Navigating Divorce, Custody, and Modern Family Law Challenges

Stephen Steele brings nearly five decades of family law experience to this revealing conversation about what really happens in divorce and custody cases. Drawing from his 47-year career, Steele offers a rare glimpse into the evolution of family law and shares critical insights that could save clients thousands in legal fees and heartache.

The conversation tackles persistent misconceptions about divorce law, particularly regarding property division. "What a lot of people misunderstand is the idea of equitable division of property," Steele explains. "We have here in Georgia the thinking that everything is divided equally. That's not necessarily true." He clarifies that only the marital estate gets divided, and determining what belongs in that estate becomes a crucial battleground during divorce proceedings.

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Steele provides exceptional practical advice on custody arrangements, warning against common mistakes that harm children. Rather than focusing on counting days to achieve perfect 50/50 splits, he advocates for arrangements that prioritize children's needs for stability and routine. "Trying to split it down to counting days and trying to make the days match is not the kind of thing that is good for your child," he notes, adding that judges and guardians often view parents who fixate on equal time.

To learn more about Stephen Steele:

1.  https://www.mijs.com/attorneys/stephen-c-steele-partner/

2. or call  (770) 429-1499 

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Transcript

Client-Lawyer Communication Challenges

Speaker 1 0:00

Do not, on the morning that you're going to trial, tell your lawyer for the first time hey, I just received this text message a couple of months ago. Do you think this is important? And your lawyer looks at it and says well, of course it's important. Why didn't you tell me about this earlier? Well, I didn't know if it was going to be important. And what am I supposed to do at that time? You want me to tender your phone into evidence and the clerk keeps your cell phone here for a period of months while the judge considers the documents.

Speaker 2 0:32

Welcome to Counsel and Commentary, the ultimate podcast for entrepreneurial lawyers ready to take their practice to new heights. Each week, we dive deep in the business strategies, growth frameworks, real world lessons you didn't't learn in law school but absolutely need to build a thriving, sustainable firm. Whether you're a solo practitioner or running a small team, you'll discover actual insights on leadership, marketing, client acquisition, system building and financial management, all tailored specifically for the legal world. Hosted by seasoned entrepreneur Jonathan Tuttle, founder of Revenue Sun, a leading lawyer, google Ads and SEO agency. Also Midwest Park Capital. Founder of Revenue Sun, a leading lawyer, google ads and SEO agency. Also Midwest Park Capital, a boutique alternative commercial real estate asset fund business. Cash out, a service-based business roll-up PE firm. And Get Podcast Bookings a podcast guesting tour agency for those wanting to get booked on top podcast shows. If you're ready to work smarter, lead better and scale faster without burning oil, keep listening and let's build a firm and life you deserve.

Speaker 2 1:30

Welcome back to Council on Commentary. Today I have a fantastic family lawyer, stephen Steele. Welcome to the show. He's been practicing since 1978, so he's got a lot of good insights. Welcome to Council on Commentary.

Speaker 1 1:40

Well, thanks so much. I appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 2 1:43

Appreciate it. What first inspired you to become a family lawyer?

Speaker 1 1:49

Well, I had some family issues myself, you know, before I started law school, and this is something that intrigued me. One of the things about family law is what you find is you're working for people instead of for corporations. So when I'm talking to my clients, I'm not talking to an adjuster or somebody else working for a corporation. I'm dealing with people and it's their children, it's their money, it's their family, and it's much more personal, much more personal. So I'm intrigued with that. There's a lot more passion in this kind of work than there probably is in other areas of practice, I believe.

Speaker 2 2:29

Yeah, I agree with that. We're not dealing with big corporate endless checks. What is the most challenging case you've ever handled without breaking any confidentiality?

Speaker 1 2:38

Yeah, in the early 1990s I represented like I will never believe that he did anything wrong. So at that time I was doing a good bit of criminal work, my first 10 years of practice I've been in practice for 47 years now and my first 10 years of practice I was a prosecutor twice and I did a lot of criminal defense work, so back then I was still pretty current with criminal work. So that case involved a one-week divorce trial followed by a two-week criminal jury trial. Fortunately for all of us he was acquitted of any kind of criminal wrongdoing and the divorce case came out satisfactorily as satisfactory as it can for as much trauma as there was to uh to a small child at that time. So that was the most challenging uh in so far as there being most personally at stake from our client in that case, involving both criminal work and and divorce. I've had others involving publicity where the personal stakes probably weren't quite as high, but management of the case was pretty delicate.

Speaker 2 4:15

Speaking of divorce, what do most people misunderstand about divorce law?

Speaker 1 4:24

What a lot of people misunderstand is the importance of a fault. It can be important, but it's not all inclusive in the areas of consideration by the court. What a lot of people misunderstand is the idea of equitable division of property. We have here in Georgia the thinking that everything is divided equally. That's not necessarily true and there's a lot of other factors that go into the formula of figuring out what ought to be equally divided. In a nutshell, without going into too many details, what's equally divided is the marital estate, and what is included in the marital estate is subject to a lot of question at trial and it's influenced by a lot of the documents and the evidence that's presented at trial. So, just going from the standpoint of everything, including things that you may have inherited or things that you had before the marriage ought to be equally divided.

Personal Touch in Family Law

Speaker 1 5:18

In terms of equally divided, that's just completely wrong. That's just completely wrong. Another thing is the idea of custody and visitation with children. That's influenced by a number of other factors that people don't really. I'm talking about practical factors that would be involved, such as maybe, work schedule, distance away from the other parent, and who ought to have the primary decision of making authority over several of the important child rearing issues. Those are things that people you know get confused about and sometimes they don't completely understand what the necessary influences are in making the decision by the trial court.

Speaker 2 6:04

Speaking of, because you've been in the space for a long time. You've seen how things evolved and changed. How has the divorce process changed in the last past 10 to 30 years? What significant changes have you seen?

Speaker 1 6:16

Well, we have things like Zoom meetings. We have things like Zoom hearings. We have computers now. When I first started practicing law, it was pretty novel to even have a computer on your desk In fact, I didn't for probably the first 10 years of my practice and so things happen much more quickly now. Research is better and worse. With the AI hallucinations that's being tamped down on pretty quickly, thankfully it is, but things happen more quickly. Another thing that's happened is with the development of family law. There have become more rules, but because there are more rules, the time spent in preparing a family law case for trial has become lengthier and more complicated, and so, strangely, what you see is more rules being promulgated and enacted and, as people can afford legal work, less you have. The more rules being followed, less so I get in a courtroom, especially with people who are pro se, that is to say, not represented by an attorney, and a lot of times the rules are simply not followed, even though they're required to be there, and I'm trying to follow them the best I possibly can.

Speaker 2 7:38

What? This is a pretty interesting question. Do prenuptial agreements really help or do they create tension? What are you seeing in that regard?

Speaker 1 7:47

I think they help enormously. Now I can't listen when I'm representing somebody and preparing a prenuptial agreement, looking out for his or her best interest. I understand that they have another interest going along at the same time, that is, they're trying to get married and to not permanently alienate this person that they want to get married to. So that's what I find to be the biggest challenge in prenuptial agreements is I'm trying to represent my client, trying to work out something reasonable on behalf of my client, and I know that what he or she wants is to get this thing done so they can move on with another important, very, very important chapter in their life, which is starting a new life with somebody else.

Speaker 1 8:40

Another thing that's really important with prenuptial agreements is anything that I write. Any of my ideas are no more important than the financial disclosure that goes along with the preparation of the prenuptial agreement. A prenuptial agreement written brilliantly by any lawyer is of no use whatsoever if the financial situation is not adequately disclosed to the other side. So that needs to be properly documented and accurately disclosed. It's a very important job that the client needs to understand.

Speaker 2 9:13

Yeah, some great insights there. I didn't know about that. What are some common mistakes people make during the divorce proceedings?

Speaker 1 9:22

Not hiring a lawyer soon enough? Um, people, people wonder uh, they they'll, they'll coast along and wonder gee, do I need a lawyer for this? I can tell you that if you're sued for divorce, you need to get a lawyer. Uh, do you have a right to represent yourself? Sure you you do? Uh, it's a big mistake. It's like you know, repairing your own car, repairing your own house or doing your own root canal. I suppose that if you're qualified, that you can try to do it if you wanted to.

Divorce Misconceptions and Custody Factors

Speaker 1 9:51

But I went to law school and I've been in practice for 47 years. There are a few things that I've picked up along the way that I feel like, hopefully I know that the average layman would would not know. Hopefully I know that the average layman would not know. So I'd say one of the biggest mistakes that I see is people who have, by not hiring a lawyer, they've allowed things to get messed up pretty badly and they want me to try to fix it and sometimes it's just too late. Oftentimes it's just too late for me to do anything, especially if they try to do something like try a case without a lawyer and then come in to see me after the trial is over.

Speaker 2 10:26

Yeah, earlier is better, because you get the right direction, the right guidance.

Speaker 1 10:36

How do courts typically decide child custody?

Speaker 2 10:38

How do?

Speaker 1 10:38

courts decide child custody. Yeah Well, there are statutory factors involved probably 19 or 20 statutory factors. And the judges look, the good judges look at the statutory factors involved. Probably 19 or 20 statutory factors. And the judges look the good judges. Look at the statutory factors. They include things like who's been the primary parent to take care of the tasks the trench work of raising a child, who's been on the floor playing with the child, who's the one that's been helping with the homework, who's the one that's been taking the child to the doctor's appointments, and all that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 11:12

Now, having said that, I will tell you that many times that is simply difficult to prove. You have both parents trying to muscle their way in on signing the report cards, both parents trying to make a cosmetic appearance at the daycare center, parents fighting each other over who's going to be going to the doctor's office, and then that results in one parent not telling the other parent about her doctor's appointment, and so that's subject to all kind of manipulation In cases, for example, if you have an issue where you can present to the judge, a clear and unequivocal difference between two different parents is what they will do to help raise this child. I think that's probably the best thing. Let me give you an example. Suppose that one parent maybe wants to send the child to a particular type of school, or maybe even homeschool the child. The other parent, however, wants to send the child to a brick and mortar school. That's of good reputation.

Speaker 1 12:15

That is a choice that I'd like to present to a judge, instead of her having to figure out, well, who's trying to manipulate the doctor's appointments, who's doing this? I have a judge who said well, where do I want this child to go to school and how do I want this child to be educated? So that's what I think. There are other factors, of course, that go involved, that are involved in determining custody, and one of the factors is which parent, if awarded primary custody, would allow opportunity for the child to cultivate a relationship with the other parent. So that is one factor, and what I tell people is listen, you don't want to be too stingy with the time, even if you have a right to have a lot more time than you do. Don't be too stingy with it, but don't allow the other parent to override your decision making process. So those are two of the several factors. I could talk about that probably for several hours, but those are just two of the factors involved in deciding custody.

Speaker 2 13:13

Yeah, I could just see it sounds like a lot of games. Some of the parents are like, oh yeah, I'm not picking them up, I'm picking them up. Sometimes, yeah, and just lying to prove something else in court, but you've seen a lot of crazy stuff. How can parents make custody agreements less traumatic?

Speaker 1 13:29

for their kids? Can they make custody agreements less traumatic? Well, I think what you'd have to do is to make the default provisions of a parenting plan is what it's called very clear, and keep in mind that in the first year of law school, what we're taught is an agreement to agree is no agreement at all, and I see some parenting plans, particularly those written without the assistance of lawyers, assume that the parents can agree on a number of issues. Now, that probably sounds like a noble concept, but in practice, there needs to be a clear default provision. If the parents cannot agree on something, for example, if they cannot agree on an extracurricular activity, if they cannot agree on the school, if they cannot agree on the doctor, then one of them needs to be the tiebreaker in that it needs to be clearly stated in the parenting plan. The amount of time that each parent spends with the child needs to be clearly stated in the parenting plan.

Speaker 1 14:32

I will tell parents a lot of times. Some parents will start counting days on the calendar, even down to in one weekend or within one month. I'm cheated out of one day or two days or several days a year. Maybe I'm not saying that time with your children is unimportant. It certainly is important, but trying to split it down to counting days and trying to make the days match is not the kind of thing that is good for your child, and the child will inevitably get involved in that, in the fights over shaving minutes or hours out of a day just to try to make things equal, just for the sake of making it equal. I hear a lot of parents in maybe the first or second conference that I have with them and they say I want 50-50 time with my son or daughter. And that sounds okay, but most guardians that is, a lawyer appointed to represent the best interest of the child will tell you that they don't like that approach when it first comes in.

Speaker 1 15:35

If it's the first word out of a parent's mouth I want 50-50 time that's usually a bad sign for a guardian and a lot of times people don't really think about what does that really mean? Does it mean a week on, week off with the child, and most judges do not like that. Most children do not like that. Or are you talking about maybe Monday and Tuesday with one parent, wednesday and Thursday with the other parent, and then you alternate the weekends? That's probably more palatable, except for the fact that it means that the child really is uprooted in the middle of the week, and probably the child doesn't like that a whole lot either. So, you know, paying attention to what the children want, which is typically a home and to be involved in a home that's close to their usual activities, like school extracurricular activities, baseball, ballet, boy Scouts, whatever it is is something that I feel like is important to a child and keeping in mind what the child practically has to do in order just to survive as a child and grow up successfully.

Speaker 2 16:37

Yeah, it sounds like there could be a lot of issues there. My question is, like it's kind of subtopic Is there like an app or like a tool people use to kind of go to court and say, hey, have they had it? Or are they just, uh, it's kind of subtopic. Is there like an app or like a tool people use to kind of go to court and say, hey, they had it? Or they just it's all word of mouth and try to? How do they show receipts, like when they pick the child up? Is there like big battles because, like, they want to get an extra day and they can just manipulate that data? Or is there like a tool or resource people could use to say, hey, we had a child for this long? Is there anything like that, like an AI tool or anything like that?

Prenuptial Agreements and Common Mistakes

Speaker 1 17:05

It collects the data Well as far as communication between the parents, there's several tools. Probably the most commonly used is something called Our Family Wizard, and that's a platform that parents use to communicate with each other and to tell the other about medical issues involving a child, the game or the performances on this day and the practices on this day and that kind of thing. So that's commonly used and it's you know, it's pretty well recognized and appreciated by many judges and I think it's wellentioned. However, I will tell you that my experience is Our Family Wizard just turns into a platform for people to use to try to build their next custody case Like you should have done this, you should have done that, I told you this, you know, and just complaints about the other parents.

Speaker 1 17:57

So, while I recognize that tools like Our Family Wizard are well-intentioned, they're just turning into platforms. Now you're talking about something else. Uh, as far as record keeping, uh, what you can use is just a, a plain calendar, like a desk size calendar, and you can just keep track of that, what you did, like where you were with the child on a certain day, using just a regular calendar, long, lengthy diatribes about what I did and long calendars and diaries about that kind of thing. Judges aren't going to read all that, so just try to keep it within four or five primary points and try to get affidavits from people like the coaches and teachers and the doctors and that kind of thing to help your case in custody.

Speaker 2 18:54

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm just curious about that because I get to see it being pretty complicated. What role do finances play in divorce settlement? Obviously, this is a big issue here. What role do finances, yeah, play in divorce settlements? Well, hopefully a pretty large role.

Speaker 1 19:12

I work with a number of financial advisors, forensic financial consultants, accountants and for cases where there is a family business like a closely held corporation, someone who maybe has had several partners in LLCs and had several LLCs with different partners, maybe someone who's built their own business after a period of 30 or 35 years and is now getting divorced. Somebody who's an important shareholder in a business that he or she helped start, you know, maybe just a regular proprietor of a store, you know, in a shopping center. That's really important because the value of the business may be the most important asset, the most valuable asset that this couple has in the whole divorce. Equally important is somebody, maybe, who's built his own business and after 25 years maybe his spouse dies or gets divorced and then gets remarried and stays married for maybe another 10 years. Well, an important point is how much of the increase in the value of that business accrued during the term of the existing marriage. So that's a very important issue and a very valuable issue for both of the spouses. If there was a huge uptick in the value of the business during the time of the second marriage, then that second spouse is going to expect to receive, and probably ought to receive a much greater amount of money than would otherwise be the case.

Speaker 1 20:57

But from the standpoint of the owner of the business, whether it's a husband or a wife point of the uh of the owner of the business, whether it's a husband or a wife that person is rightfully going to want to protect the value of the business that he or she built up before the marriage to the second spouse.

Speaker 1 21:11

So that's, um, that's an enormous uh, enormously important uh part of the uh of the divorce and, frankly, that's where a lot of the most intense work happens in preparation for divorce and it's something that that I feel like I do a pretty good job with. We are very good here about categorizing important documents, and I've handled cases with 30 or 40 000 you have to well, probably 60 or 70 000 documents and include things like bank statements, a balance sheet, profit and loss statements, shareholder agreements, you know, covenants not to compete. I've handled all that kind of thing with tax consequences involved in it, and it takes a lot of patience and a lot of organization, which I feel like my group in this law firm is very well suited to do, and we're experienced at doing it. I feel like we do it about as well as anybody does.

Speaker 2 22:09

Yeah, that's. I mean, it's just a fascinating subject. How are the assets and debts typically divided? This could be a CannaOrbs question for you, because you kind of alluded to it a little bit, but is there like what's kind of like your thought process on that, like how assets and debts typically divided?

Child Custody Decision Factors

Speaker 1 22:27

Well, the rule here in Georgia is equitable division of the marital estate. So trying to determine what's included in the marital estate is the first well, one of the first steps in the process, and then trying to determine what's equally divided. You know most judges are going to start again. The rule is equitable, not necessarily equal. Most judges are going to want to start with your analysis being what would it look like if I divide the marital estate equally, and how, as a practical matter, can I do that? Now, when I say as a practical matter, some of the things that a judge is typically going to want to do are these If you're awarded an asset that's encumbered by a debt, the judge is probably going to want to award that asset and the debt to the same spouse so that if the debt doesn't get paid, the asset's not repossessed by the creditor. So, just as a practical matter, that's probably going to happen. If the debt names only one of the parties as the obligor, then most judges are going to want to assign that debt to the named obligor and then try to make it up with an accommodating distribution of some other asset a positive asset equal to half the amount of that debt to the same spouse Trying to pretend that you can award.

Speaker 1 23:52

You can continue with a spouse who's not an owner of a company, as maybe an employee of the company is not usually workable. I can't think of a case where it's ever been workable. So if you have owned a business, if you're operating a business, then probably that's going to be awarded to you, but you're going to have to pay for it. So what usually doesn't work is one spouse who's built a business just saying, well, she thinks it's worth that much, I'll just give it to her and I'll be the one to retire and do nothing. Or him, whoever the spouse is, because certainly there's plenty of females who have built successful businesses. So that's usually what happens. I don't know if I'm answering your question exactly, but usually the law is an equitable division of the marital estate. Most judges want to start their analysis with what does the 50-50 division of the marital estate look like?

Speaker 2 24:54

Well, that's very concise. I appreciate that this would be kind of like a tip you would give to people. What should people know about protecting their finances before entering a marriage?

Speaker 1 25:07

Well before the marriage. Something that helps a great deal is a prenuptial agreement. If you're really interested in protecting, maybe, a house that's been in the family or a business that's been in the family for a long time, then it's best to get a prenuptial agreement and have that financial disclosure that I'm talking about as operative. Now, what I've seen in the last 10 years, probably more and more, would be use of trusts. There's a case there was a seminal case here in georgia called gibson versus gibson several years ago, where that that question was was litigated and it's possible to put assets into a trust either before or after the marriage, and you need to be careful the way you do that. But the assets within the trust can be shielded from uh, from distribution, uh in a divorce. So those are probably the two primary ways that I see assets being protected with a prenuptial agreement and with use of a trust.

Speaker 1 26:08

Some people try giving away the asset to a straw man.

Speaker 1 26:12

That's not as sophisticated or successful as you might think and usually, when an action for divorce and actually most any kind of domestic relations action is initially filed, most clerks in fact every clerk's office that I know of in Georgia will generate what's something called a standing order to the court. The standing order has several normal provisions, one of which is neither one of the parties can sell, encumber, transfer away any of the assets. If you try to do so, it's a nullity. Encumber, transfer away any of the assets. If you try to do so, it's a nullity, practically speaking. If you give away something and spend all the money and waste it, then the money's gone. I don't know you can ever recover it, but at the time that the judge decides the equitable distribution of the remaining marital estate, what the judge can do is to figure well that $50,000 or $50 million that you wasted. I'm going to put that in your column and just pretend that it's there and distribute the remainder of the marital estate as if you already had that money that you took and wasted.

Speaker 2 27:12

Okay, we kind of alluded to this before. But besides Zoom, how is technology like text message, social media, affected?

Speaker 1 27:20

family law cases in the courts like text message, social media, effective family law cases in the courts. Well, text messages I see frequently and a lot of people just talk too much and say too much. Too much nasty stuff in text messages. Now, just dealing with the text messages is cumbersome. It's just awkward to do. There are several software programs that can be purchased, one of which is called Decipher. If you wanted to hand a bunch of text messages to your lawyer, don't try to take screenshots of the text messages and then just forward the photo to your lawyer. It's better to download everything using something like Decipher or one of the other tools and there are others. Get the text messages downloaded to an application like that. They display much better. You can see the dates and the times much better. You can see photographs much better. So can see the dates and the times much better. You can see photographs much better. So I would do that.

Finances in Divorce Settlements

Speaker 1 28:25

But if you're going to give all that to your lawyer, be prepared to have to pay your lawyer to read all that if you're not going to sell him what's important. So try to find what's important in this. You know massive text messages and I've had, you know, hundreds of pages of text messages that clients give me that I have to look through. Sometimes they are very important, but just don't expect your lawyer to look at a text message and try to figure it out. Here's another thing Do not, on the morning that you're going to trial, tell your lawyer for the first time hey, I just received this text message a couple of months ago, do you think this is important?

Speaker 1 29:12

And and your lawyer looks at it and says, well, of course it's important. Why didn't you tell me about this earlier? Well, I didn't know if it was going to be important. And what am I supposed to do at that time? You want me to tender your phone into evidence and the clerk keeps your cell phone here for a period of months while the judge considers the documents and writes the order. So if you're going to have a text message, don't figure that your lawyer is going to pick it up from you on your phone on the day of the hearing.

Speaker 1 29:45

Now I see a lot of text messages involved in family violence actions. There's a statute here, statutory provisions for what's called family violence. I don't know why it is, but text messages seem to be much more frequently seen in family violence actions. So get them to your lawyer and get them to him so you can get them organized and present them in a in a sensible fashion as as evidence at the time of the hearing. But just hand them to your lawyer on your cell phone on the day of the hearing isn't going to get it done okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 30:16

This was, I think, would be pretty interesting. Are there new challenges with digital assets like crypto, bitcoin or online businesses and divorces?

Speaker 1 30:24

Yeah, I mean, probably the biggest challenge is finding it and the next biggest challenge is valuing the asset. That just becomes difficult to do. I've had cases where somebody has, you know, digital currency, you know Bitcoin, or you know currency, you know Bitcoin, or you know one of you, one of the other ones and you know, I imagine judges have said well, how do you want me to divide this? You want to give you, give you, bitcoin equal to half of the Bitcoin account and usually by then people are you know at least half. The people are saying no, I, I don't want that. I want money that I can actually spend at the grocery store. The two challenges, I'd say, are finding it and the next one is valuing it, and then how are you going to divide it?

Speaker 2 31:20

Those are probably the biggest challenges. Yeah, because imagine if you have a hidden wallet they don't tell the other partner. Yeah, or somehow I sold it before a long time ago and you can't prove it at this point. What's one thing you wish everyone knew before getting married?

Speaker 1 31:36

from a legal perspective. Well, I think most people know this, but your marriage can end and it can end by death or divorce. You know either way. But if you're going to get divorced, if you're going to end up getting divorced, then there are some things that a lawyer can tell you from the beginning. For example, if you want to be sure that you keep assets separate, then that's the way you need to behave and I recognize again I'm back to the point of I realize, for people who are happily married and want to stay happily married, that that's an ethical concern that they have.

Speaker 1 32:24

That frankly, I can't put that as the primary concern.

Speaker 1 32:28

I've got to be interested in them and their interest is my first priority interest and I will accept the fact that they want to stay married and there are accommodations that they want to make to their wife because they, you know there's love involved, there's family involved and there's responsibilities and decency involved that I try to pay attention to and I don't ignore that. I don't try to be a jerk just to be a jerk, but those are things that people I think ought to understand and trying to arrange things so that you'll be well situated if your marriage ends in divorce. It's something that I can probably help you out with. There's estate planning for spouses that ought to be taken into consideration. I have partners here I'm fortunate to have partners here who can help out people with that, and I have other partners in this firm, in a firm of this size that can help people with setting up things like corporations and partnerships and LLCs and tax planning purposes. I have those resources available to me, probably more readily available to me than with the other typical domestic relations practitioner.

Speaker 2 33:39

Yeah, it's great I have it all in-house. You can have these streamlined communications and efficiency and not have to worry about because you know the next person in their team is right there and I have, to like worry about another lawyer going back and forth. How do you see family of uh law evolving in the next 10 years?

Speaker 1 33:59

Well, the continued progression of use of computer-related tools will certainly be there.

Speaker 1 34:09

What we'll see are probably more rules, like I've seen in the last 20 years.

Speaker 1 34:14

There will probably be more rules and many of them simply will not be followed, and you know, many of them simply will not be followed.

Speaker 1 34:22

But for those of us who try to follow the rules and try to be professional, you'll see probably more people focusing on family law, and that's another big change I've seen in the last 30 years is that you have more practitioners that are focused on family law, particularly in the metropolitan areas. In rural areas, you still have lawyers who necessarily need to do a variety of areas of practice, but I see more specialists in family law now than I did before and I think that will continue to be true over the next 20 years, probably even more true. You'll see probably family lawyers who specialize in in custody cases, who specialize in in in dollars and assets and um and family lawyers who specialize in in helping uh parents and uh in in handling divorces of parents, who who have childless children of special needs and special challenges. I think, uh, that is uh, that is an area of practice that that needs to be developed and there's certainly a need for it yeah, that's a quick question on that is um?

Speaker 2 35:33

is it because the data shows there's more divorce or just because people now just see that there's just more money involved that they could get a piece of? Or is it both?

Speaker 1 35:45

Is what? The fact that there's divorces?

Speaker 2 35:47

Yeah, you think, because to be more concise, because you alluded to the fact that there's been more family letters coming into the space. Is that because there's their data demonstrating that there's just a significant uptick in divorces, and or is it because there's more assets, or is it a combination of both?

Technology Impact on Family Law

Speaker 1 36:05

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question, but if you ask me, what about the fact of specialization over the last 20 or 30 years, the fact that there have been more specialists in family law? I think it's just there's more family law cases with a wider variety of facets and a wider variety of issues that have to be decided. You know, 40 years ago you just asked me a question about Bitcoin. That was unheard of. 40 years ago, you asked me a question about text messages. There were no text messages 40 years ago. There may have been letters or cards or something like that, but with the proliferation of facts and possible issues, I think that there's going to be the need for people to know about those particular issues, and the need to know about those particular issues will become more intense and more specialized. I feel like that makes sense.

Speaker 2 36:55

If you could change one thing about the legal system and family law, what would it be?

Speaker 1 37:02

Uh, one thing about the legal system and family law. What would it be? Uh, I, uh, I, I don't know that I would change much. Uh, if I could change one thing, I, I, I honestly don't know what it would be. I'm, I'm pretty, no, no, I'm pretty, uh, pretty comfortable with what I do, and I'm not saying there's not a need for change.

Speaker 1 37:29

There's certainly a need for change in some courts to get hearings more quickly, to get rulings more quickly. But there are some judges that are particularly aware of that and particularly sensitive to the fact. If they have a hearing, they understand that they need a ruling and the parties need a ruling and there needs to be finality, particularly in issues of child custody. So I don't want to be too vocal about that because I don't want to be too critical of judges in general. There are many who are very conscientious about that and that are particularly sensitive about that and want to be sure that families are well served and they understand that this is a public service that is much needed by many families.

Speaker 1 38:14

But I feel like that over the last 30 years, the developments that I've seen in family law have generally been good and they've been well-intentioned. For example, in 2006, 2007,. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the enactment of the new child support guidelines at that time and I think that's been a good thing. And recently there have been revisions to the child support guidelines in July of 2024. There's substantial revisions and I feel like all of those were good ideas. So I feel like we're progressing in a way that ought to be progressed, but I don't have any particularly important or loud criticism of any particular area in family law. I feel like the practitioners that I work with and I have the privilege to work with, we all generally want to to see things go in the right direction.

Speaker 2 39:07

Perfect, I like that. And I was talking to Sal from Top Attorneys in North America right before this and we were mentioning where do you see the next trends going for and just basically in the lawyer space, like with marketing, or is there like are you getting cases differently than you've ever got before or is it just mostly referral based?

Future of Family Law

Speaker 1 39:28

Everyone who talks to me, everyone who talks to me, has checked me out on the Internet. Everybody has, but that's generally true with anything you buy or anything you purchase. If you buy a front door for your house, or if you're looking for a plumbing contractor, or you're looking for a doctor, I think it's just instinctive right now that you take a look at what is said about this person on the internet. So I think that's just an inevitable part of practicing law in this century.

Speaker 1 39:57

But as far as where my cases come from, the better cases and the better clients are still referrals, as they were many years ago. But I feel like this presence on the internet is something that's just necessary in order for you to survive. I think if I got the best referral that I could possibly get from the best lawyer or the best doctor, I could possibly get from the best lawyer or the best doctor or best other professional or best neighbor that I could possibly get, but that person couldn't check me out on the Internet. They'd probably go to some other referral or seek out some other source that they could check out on the Internet. So I feel like the best cases for me anyway, will probably still continue to be referrals for me anyway, will probably still continue to be referrals. But I expect for people to be able to look into me and see what my qualifications and my experience are through some kind of public forum like this or some other things like best lawyers or super lawyers or somebody else.

Speaker 2 40:54

Yeah, as we wrap this up, and we just alluded to the fact about online, where can people find out more about you and your firm? Just alluded to the fact about online where can people find out more about you and your firm?

Speaker 1 41:03

On our website. It's mijscom. I'm fortunate to be a member of the firm of Moore Ingram Johnson Steele. We are based here in Marietta but we have offices in eight states now and if you look at mijscom you'll see my photo. I'm one of the partners. I've been a partner here since 1988. We now have about 100 lawyers through all our other offices. My domestic relations department is pretty small. There are three of us here in the domestic relations department here in Marietta. I'm very fortunate to be a member of this firm that practices in several areas. As I was mentioning, we have a state planning department, a corporate department. A lot of our firm does workers' comp defense. We do litigation of all kinds and you can find out more about me and my firm by looking at mijnscom and finding me on there and my associate in my department. Some of the things that I've written, some of the programs that I've chaired.

Speaker 2 42:04

You'll find out plenty about me there. Perfect, I'll put those show notes below the links as well. Well, steven, thank you so much for your time for being on council commentary thank you.

Speaker 1 42:09

Okay, thank you, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 42:11

Bye, bye hey, it's jonathan. Make sure to download, listen weekly as I bring the top lawyer guests sharing their best insights, providing exclusive resources and most actionable advice. Finally, I get a lot of people asking me to help them one-on-one. Yes, I can, but it's very limited. Go to revenueascendcom for lawyer, google Ads, seo and CMO consulting For commercial real estate investing. Go to midwestparkcapitalcom and those that can invest in service-based business roll-ups, go to businesscashoutcom and finally, get Podcast Bookings, a top podcast guesting tour agency. All links are included below. Please like, comment and share this podcast with your friends. Thanks for listening.