an RSU? Yes. They've never really got maybe they've heard it before, but they might not know. And sometimes even the employee spouse who's earning them isn't quite sure they know what they are. So what is an RSU? And then in the context of divorce, we're often thinking about RSUs as an income stream. But they're a tricky income stream because you don't know if you're going to receive it, right? The employee needs to keep working there. They get laid off, they may not get them. And then you don't really know how much it will be because it's based on a share price. And so there's a lot of assumptions that get built in there. Um, but one value add of a financial neutral is that all the information is presented in a way that's black and white. And so you can understand the assumptions that they made, and each client can kind of take that information and um process it so that they can make better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And not only that, too, and in terms of being a financial neutral, you don't have any skin in the game. You uh you said something and you said it so you, you know, you're just pervey uh you said something along the lines that you're simply providing the facts so people can receive the information to make decisions about it.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Right. So that I think my primary role in a collaborative divorce is just collect and organize financial facts in a way that people can use it to make informed decisions in the divorce process.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah. Collect and organize facts so people can use it to make informed financial decisions in a divorce process. And that really captures the hits the uh the nail on the head of why you need a financial neutral in the divorce and what is it. And one thing to point out too is that again, when I'm an attorney and we're we're I'm looking at an asset and debt spreadsheet, or I'm getting one from the other side, there's this inherent amount of distress because I know as an attorney, there's always a little bit of manipulation that you can do with numbers to tweak things uh to your client's favor. Um but Jesse's not going to be doing that.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Right. So I try never to make any assumptions and I try to always explicitly outline any assumptions I have to make. And so the work product of any, you know, of a financial neutral is not biased to favor one person or the uh over the other. It really is just meant to be a neutral work product that people can build from there.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

And I think it goes and you know, tying into the what you said about the uh because going back to the RSUs, which restricted stock units, right? A lot of times if the the spouse who who um who is the wife of the employee that, you know, let's say we're Amazon, all of my my my wife will know is that her husband gets stocks, but to really kind of dive it down and break it out, like how the financial neutral does, how Jesse does, again, which is, you know, what are the shares? What are the price per shares? When will it invest? Attorneys can't do that. And if if I saw an attorney that did that, unless they had some sort of like fancy letters behind their name, like how you did, I would not trust that. I'll be like, where the heck did you get this from? Where are you pulling these numbers out of your darn butt? All right. But when I get it from you, Jesse, the financial neutral, I can trust that. And not only that, I can I can go, I can ask you like a dozen different questions until I understand how you got that.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

And when it's written out in black and white, the employee employee who's earning them can weigh in with their opinion. You know, work hasn't been going that great. You know, this is the current share price, XYZ. I'm worried about the future. I'm worried about committing to a settlement based on a certain share price, it's going to go down. And the other spouse can hear in real time about those concerns, can understand all the assumptions that I've made as the neutral. And okay, this is if as far as dealing with this uncertain income stream, I understand that maybe we should be tackling this as, you know, if if and when it's received, we somehow share it. Um, instead of it's I I understand now it's not a given. Um, and I need to be mindful that these numbers can change and they're absolutely not guaranteed. And so both people now can kind of operate with that with similar understanding.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Which is so very helpful. And so switching gears, let's say, okay, let's let's let's let's take me to that first meeting with the natural with the financial neutral. So, because again, when I'm doing a traditional divorce, I'm telling my client the the fact that, okay, you're gonna, we might, we're probably to get financial information from the other side, we're gonna have to do the same call der I'm sorry, interrogatories and requests for production of documents, which is the call discovery for short, which is I'm sending out maybe a hundred, hundred and twenty um, this comprehensive list of of questions uh requesting questions that you need to answer, as well as pieces of documents that I want. And I'm gonna charge you anywhere from about seven to seventy five hundred to ten thousand dollars to send out this packet of discovery because then when I get that packet back, we've got to go through it, try and understand it. And then if we send your spouse discovery, believe you me, they're gonna send it to us. So you're looking at each spouse spending probably about ten thousand dollars a piece just to exchange financial information. And instead of a when we have a financial neutral, it's just we send it to you, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Right. So there's a tremendous cost savings to hire one neutral person to do the financial data gathering and organizing compared to hiring two different law firms to do it. Um, it's you know, real it's really dollar saved in the client's pocket.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So much, so much more dollar, uh tons of dollars saved. And not only that, you do have one one one person who is an expert, much more an expert again than attorneys are in understanding numbers, digesting it, and creating these beautiful spreadsheets that may that not just have one page, one tab, but multiple pages or tabs. But it goes it goes down again to when I'm sending out the discovery quest, I'm telling my clients, you're gonna have to produce either five, either 10 years, heaven forbid 10 years, at a minimum or at a minimum two years, but probably maybe even five years of credit card statements, bank statements, um, you know, retirement accounts, investment savings accounts, uh, tax returns and W-2s. So again, I'm the I'm the financial neutral client. I'm coming to you my collaborative divorce, and I'm like, okay, Jesse, what do I need to send you for my first meeting? Because I've heard I got to send you like five years worth of statements, and I don't have the time to do that, Jesse.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

And I was like, client, then you'll be relieved to know that for the most part, for our initial kind of go-through, we're just looking for a current statement for every bank, brokerage, and retirement account. Um, because this is this is an iterative financial information gathering process. So let's start with that. So we kind of have the lay of the land, what are the accounts? What are they worth now? I have a concession to make.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

I do not know what iterative means.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Oh, it just means it's back and forth. Uh we'll start with this, then we need to pivot a little bit, we get some more, we learn some, we you know, have a discussion. Oh, let's get a little bit more. Um, so we start with kind of what is the lay of the land of our current finances? And then through a series of team meetings with the attorneys, we find out, okay, well, it turns out someone owned this 401k back when we got married 15 years ago. Maybe it would be helpful information to know what was that account worth back then. So now, okay, employee, why don't you go track down, try to track down that statement? And now that person knows exactly like why this information's, you know, useful to get. They have some skin in the game. It clearly plugs into the discussions they've been having. It makes sense compared to for every account just getting five years or more. This is such a heavy lift, and you don't even know if you're going to need the information.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

It is, it is, and a lot of, oh my gosh, you don't you don't understand the weight you just took off my shoulders. Because again, I heard that I had to go back and provide five years of information, and I don't frankly have the mental energy, the bandwidth, or the time to do that. And so no, all I have to do is just give you the present statements. And from there, if we need more, you'll tell me. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

I can I can if we need more, we'll be having discussions where things come up and you can see firsthand this is why this information would be helpful to get. And instead of just blanket requests for information that you were unclear if it's ever even going to be helpful.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Oh, such a such a time saver. I feel so much better. Okay, but here's another question, right? I'm still pretending to be the client. Okay. Um, but I, okay, Jesse, I contact that an employer, and that was like 25 years ago, and they don't have a statement anymore from when I started when I started working there. What do I do?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

You know, it's a it's a discussion to be had in a team meeting, probably with the attorneys. Um, sometimes there might be a legal way to get that information, and other times the information is just not available. And so we have a discussion of hey, we can't get this information. Is there a way that we can make you know an informed estimate of what it might have been? Okay. Um, is there a number that we can maybe do a back of the envelope calculation and it can be good enough? Yeah. Um, let's talk about how we see this information potentially impacting a settlement scenario. Because if it's a very small data point overall, maybe we now have a perspective of we don't really need it.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Okay, I feel better again. Gosh, dang it. Thank you so much.

unknown 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

And there is always information that you can't get and that you wish you had. And that is just the nature of the work. And so um you have to move forward with the information you have, make assumptions where you can, um, and you know, to really just do the best you can. But and that's just has to be good enough.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Okay. Um, and is there, is there, okay, so you know, aside from getting you this uh not this, like, not like this five-inch binder of financial information for our first meeting, thank God. Um, what else can I expect at our first meeting? Do is there any other document or like maybe a budget I need to prepare?

unknown 17:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

So we're collecting documents to substantiate assets, debts. So I always ask, you know, credit report, uh, you know, recent statement for every credit card. Um, and then we're asking for um in data to substantiate income. So W-2s, year-end pay stubs, recent pay stubs, and then the final piece is how many pay stubs? How many pay subs? Um, so I ask for the last two years of year-end pay stubs, and then the last the most current three.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

And that's because sometimes there are deductions that only happen every other pay period.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

And um, then the the fourth piece is a post-divorce budget. So as a single person, I'm running my own household now. What do I estimate my monthly income will be? What do I estimate my monthly expenses will be? You know, given all these estimates, am I running a surplus where I have extra that I could save, or do I have a shortfall? I don't have enough income to pay my expenses.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

So what, okay, so when I'm thinking a post-budget report, okay, so right now, again, like I'm freaking out because you know, I'm in the family home. I've been a stay-at-home mom. Um, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know where I'm gonna live. Um, all I know is that I got two kids. And so I'm thinking either two, three bedroom plays. Like, I don't know. What would you tell me? How can you help me?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Help, I'm freaking out. So I do think the budget exercise is the most difficult piece of the data gathering.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

And one because common, you're to be expected.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yes, and because there are unknowns, right? Especially if you don't know what your housing is gonna be. It's that's a tricky thing to estimate. And so sometimes I advise clients hey, you can always make more than one version. Then maybe there's a version where I get the house, maybe there's a version where I'm renting. Okay. Um, it never gets submitted and finalized, aren't any budget police that come after you? It is just a kind of an internal tool to help people make decisions. Um, and then we're striving for directional accuracy. So directional accuracy. Right. So, you know, plug in the Netflix, plug in the gas in your car, some things that probably aren't going to change very much. Okay. And then make some good assumptions, if you can, about some of the other categories, health insurance, housing. Um, but we're trying to kind of direction find a directional amount, not to the dollar, not to the penny.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Not to the penny. Okay, that gives me peace of mind because sometimes I can get so detailed oriented that I'm like, ah, the pennies. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Right. So just kind of a general sense of what does it cost to run your own household. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Just big picture, big strokes.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Yep. Okay. Okay, that makes that makes me feel better because I could um I could be in the in the space where where, well, I don't know. I mean, if I could keep the family home, that would be great. But I don't know if I can afford the mortgage. And that's when you would tell me, okay, well, why don't you do another budget report where maybe you're looking at renting or two two or three bedroom apartment or house in Everett? See what that looks like. Yep. Yeah. And I can't, and I can do that because it's essentially just that one item piece is going to change, but everything else is the same. Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Yes. Um, you know, and the housing piece, it it is so complex and it's often emotionally driven. And you know, you live there and it's often tied into keeping kids in the same school district, it's tied to being in proximity to work, but we all know it's cost a fortune to live around here. And so um it really people are often often having to make hard trade-offs. The budget helps you understand what are the trade-offs I might need to make. Yeah, I think everybody has a sense that you know, for taking the same amount of income, stretching across two households, things are going to be tight. You can't really understand how tight until you run the numbers. So I find that the budget exercise, it really gives people some peace of mind and takes away some of the fear and unknown about the future. Um, you know, here's some things I might be able to expect. And now I kind of I have a better sense of I will have to make some trade-offs, but now I can kind of see what those are. I I can make this work.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Okay. And and I and I you touched upon a really good point about fear of the future because it it almost seems like, in terms of right, the the fear of the future is one party is is always worried, is is usually worried about I'm giving away too much. How am I gonna know my future is gonna be okay? Because I don't want to give away the whole entire farm. And then the other party is worried that I'm not gonna have enough. So how do I know that I'm gonna be okay post divorce to to move forward?

SPEAKER_01 21:43

And you're saying that's what the one great thing about the budgets or working with the financial neutral and having the budgets is that both clients can see the other person's budget estimates. Okay. And so not only, you know, have I run the numbers from myself, I can see what my spouse has estimated as far as. Their income and their expenses. And we encourage people not to kind of nickel and dime together, you know, and pick expenses because people have different priorities. But it can be a real reality check for the spouse who's married to someone who earns a lot of money. Um, and they might have come to the divorce process thinking, you know, I want to have get earn or get support of, you know, at least this amount every month.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

And when they see that budget and they see, okay, I my spouse earns quite a bit, but then they pay a lot in tax. And oh yeah, and they have an expensive housing situation too, because it costs so freaking much to live around here. And when they have to buy groceries, et cetera, I can see how much is left over. And now I have a much more, I have a lot more empathy for the, you know, what it costs for them to manage their own budget month to month. And I have a much more realistic understanding of what they can afford to, you know, to provide every month. And so I have, you know, I'm I'm much more grounded in the reality of our finances instead of kind of just floating with a kind of an arbitrary number in mind.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Well, you're floating around where like, well, I know he grosses $18,000 a month. So I feel like he should be able to pay me $10,000 in spousal support.

unknown 23:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

But no, I because I've I've seen it too, because I'm like, yeah, he makes a lot of money. And then when you're working with a financial neutral and you see it kind of broken down, you're like, oh, that's where all his money goes. You're like, oh. Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

And if we want to keep our kids doing the same activities that they're doing or the same private schools, I can really start to see in black and white where money is going every month and where we might need to start making some changes.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

And but you know, that also touches upon a point too when we're talking about making changes. You know, a lot of times that higher income earning spouse, you know, a lot of their income is being diverted away to investments, retirement planning. So it could be, well, maybe, maybe we maybe Mr. Husband or uh whoever, maybe you need to look at cutting down some of these um retirement planning until maybe two or three years post-divorce. Do you see that kind of coming up too?

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yes. And it's um, I always try to normalize for clients that divorce is, you know, it's a financial hardship. And there are people who kind of have that engraved in in in yeah, engraved like savings mentality, and they've been savers and they've built this savings muscle. And this is this is a priority month to month. And to normalize for them, you know, it people do reduce their savings or turn them off completely to free up cash to pay for the cost of divorce, to pay for setting up a second household. And it doesn't mean you're bad because or it doesn't mean you're irresponsible, it means you're realistic. And I give you clients permission to do that because you need to come up with new cash sources, and this is a great way to do that.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

You know, I'm gonna um between between me and you, right? Me and you here in Zoom, we forget about the listeners. But as I was going through my own divorce of uh my spouse of 25 years, that was one of the biggest pieces that frustrated me because I knew that I couldn't contribute the maximum amount to my 401k anymore. I had to dial that back down. But my spouse, oh no, he was still contributing, you know, maximum amount plus to his 401k, you know, contributing to to savings and such. And he's saying, I don't have any money. And I would be like, Yes, you do. You just can't contribute several thousand dollars anymore. You you gotta do what I did. Do what I did. But um I did not do a cooperate, uh, collaborative divorce. Um, it was a litigated divorce, so therein lies the difference. But yes, he was unwilling to to approach that that reality because he was just so stuck in that savience mentality. And for him, there's there's there's fear that that goes behind it as well. Um, and that's why, you know, to work with a a collaborative divorce team, I think it could have maybe been a bit of a reality check for him. That you know, things, things have to change. And unfortunately, reality testing for him had to had to come with with court. And um court is expensive. It's expensive. I much much had rather worked with with you, Jesse, as my financial neutral. But luckily I get to work with you in cases in collaborative divorce. It's a pleasure. So we talked we talked about the the budget piece, and then so again, you you mentioned that um you I think it's very important to reiterate again that when they're meeting with you in terms of the budget, for one, you know, don't nitpick the other's budget. And again, it's not something set in stone.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Right. It really is um just an internal tool, so kind of internal to the collaborative divorce team, and um to collect information and just to inform lots of different areas of the div, you know, of the divorce process and like in all the different aspects of your settlement. So, for example, like when we get to the property division and we're trying to figure out what might happen with the house, cash flow is a huge component of that. So just you know, money in, you know, expenses out, and can I afford this mortgage? And what does it mean for maintaining this house and fixing an appliance or doing a new roof? Um, and so I might want to keep the house and I might understand it from on the balance sheet. Well, that means I'm giving up retirement or I'm giving up stocks, but I also need to consider that from like a month-to-month cash flow perspective. Um, you know, having the, like I mentioned before, having my other, the other spouse's budget, and now I have insight into what their finances look like. Now we have a better understanding of what we're spending on our kids every month. I have a better understanding of how much we're each paying on taxes for our income. So, you know, and it's a lot. So it's um, I just am way more grounded in the the actual details here in this, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah, and when you're grounded in your finances, you can move forward and make informed decisions. And again, I trust you because you don't have any skin in the game. Yeah. So uh besides per besides being a financial neutral, what are the other pieces that you can you can um what are the pieces that you can help with in terms of the sphere of divorce or or planning?

SPEAKER_01 28:31

I think one um piece is providing financial education. Okay. So it's really common that in a marriage, one spouse was kind of the money manager finance spouse, and then the other spouse contributed to the marriage in other ways. And so often for this one, but even for this one sometimes, there is a financial education that needs to happen of just, you know, what is a restricted stock unit, what is an IRA, how do you get money out, um, how are these things taxed? Do you have to be a certain age to get money out? And so just make that financial education kind of definitely helps bring up the um less financially savvy spouse to a place where they can better participate in the negotiation or better participate in the process because they they kind of can start getting a sense of what are all these things, how will do all these pieces fit into a future picture for me, given my short-term and long-term financial goals? You know, what's a settlement that might be able to achieve those now that I understand, you know, what is a 401k versus my account at BECU? How are those things different?

SPEAKER_00 29:33

And are you you're talking about in the collaborative divorce process?

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Collaborative divorce process, but I think CDFAs in general, um, one huge value add is just financial education and personal finance education. These are things you're not learning in school, uh like in public school. You're not learning them at work. And so unless you've had a personal interest, um, and if you it's certainly if you've had a spouse who's been doing this all, you've been kind of doing your own thing and you've not, you know, had an opportunity or been incentivized to learn all this stuff. And um, it's really uh you know wonderful to be able to work with a CDFA who can bring you up to speed, but in the context of divorce.

unknown 30:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

So let's learn about all these things and then talk about them from the lens of divorce.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

And the again, the CDFA stands for certified divorce financial analyst. And so you're talking about like could if I if could a client um have they have a mediation coming up, so they need help with settlement. Would they hire a CDFA, you for example?

unknown 30:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

So I do work with a lot of individuals in more amicable divorces who are preparing for mediation. Okay. I might say most of them are 10-ish years out from retirement. Okay. And so for those clients, retirement readiness is top of mind. And they're thinking, you know, for the most part, hey, you know, what I get in this settlement is really gonna impact the direction of my finances in the future. Um, I work with a lot of spouses who are working part-time or they're not in the workforce. So for them, the terms of the settlement are really gonna dictate their financial future. And so we're able to kind of run some, you know, what if scenarios in retirement modeling software to see, hey, if you go with a settlement that looks like XYZ, this is what the future might look like. Um, so now you might have some more certainty coming going back to mediation, you know, you should try to get, you know, X amount, or if you settle for X amount, we feel pretty confident you're gonna be able to meet these goals.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Have you like in in terms of uh helping a client prepare for mediation, have you been in the situation where the client's like, okay, Jesse, can you be on standby during mediation in case I need you to, you know, run another scenario? Okay, yeah, yeah. Because that's important, you know, as a divorce attorney, I'll be like, contact Jesse, see if she can do this. Yeah, yeah, okay, definitely. So helpful. Okay, so if clients want to, you know, they need they want to work with you, contact you either as a financial neutral in a divorce or as a CDFA certified divorce financial analyst to help them prepare for mediation and and discuss the retirement planning 10 or 15 years out. What's the settlement proposal going to look like? How can they get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_01 32:14

The easiest way to get a hold of me is just to send me an email. So my email is Jesse, J E S S E at sereneplanning.com, S-E-R-E-N-Planning.com. So send me an email um and I'd be happy to have a discussion, you know, if and how I can add value to your divorce process.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

And we'll be sure to include uh the email in the the podcast description as well for for people to get a hold of you. And be before we sign off, um, again, what's wait, what what's a fun fact about you that someone wouldn't know just from kind of looking at you?

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Fun fact. Um, not very fun these days because I'm in a season of life with little children. Um, but this year I started taking piano lessons. This year as an adult. Oh my gosh. Yes. So who always wanted to learn how to play the piano? Tell me about is it hard? Yep. Um, it it really matters how much you practice.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Okay, okay. Well, how often are you practicing?

SPEAKER_01 33:13

How often are you practicing? Um, not as much. And so my uh my uh recently my kids have been, I've had a lot of kids stuff going on. But we um I go to a school with my daughter who's seven, she's taking lessons also. Oh, how do you think that's a good one? And so we take lessons concurrently from different teachers, and we each have our little binder. And we have um, she has a little tracker of squares and she gets to mark off squares as she practices. You fill it all out, you get to choose a prize. So I get to my first lesson and she says, Oh, you didn't, you know, you didn't fill out any squares. And I said, I'm a grown-up. I'm just here to learn from me. I don't need a stuffy or a huge Twix bar. I'm I'm good. Um, but it's been great, you know, it's a fun hobby. This line of work can be a little stressful.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

And so it's just nice to have fun and dabble and and kind of exercise different parts of my brain. So it's been great.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Wait, have you and your daughter done a recital yet?

SPEAKER_01 34:12

No, we haven't. We're still in early days, but I already have an outfit picked out for when I get to do a recital. Um, so it's it's in the future.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Oh my gosh, you already got an outfit picked out. Oh yeah. Okay, are you and her gonna go matching outfits?

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Because that would be so- Oh no, she would hate that. So no.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

So what song can you play?

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Um, so I so as part of this is meant to be a fun hobby. I've been focusing on more just pop music. Okay. And so recently I've been working on uh panic at the disco's high hopes.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

I love that. Is a piano by you where you could play it right now? Uh no. Oh, shucks. I was gonna say, take us out, Jesse.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Oh yeah, yeah. It's not quite ready for prime time, but uh, it's it's fun and it's yeah, it's been great.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I love that. That's awesome. That's amazing. Well, Jesse, it's been a pleasure. Uh, thank you so much for being on this episode of the Akiona Law Podcast. And I look forward to working with you again in our future collaborative divorce cases. And uh and to those out there looking for a financial neutral or just looking for some help with either uh planning for retirement, you're about 10 or 15 years away, or putting together that settlement proposal, uh, contact Jesse at jessie at sereneplanning.com. And again, we'll put the email address um in the podcast description. Um so to all of my wonderful listeners out there, thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Aquiona Law Podcast, wherein we talk about anything and everything that intersects with the areas of family law and divorce. And until next time, I'm Lonnie Aciona and be well. The information in this podcast is general advice only and should not in any respect be relied on as specific legal advice.