EP #10: Navigating the Evolution of Family Law with Guest Kirk Stange

How has divorce changed over the last 20 years? In this episode, Cary Jacobson welcomes Kirk Stange, Founding Partner and President of Stange Law Firm, PC. Kirk manages a family law practice across nine states and brings a wealth of knowledge on how to keep the "drama" out of the legal process.

We discuss:

• The Evolution of Divorce: How technology and modern laws have changed the client experience.
• Common Misconceptions: What clients get wrong about the law before they walk into the office.
• The Secret to Low Conflict: Why realistic expectation-setting is your best financial and emotional move.
• Professional Longevity: How family law attorneys can serve clients effectively without burning out.

Connect with Kirk Stange: https://www.stangelawfirm.com/ 

Visit us online: jacobsonfamilylaw.com 

Visit jacobsonfamilylaw.com to learn more.

Visit jacobsonworkshop.com to learn more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I've been saying this for years. I really believe it. I mean, the moment in life you think, do I need an attorney? You probably do. And I can't tell you how many parties are like, do I need an attorney? And they're like, I probably don't. And then they fire off some nasty text messages, they leave some nasty voicemails, train a bank account, or do something that's not helpful to their case. And so for most parties, the moment it occurs to them that they're gonna probably get a divorce or they're gonna go through a family law case, do I need an attorney to get one? I just think that's important because an attorney can cause a party not to make a bunch of mistakes. It's hard to undo those mistakes. I mean, it's hard to unring the bell once a client's done it.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to the drama-free divorce podcast. I'm your host, attorney and mediator Carrie Kickinson. Each week we bring you practical guidance, real conversations, and expert insights to help you navigate divorce with clarity, confidence, and less conflict. If you're ready for a calmer, more empowered path forward, you're in the right place. Welcome back to the Drama-Free Divorce Podcast, where we focus on practical guidance, expert insight, and healthier ways to navigate divorce and family law matters with less conflict and more clarity. I'm your host, Carrie Jacobson, attorney and mediator at Jacobson Family Law. Today I'm joined by Kirk Stingy, the founding partner and president of Stingy Law Firm, which is a multi-state divorce and family law firm with offices across nine different states and counting. With more than 20 years of experience practicing family law, Kirk brings a unique perspective on how the field has evolved, what clients really need, and how attorneys can better serve families during those difficult moments. Thanks so much for joining us, Kirk.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Absolutely. Well, I always like to start with our guests. What led you to the world of family law? What brought you to serving clients through such a difficult time?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

It was really a big accident. I mean, when I went to law school, I didn't plan on doing family law. And even when I graduated from law school and took the bar, I didn't plan on doing family law. But I worked at my first job out of law school was at a little general practice law firm. And one of the partners did divorce and family law. That was his practice area. He went out on medical leave and they had me start taking care of his cases while he was out. And it just sort of built from there. I mean, it was really a big accident. All of a sudden, people were referring to divorce and family law cases. I found that I liked it. I mean, I liked being in court. I don't didn't really like transactional areas of law. So it was truly an accident. Nothing I ever planned or envisioned.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I find that that happens often with a family law attorney. Not too many, even though there are some. Fall into it, you know, go into it with those expectations. Many of us do kind of evolve.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Right. Yeah, the plan isn't always what ends up coming to fruition. I mean, there's some sort of plan, something you're sort of destined to do that I, you know, I thought I'd get into like politics or constitutional law or do something grand like that. Now, none of those things would interest me in the least.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

And you've been doing this for a little over two decades. What changes have you seen in how divorces and just family law in general have evolved over that time?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Well, I think one of the big changes, and this isn't universal everywhere, but really a move toward shared parenting. I mean, when I first started practicing, it would seem like one parent commonly, the mother, would get most of the custody time, and the dad would be getting every other weekend and maybe a night during the week and half the summer and half the holidays. And it was hard to get the non-custodial parent much more time than that. But that shift has really happened over the last decade where courts are just sort of moving gradually towards shared parenting, which is you know roughly 50-50 custody. So that has been, I think, the biggest change in terms of when I first started practice into what I see today.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Absolutely. Where in Maryland I've seen that shift as well. Have you also seen a shift in the number of cases that end up going before a judge versus those that are settling before it gets there?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I mean, from my vantage point, I mean, most cases settle. I mean, that's always kind of been the case. I mean, but you know, there's some cases that end up going to trial that just can't settle outside of court. So, you know, for me, you know, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I would typically settle 80, 90% of my cases, but you know, 10, 20% of my cases end up going to court and going to trial. So I think that's been pretty constant. I think most clients assume everything's gonna settle outside of court and it's not gonna be a problem. It'll be a simple, easy, uncontested case. But yeah, I don't know. There's a certain number of cases that have never settled and probably never will. And they're the high conflict cases where parties are back on modifications and tax actions, and it's just sort of email.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah, there are definitely those repeat families that kind of come back over and over again for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Now, you run a firm that is across multiple states. What issues are families kind of regardless of location, struggling with most right now?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

You know, obviously the economy and economic factors have been a big struggle for people with inflation and higher costs. I think that's been very challenging for a lot of families to have to juggle. And you take something even like rising health insurance costs. I mean, that keeps going up, and that definitely can impact a family's budget quite a bit as we sit here today, which can make it hard on both ends of the spectrum. So take a parent who's paying child support. I mean, they're oftentimes thinking, hey, I'm already paying enough, can't afford to pay more. But then the parent receiving child support is maybe getting it. They want more, but there's maybe not more to squeeze from that turdup, so to speak. So it's just challenging.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

It's definitely more expensive for people to have those two households now, you know, because now they've got even twice the inflation of two households.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

100%, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's something a lot of people don't realize. It's just tough. I mean, you know, you got one family and in and one home, and then when you split into two homes, it's hard to maintain, you know, for spousal maintenance. One of the factors is that, you know, maintain the standard of living the parties are accustomed to, but that's challenging in this day and age, and and in some cases, probably difficult, if not impossible, to keep it exactly the same as it was before.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

I'm not sure how housing costs are where you guys are, you know, practicing. It's very challenging here in in the DMV area, you know, especially with the higher interest rates. We've got so many clients who are kind of in that stuck with they have those two, three, four percent interest rates. And now that if they're refinancing to buy the other per person out, it's like, where are they going to get similar housing for even half the cost?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Right. I mean, get interest rates in some places 7% or 6% or whatever it is, it makes it a lot harder. And yeah, I mean, I think in general, you look at homeownership in the country and in that those figures seem to be down. Lots of folks just not able to purchase a home given current economic conditions.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah. Do you see any common misconceptions that clients are bringing into the divorce other than like some of the financial things, you know, the cost of the two households, but any other misconceptions that you are seeing regularly?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

You know, I think a lot of parties oversimplify this area law, divorce and family law. I mean, I, you know, and this has been the case for a long time, but it, I mean, it's definitely the case today, which is, you know, conceptually, if you put husband in a room and you put wife in a room and you and alone and you said, hey, do you want a nasty contested case or would you like to settle outside of court? Well, everybody's gonna say settle outside of court, but the problem is the devil's in the details. And a lot of parties, I think, don't realize to resolve their case, they have to agree on a hundred percent of everything. And so in a lot of cases, parties agree on 80, 90% of it, but it might be 10, 20% they can't agree on. And that's what makes these cases challenging and cause a lot of cases to be litigated longer than parties want, end up going to trial or up on appeal because it's just those sort of bedrock issues that parties aren't able to reach a middle ground on.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Do you see more of those people trying to use alternative dispute resolution processes like mediation or collaborative to try to come to a consensus on those last few things?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's an interesting topic. And what I've really wrestled with is an attorney. I mean, I'm a mediator as well, and I got trained in collaborative divorce and family law. So I got that training too. You know, I would say mediation far more common, at least in terms of what I see. You know, most folks are willing to try mediation, and a lot of courts order mediation and and make people do it. You know, that said, from my experience, mediation typically works better when the parties want to be there versus being ordered to be there. Yeah, they don't even want to be there, it doesn't work real well. Collaborative law is interesting. I mean, I, you know, I'm still a big proponent of it. I still love it. I mean, I got trained in it, and I think it's a great thing. But I mean, for me, if I'm just being honest, I mean, we advertise it on our webpage and we've advertised it for a long time. But the number of folks who want to do it, I mean, it's it's a very small percentage because a lot of parties will just start getting into the idea of wait a minute, we each need a collaborative attorney, and then if it goes to court, we can't use the attorney, and then we need a divorce coach and a financial neutral and a child custody specialist. And then wait a minute, you want to put me in the same room with them in collaborative sessions? Like, I don't want to be in the same room with my husband or wife. That's where the collaborative law to me, it's just it's great in theory, but in practice, you know, we get some cases a year, but you know, my firm we do thousands of cases. The number of cases where they actually do the IACP collaborative method, I mean, it's like less than 10 a year. It's just not many people who want to do that. So yeah, mediation, very common. Collaborative sounds great, but a lot of folks, you know, end up once they find the details, think, oh, that's too complicated.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah, I would echo all of that sentiment. I find that collaborative is very important for those small subset of people who can use it. I very much kind of guide people towards mediation as opposed to collaborative in most scenarios, unless there's a special circumstances, like, you know, there's a substance abuse issue where there's a mental health component, you know, somewhere where those divorce coaches and those mental health providers can really shine, and you're not gonna get that same expertise in the litigation space.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah, you just have to be careful with the mental health because I mean you put, you know, in collaborative, they're supposed to be in the same room, right? Doing these sessions. I guess you can break out with the coach and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

We do it all virtually.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah. I mean, mediation can be beautiful because you can do the caucus approach. You put husband in one room, wife in the other, the mediator caucuses back and forth. I mean, that to me, you know, tends to have greater results in a lot of cases. You put the two people in the same room, and I don't know, in a lot of cases, you got to have some very calm, rational, gentle people for that to work. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, well, like I said, not meant for everyone, but it, you know, for those that are thinking of it, there are some advantages.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, and I think high asset cases too, where people have a lot of assets and stuff. I think collaborative can be great. Like I say, I mean, I was a big component of it. I still am a big component of it. I mean, I flew myself to Chicago and stayed in a hotel room to get trained in it. I, you know, I've put countless content up. I form my own group in Missouri called the Missouri Collaborative Institute. So I mean, I really believed in it, but it's just, and I still do in a way, but it's just the number of people who actually want to do it I've seen, and I'm pretty good at marketing, no matter how I market it, still not a lot of people who want to do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I agree. So, one of the missions of our podcast is to promote, you know, that drama-free divorce process. From your experience, what strategies do you find really help reduce conflict when people are going through divorce?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a lot of different things and a lot of different steps. Obviously, these co-parenting apps are really on the rise and being used more and more. So I think we're parties where the communication isn't great using these co-parenting apps. I mean, our family wizard, I guess, is probably the big one, but there are a lot of other options out there. More and more options, I hear about it each and every day. So I think for a lot of parties, trying to keep that communication of the app is a good thing. It, you know, creates an incentive for parties not just fire stuff off when they think the court or the guardian lightum or somebody like that's gonna, you know, see it. You know, I think you have to, as a lawyer, encourage your clients to take a long approach. It's difficult, challenging, but you have to try to take them into the future a little bit, think a year from now, five years from now, how are things gonna look? And, you know, not just being totally caught up in the moment. So I think that is important when parties are looking at goals and communication and and these kinds of things. Um, you know, I'm a big believer in referring clients to counselors or therapists. I mean, I think most people going through a divorce or family law matter should be probably in therapy. I mean, it's it's a great thing, and that could keep people in a better, more rational place, you know, as well. But yeah, and I, you know, I think mediation is a good thing, and parties should definitely consider it and contemplate it. But like I say, from my van, and that keeps the drama down. But I think mediation again works better if both parties want to be there. When I see people being court-ordered to go to mediation, I don't see great results. But where I see parties wanting to go to mediation, then I see better results. And the only other thing I would say on that realm, too, is I don't know if this is the same for you where you practice, but when the court orders mediation, typically in these mediations, they don't want the attorneys to show up. So it's like the two parties show up with the mediator. I've been doing this a long time. I don't normally see that work. You know, you stick the two people in there with the court-ordered mediator. I see them walking away, oftentimes more mad. So to me, mediation works better if the attorneys are there and the attorney can help interpret things, help communicate things. And like I say, I mean, caucus approach to mediation, have people in different rooms. I just think there's a tendency at times for people to think, you know, simplistic family law, split everything down the middle, cover everything in half, and move on with your life, and that'll be great, right? But there's just for a lot of people, there's just too many emotions, too many dynamics at play. So I don't know. To me personally, I know I remember showing up to a couple court-ordered mediations myself, and the attorney's like, Kirk, what are you doing here? And I'm like, I'm trying to get the case settled. My client's not gonna settle if I'm not here. I'm telling you, you know, so I'm a big believer in having the attorney show up to the mediation myself.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

I would, as a mediator, often disagree. Yeah, because and I I think it depends on the attorney. I think it depends on the parties. But I often find that many attorneys are in the space to show off for their clients many, many times and not actually trying to get the deal done. And sometimes when it's just the parties and you really get down to the nuts and bolts of what it is underlying the their request, yeah, we can kind of get to a resolution on that, you know. And I don't always get that with the saying when I have attorneys present. But again, it all very much depends on the attorneys and what their goals are. Yeah. But, you know, even when I was litigating and representing a client, right, uh, and we're in mediation, oftentimes we had scenarios where it just didn't work as well. So it I think it, you know, just depends on what that dynamic is.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

But just a couple of pieces I'd say just is uh sort of other components of that. I mean, one, I can't tell you how many of my clients went to the court ordered mediations and they didn't settle, you know, when I would talk to them about it, be like, well, you weren't there, and I didn't know if that was fair or not. And so without you being there, I don't I didn't know what to do. So I told the mediator that I wasn't comfortable settling. The other thing I would say in some cases too, and this is I'm I don't know, I've been saying this my whole career, okay. If people were able to sit down and talk and resolve their differences, they might not be getting divorced in the first place. I mean, one of the common components of divorce is that communication is terrible, and that's why they're getting divorced. And the communication being terrible leads to all kinds of things happening, which leads to the breakdown of the marriage. So to me, I mean, I would hope that most attorneys would show up to mediation and want to resolve the case and not be fan of flames and stuff like that. But I mean, if the attorneys show up and they're not fan of flames and they're trying to get the parties to settle, I don't know. From my vantage point, it works much better, and I've had much better results because to me, a lot of the people go to the court order mediator, and the mediator are given kind of the, hey, y'all ought to settle. It's gonna save you a lot of money, it's gonna save you a lot of time. Let's split the babies in half and move on. And I just can't tell you how many times that hasn't worked, in my experience.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Well, our approach is to try to cut it off at the knees and do all of this before we ever get to court for those people who are, you know, looking for trying to resolve it ahead of time. And it's not then court-ordered, you know. So, but the other thing that I find where some of the court-ordered mediations is also those people that didn't know they had an alternative. They went to court because they didn't know that they could do something else. And they thought this was the only way that to resolve their differences. And so those I often find have pretty good success in resolving issues and mediation.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

I know I think that makes sense. I think the more simple the case, then the court order mediation can work too. I mean, if it's not a lot of assets, not a lot of money, maybe no kids or one kid, it's easier. But I the court order mediation, if you're dealing with multi-million dollar states or you're, you know, dealing with complex stuff, that's where I go. Sometimes mediation, I mean, I've had this in cases take multiple meetings, you know. Yeah, absolutely. It's not just done a one. You got to meet multiple times to like, okay, we're gonna deal with property and debt today, deal with custody another day, and that kind of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah. What advice do you give your clients or you know, someone that's really at the very beginning stages that are just considering divorce or separation? What are some of the first things that they should be doing?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

You know, there are a bunch of things. I mean, one, you gotta make a selection in terms of what attorney to hire. So that's an important one. You know, anybody needs to carefully think about that and find an attorney that's gonna be the right fit for them. You know, I think cases can go poorly if somebody rushes that decision and makes it, you know, too quick and then they find out they don't have the right fit. So I mean, I think that's important. I think getting organized is important as well. Obviously, getting all the financial documents together, because you're gonna have to fill out statements of income and expenses, statement of property and debt, you're gonna need to get all that stuff. I mean, for me as an attorney, I always want the tax returns, the paycheck stubs, you know, the credit card statements. So, I mean, getting all that financial piece is important. And then I think whatever evidence the client has, getting that together. I mean, I don't know if there's teachers, if there's videos, if there's social media posts or school records or medical records, trying to get that all organized and getting that to the attorney out of the gates is, I think, important. That way when they hire that attorney, they can say, here's all the information, and it's all pretty organized. I think that can save a lot of time, a lot of money, and you know, can move things forward at a better pace that makes sense. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Are there mistakes that you see people make early on that can create unnecessary legal or emotional complications throughout their case?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah, there are a lot of mistakes people can make. You know, one of the first ones I think is not hiring an attorney. You know, I've been saying this for years. I really believe it. I mean, the moment in life you think, do I need an attorney? You probably do. And I can't tell you how many parties are like, Do I need an attorney? And they're like, No, I probably don't. And then they fire off some nasty text messages, they leave some nasty voicemails, they train a bank account or do something that's not helpful to their case. And so for most parties, the moment it occurs to them that they're going to probably get a divorce or they're gonna go through a family law case, do I need an attorney to get one? I just think that's important because an attorney can cause a party not to make a bunch of mistakes. It's hard to undo those mistakes. I mean, it's hard to unring the bell once a client's done it. Yeah, but I mean, you know, beyond that, I kind of touched on a little bit, but you know, not sending the nasty text, not leaving the nasty voicemails, you know, not leave if they're still living in the home and they're gonna be divorced, not losing their temper where the police are called, right? These kinds of things. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that can be danced to. I just think big picture, people have to run everything through, I think, this sort of visual, which is they need to picture themselves on the witness stand at some point of their case. And they have to ask themselves, am I gonna feel good about what I did or am I gonna feel bad about what I did? And if they can pull everything through that visual, then you know, then people behave better and go, yeah, I don't want to have to try to defend that. I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Absolutely. It kind of gives them a perspective of someone watching and having to defend their actions at a later time.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, you have to have a long view and you can't get caught up in the moment and act out of emotion. And yeah, I mean, you can't. I mean, some parties that try to avoid the divorce or whatever will try to, I don't know, be too assertive, do a bunch of stuff that's just not helpful. And so, yeah, having a long view is really important. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Well, some of our listeners are also divorced professionals. And so, for any of our attorneys out there that may be listening, you have grown multi-state family law practice very successfully. What lessons have you learned about the sustainability in this field?

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Oh man, you know, I mean, I've I could go on for hours, but learn a lot over the course of time. You know, I think a divorce and family law, it's a tough area of law. You're not going to make every client happy. It's not possible. So your ratio is not going to be 100%. But I do think the higher that, you know, happiness rate of clients you can make it will make it easier in this area of the law. I mean, if most of your clients don't like you, if most of them are upset, this is a very challenging field of law to practice in. So, so getting good at client communications, and I think, I mean, for me, responding to phone calls and emails left before 5 p.m. the same day is something I've always done. I know a lot of attorneys would shriek at this and be like, there's no way I'm gonna do that. But, you know, I always gave clients my cell phone number. Uh, and if they had an emergency, call me, like, don't abuse it, don't call me to tell me something that can wait till Monday. But, you know, if the cops had been called, if there's some some dancerly thing that's happened, I'd rather hear about it than not. I mean, I remember one time a divorced client of mine getting a DWI and he had one call. He wanted me to bail him out of jail. I mean, I did it. I mean, yeah, you know, I didn't enjoy doing that. But I just say I think having a good relationship with your clients is important. So accessibility, being responsive is a key. And if you make it transactional and you don't respond and you take days to get back with people, man, I think you're in deep trouble in this area of law. And then the other component with that I've kind of learned is I've read an article really early in my career by this lawyer that says the two best traits of a family lawyer in terms of communication is having empathy for your clients and then having boundaries. Oh, empathy and boundaries. So I think, you know, I, you know, you always got to hear your clients, you got to repeat back to the mirror. You mean we're an attorney in counselor law, so you have to develop that. Counselor and law skills. So anybody who's been in therapy knows counselors will repeat what you say back to you and ask you to expand. As a lawyer, you really got to get good at doing that. And you got to be able to throw in a lot of, oh my goodness, oh, that's terrible. I feel so bad for you. You know, you poor thing, or however people phrase it. But you got to have the empathy. But there is a time to have boundaries as a family lawyer too, and be, I understand where you're coming from. I understand why you'd want to do that, but don't, you know? Right. And hey, while I'm giving you my cell phone number, you're calling me 11:30 at night to tell me something trivial. Don't do that again. You know what I mean? I gave you the number for an emergency, not for that. So I think having empathy and boundaries and good communication is a good pathway in terms of getting clients, keeping clients, and then having them refer more people to you.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Absolutely. What about how to protect yourself from burnout? Because as you mentioned, this can be a very challenging area of law because of the emotions. You know, you're dealing with clients in difficult spaces, you're dealing with opposing counsel who are often difficult, which was the main reason I got out of litigation altogether because I couldn't deal with that. So what do you, you know, and your attorneys and your practice do to kind of prevent yourself from burning out?

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah, I mean, a lot of different things. I mean, I think one of the things is managing how many cases you take as an attorney. I mean, I know a lot of lawyers who, you know, probably charge too little and then they take a ton of cases, you know, because you're doing the kind of cheap, flat fee, kind of low, low rate kind of stuff. And these, you know, before you know it, you got a hundred cases, you got 200 cases. And I mean, you see attorneys at the courthouse and they got a bunch of manila files. You know, they don't even have the red wells. They got a bunch of papers stuffed in a manila file, and they're running from one division to the other and up and down the steps and up and down the elevator and that kind of thing. I mean, for me personally, you know, I know you know a lot of people look at divorce and family law is kind of like being charitable. Like you shouldn't charge a lot to do this area of law, and like that's the right thing. But I I would say respectfully, yeah, I mean, ethically you have to charge a reasonable fee, you know, under the ethical rules. So we all know that. But I think charging a rate that's fair, that maybe is a little higher than what somebody's comfortable in taking on less cases and doing a better job is a real good path. And so, I mean, in my firm, you know, we've always rated cases one to five, you know, five being the most complex cases, one being kind of ramp up work, three kind of our average case. I've always tried to keep my attorneys, what I would say about an 80 to 90 case rating, which might be 25, 30, 35 cases max. And at that point, if I got an attorney up there, then I cut them off. And maybe I hire another attorney and I start giving cases to that attorney. So I I think managing that case rating to where you then you have that work-life balance, right? You got these cases, you're charging a fee. Hopefully, you know, the other thing I would say on that note too, get an evergreen trust deposit where you're getting paid in advance. And then when it goes down to zero, have them replenish. You know, don't just be running up these big negative balances. But if you can get 30, 35, even 25 cases, and all these people are replenishing their trust accounts, then you're going to make a good living, but you're not going to be totally burning yourself out, too. Because I mean, when I look at the bar journals and you look at lawyers, you get in trouble. A lot of times it's competence, it's diligence, and it's communication. And a lot of that comes down to an attorney taking a ton of cases. You can't keep up with all of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah. Especially if they're all, you know, active and high conflict and you know, all of the things at one time.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

You can't do it, and you can't call everybody back, and then you come to court and you don't remember the kids' date of birth or their names and these kinds of things, and your clients mad at you, and you come into court, you're not prepared. So I just think having less cases and charging a fee structure that's going to allow you to meet your expenses and make a living, and then really maintaining evergreen trust deposits versus going negative with clients. A lot of attorneys go negative and they hope the clients didn't pay off to zero. But I mean, doing this a long time, you know, that's a pathway to having a lot of unpaid balances that never get paid.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Well, in closing, for our listeners who want to learn more about you, your practice, you are in nine different states, where can they find out more about your firm?

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Our law firm's webpage is Stangylawfirm.com, which is like strange, but take out the R. So S-T-A-N-G-E Law Firm.com. That's our firm's divorce and family law webpage. I do have a practice management blog, which I've been blogging on for, I mean, more than a decade now called Law Firm Practice Management Advice.com. So if you have a lot of attorneys who are looking for some tips and some guidance, I mean, that's been kind of like an online diary for me over the course of time. So that might be something attorneys want to check out too, if they're looking for some tips and guidance on how to run a law firm.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Wonderful. We'll be sure to include those in the show notes. Is there anything else that you would like our listeners to be aware of from today's conversation?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I mean, the only things I'd say again, I mean, our firm is a divorce and family law firm. We are ninth states. We're continuing to grow. We represent men, we represent women in roughly equal ratios. So obviously, if anybody knows anybody in the states we're in, obviously we'd we'd be glad to help. But other than that, it's been a pleasure and honor coming on today.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Absolutely. Thanks for being here. And then for our listeners, if you found today's episode helpful, be sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review. For more episodes and resources, check out our website, which is Jacobsonfamily Law.com/slash podcast. And until next time, stay informed, stay empowered, and remember, divorce doesn't have to be defined by drama. Thanks for listening to the Drama Free Divorce Podcast. If you found today's episode helpful, be sure to follow, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs it. For more resources or to work with us, visit Jacobsonfamily Law.com. Until next time, stay grounded, stay informed, and stay drama free.