Ep.6: Talking all things Legalese and Family Court with Attorney Renee Bauer

In this episode, the amazing Renee Bauer, family law attorney, author and app creator, joins us to help you navigate the legal system and your lawyer, with more confidence, while giving you real life tips and tools that will save your sanity, your peace of mind, your time, your energy and your bank account. 

You can find Renee on IG @msreneebauer or via her website at: www.familylawyerct.com and her app: @parentcopilot 

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me.

Grab my free parenting resource:

https://chantalcontorinescoaching.myflodesk.com/free-how-to-guide

Join my monthly membership for protective parents: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com/monthly-membership

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Transcript

0:02

Welcome everybody to The Survivor's Playbook. I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and this is the podcast for every survivor of abuse. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook so that we can learn to live lives we love, despite what the abusers in our life do or don't do? And today I am so excited to have the amazing Renee Bauer on. She is a woman who wears many hats. She is an attorney. She is a published author, and no shock considering her resume so far. She is also the creator of an incredibly amazing parenting app to help parents communicate with their exes. Thank you so much, Renee, for taking the time outta your full schedule to be on today to help our listeners create lives they love. Chantel. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and have this conversation with you. A little bit about your background. So you are not only an attorney in family law, but you've also navigated divorce yourself personally. What are some of the tips that you might have for people starting this process to protect themselves? Because, for the average person you're dealing with average people, there are emotions. Even if your now ex is a good person, there are bruised egos. But when we're dealing with high conflict people, when we're dealing with people who continue to try to control you using the court systems, how you start this process can really impact the success of your journey throughout family court. So there's so many things to unpack there, but the first is to, the overarching theme is to be your own advocate, because I see so often that someone going through this process will rely on professionals to guide them, to even educate them or to direct them in what is. Best for their situation and sometimes that's okay, but sometimes it's like medical care. Like sometimes you have to advocate for yourself and when you're sitting in that doctor's office, you have to say, no, you need to listen to me. And what I'm saying, it's the same thing with the legal system too. I think often people just rely and say I got a lawyer and now I can sit back and do and not do anything. And what I caution people is to remember that your one case of. Who knows how many that this lawyer has. And so do you have a responsibility and an obligation and a duty to make sure that you are presenting to your lawyer the best case possible? So what does that mean? It means providing communicating with them when they, if they send you an email or phone call, make sure you're returning that quickly but also being really proactive about your case of gathering the information. That that you want your lawyer to have and putting it in a really organized fashion and presenting it to them on some sort of digital format would be the best way of doing that. Putting that together, creating timelines, giving them dates, giving them bullet points of the things that are happening. And then when, if you're not hearing from your lawyer, because it's. Not uncommon for people to complain that their lawyer hasn't responded to them or returned their calls or emails, picking up the phone and saying, I need to schedule an appointment with you because I need you to understand what I'm going through, or I need I need guidance from you, or I need to feel like I'm prepared going to court, and really being proactive about getting the representation that you want. And because not all lawyers are, it's not a one size fits all, and you have. Different lawyers that have different levels of communication style. So you really wanna make sure that you're finding someone who's matched to what your needs are. And if you're not getting that, communicating it, and if you are, if you're with someone who just isn't going to be that person for you, there's no shame in finding new counsel that is that person. So to answer your question. The really being proactive about your case, and that doesn't mean there's a fine line between proactivity and sending your lawyer 10 emails a day. Because what will happen is that will get all, that will get jumbled and that will get buried in that lawyer's inbox. And you have all of these disconnected emails with facts and things that you want them to know. The name of this game is presenting them with an organized. Snapshot of everything that there is. And for me, my, my favorite client is the one who comes in with a binder.'cause I'm like, while we're all paperless, I love a good binder and paper. And everything is organized and tabbed. And I had a client who did that and it was it was down to, from bank statements to points that she wanted to make. And it was it made my job. So easy because as I was preparing, everything was right there. You want to be that type of client is to make your lawyer's job easier to advocate for you, and you want their effort to be put into creating the best strategy and creating the best story or theme of your case. Not trying to figure out which bank statement is missing because you gave them 10 pages that were upside down and backwards and coffee stained, and they're trying just to get organized with it. And I think that also leads me to my next question, which is the more organized you can be as a client, the less money you're going to have to spend as well. Time is money. So if you are just throwing stuff at your lawyer every time something comes up, text messages, emails, bank statements, whatever it is. They then have to charge you for their time and their paralegal and their staff's time to organize, collate, put together, sift through. So the more time, and this can be traumatic for people who are actively still being abused. Again, if you have support family members or friends, most people, want to help you, and they don't have a tangible way to help you through this process. So if you have trusted people who can do that for you, especially if you happen to have an organizational wiz as a friend or a family member, this is something that they can do that would make them feel great to be able to help you and also alleviates you of having to go through all this stuff, especially when you're looking at text messages emails because those can be really triggering for so many people. But the more you do behind the scenes, the less time your lawyer is going to have to spend. And remember, when our lawyers have to spend less time doing this, they can actually then do their job and their job is to advocate for us in the legal system. So the less, behind the scenes work they have to do or hire out or even talk to, remember, this all takes time and the less time they have, we always complain that lawyers don't get back to us. And it's because lawyers, no matter where you are in the world, there's always a backlog. They always have so many clients. It's shocking how many people are going through the system. So our job can make their job easier if we do a little bit more work behind the scenes. On that note, do you have some tips for people who are either just entering in or are already there on how they can save themselves money, what they can do to help you which also then saves them money. So one, just be really responsive to what your lawyer's asking you for. Don't make them or their paralegal chase you for. For example, updating a financial statement, don't make them chase you over and over again, and sending those emails and picking up and calling and saying, I need updated numbers from you. I need you to look at this. When they ask you for something, there's a reason for it. They're not just being annoying, like there's an actual, like justification as to why that information is needed. So as much as it might trigger you, it's unpleasant if you're, especially if you're the person who hasn't handled the money. I think this is, these are the people that have the hardest time trying to gather all of this information and put it together. But it's. So important that you, just because it's unpleasant, you don't ignore it. And so that will save money right off the bat. Because think about it this way, every time someone from that office emails you, you may be getting charged for that. And so if you, if they emailed you five times, you might have. Spent a couple hundred dollars for them to chase you when you could have dealt with it or responded to it right away and saved that. And that goes to just as an example,'cause we're talking about what does organization even mean? And a practical example is. Often discovery gets exchanged. Discovery are financial statements and tax returns and all the financial stuff that you need in order to look at your marriage. But let's say bank statements. Let's say your lawyer asked for two years of bank statements, create a folder online, put the statements in there and even better yet, is create a folder for or label each one as what that statement date is. So American Express. October to September, 2024 and go through that, because now what's happening is the paralegal will open that folder and quickly look through and say, okay, we have all of them here. I, we have had clients who will scan a PDF of 200 pages of the statements and say, here you go, and you open it and there's hundreds of pages of documents, none of them labeled. Someone has to go through all of that and relabel everything and make sure it's all there. And that could take hours and hours and hours. That could take if you really hand over kind of a mess and you're like, not my problem. You're gonna pay. You could easily pay one or two days worth of a paralegal's time to go and organize that just because you don't wanna do it. Now, if funds aren't an issue, then maybe it's something that you pay for and you're like, my time's valuable. I had a client that. Did that too. She's I do not, she was a high level executive. She's I don't wanna deal with this. I, it is not, I will pay for you to organize this mess. But she knew very well that she was getting billed for this and she opted in rather than give us the information in the format that we need. So it's things like that. It's like the behind the scenes homework that is, is where fees rack up or where there's a real opportunity to save. And the thing is depending on where you are in your healing journey, it can also be very empowering to look through your stuff. Yeah, to see. Because again, as you stated and as I talk about, you have to be your own advocate, and that can be very hard, especially if you are a victim survivor of abuse. You have learned to minimize yourself. You have learned to not advocate for yourself. You've learned to. Make yourself as small as humanly possible to avoid their wrath. This is your time. Part of your healing is to learn to advocate for yourself and to ask for what you need. It doesn't mean you're bossy. It doesn't mean you're high maintenance. You can still be courteous, but still say, this is what I need. And when you go through your own stuff, yes, it can be very triggering, so ensure that you have things that you do before and after to help you regulate and to reward yourself for this task, right? Just like any hard thing that we have to do. If you're a university and you have to write this horrible essay that you have zero inclination to do, reward yourself for the job you. Be like before you do it partway through and then after. Same thing applies here, but it also really helps you learn your own case because at the end of the day, you know your ex, you know your family dynamics. You know your situation better than anybody. And so when you're able to go through these documents and organize them, you actually start to build a clearer picture in your own mind. Because remember, abuse is so very confusing and for so many victims. You leave and you have extricated yourself. You've escaped, but you're still confused because abuse is not always obvious, but it can be very insidious and it can be a death by a billion paper cuts. And so going through this stuff reminds you, this is what I endured and this is how I have to present my case, especially if it's going to be high conflict, which for people listening, you're not, it's not gonna be an easy, we go to mediation and everything's resolved and we happily co-parent. That is not, that's more than likely not your reality. Maybe it is and I'm so happy for you. But for most people, when we talk about high conflict, there's conflict and the conflict doesn't end. So you need to be your best advocate. And I love the tools and the tips that you just gave right there to help people not only become their own best advocates, but also to save them ti themselves time and money. Because when you're dealing in the legal realm, time is money. Literally, every email you send your lawyer every, call, everything you send. The clock starts ticking as soon as they open and they read through and they then respond. You're being charged for that. So again, probably less is more, right? When you're sending emails, be very, punctual. Be very succinct. Don't, have these long essays. Try to keep things as short as possible with also facts. Remember, your lawyer is also not your therapist. And they're not your coach. For some people they use them for everything, and if they have the money giddy up. But for most people, especially if it's high conflict, you're gonna be in and out of the court system for years. And trying to budget is, something that you should start thinking about before you even enter into this arena. On that note, have you seen a difference between clients who come to you with the proper support behind the scenes? Both therapists and divorce coaches and those that rely on you for everything? Yeah. Absolutely. It is, for some people, it is really the difference between surviving and thriving. So the clients who have that support and they are in therapy and they might have a coach and they may be in some sort of other support group they start to have a mindset shift. About, okay. This thing that I'm going through is not the only. The most important thing that will define my existence. It's a moment. It's an unpleasant one, but it is a stepping stone to that next chapter. And when they start to do that kind of inner work and then start to do the inner healing, then it becomes less about. I don't want my spouse to get the sofa that I picked out and he hated. And it becomes the, you know what? He can have the sofa because that gets me on the other side faster because I want my own fresh start. And it's just a perspective shift of changing their how they process making a decision to settle or not settle, what they get hung up on or not get hung up on. There's things that are non-negotiable and I would tell any client, make sure you are really clear as to what those non-negotiables are for you. So you know, when you're digging into that point, that's the thing that's really important. But the flip side is you have to give up something else. It's usually and it's recognizing the things that aren't as important. So when you have someone who's done all of that work they start to release those less important things in order to move the forward. It's when someone's stuck in the hurt and the pain and the resentment and the and I think, and oftentimes the injustice, injustice. That's a huge one. That's a great word. Like when they're stuck in that it becomes really hard to get on the other side. And even if they do. They often look back and then they said I shouldn't have signed the agreement, or the judge did me dirty, or my lawyer wasn't listening to me. And they're still not moving forward. They're still looking back and those are the cases and the clients that end up in court over and over again sometimes at to not your fault, sometimes it's the other party that brings you back to court over and over. Sometimes it's like we only can control what we can control. And if you are the one that's going back over and over again it's, the question is, why, what are we arguing over? Some of it's justified, some of it's not. But I can really see the difference between those clients who say, okay, this was not a perfect resolution. It was a resolution and that's perfect in and of itself, and they move forward and we never hear from them again. And they've done the work and they have the support system versus those that don't necessarily allow themselves to heal and they really stay stuck in that. Support systems always and it's always hard to talk about this because there's always those outliers. There's always those really awful bad cases and the high level of toxicity and the ex who's so high conflict that no. Matter what you do, when you do all the right things and you still find yourself in court, you still, some people have those, unfortunately. And so we can only control what we can control and you can control kind of your own perception, your own little world that you live in and how you're responding to things. And I think that's really important. I speak to that often is you can't control anything in life. There are no guarantees. The only thing you can control in life is yourself and how you show up. And for many navigating this, it's completely unfair. You'll never get justice. Very rarely get justice in a courtroom because it is so hard to prove abuse in court. And oftentimes lawyers, recommend that we don't even talk about that because that opens up a whole other can of worms. And it's very hard to prove coercive control in court even. In countries and states and provinces where it's against the law. How do you prove that? How do you prove that pattern of behavior if there's never been physical abuse? And we're simply, and I don't mean simply in like it's just because oftentimes mental, emotional and psychological abuse are far worse than physical abuse for survivor. Who have experienced the gamut. They always say, those forms are worse than the physical. At least with the physical. I had a bruise and I knew that there had been, but with the other forms of abuse, the mental, psychological, and emotional abuse, there are no scars. And it's oftentimes very confusing because abusers aren't bad all the time. They're good and the good is manipulation as well. So how do you prove that in court? It's very hard. It's hard to. Especially if we don't have people who truly understand the nature of abuse and how abusers present. Because abusers typically do very well in court. They present themselves very well. They're calm, they're rational, they're, not emotive. They're reasonable. They're charming. Yes. And they can be very charming as most people here could, but whereas a person who is so unhealed is so raw. The protective parent, the person who has been abused, is oftentimes the one that presents as high conflict as overly emotional, and you have every right to be emotional, especially when it's abuse that you're continuing to endure and your children are enduring, but you typically don't present as well in court as your abuser does. So it's very hard to ever seek justice. Yeah, in the court system, and it's not for lack of effort on lawyers' parts, but when there is such a disconnect between what we understand as abuse and. There's such a small window of time to be able to talk about your specifics in your case. Really, you won't seek justice there, so you actually have to focus on what you can control. And I think that's a really important piece for people is you can't control your ex, you can't control how they show up or don't show up. You can't control how often they bring you to court or choose to not, pay heed to your parenting plan or your court orders. You, you can't control that. What you can only control is you, so it's really important to focus on what you can control. And really that's a paradigm shift and that's a perspective reframing that really is so beneficial for people once they radically accept that this is their reality. Yeah. It's the one word answer I have is what do you do when you have someone like this? I'll give you my. Personal development answer, and I'll give you my legal answer. From the personal development spaces you thrive. You thrive on the other side of this and you don't let that be your whole story. And you say that, I'm going to be happy, I'm going to be successful. I'm going to have joy, and I'm going to live my life and compartmentalize who this person is and. What they're trying to do in your life. So that's like the feelgood answer. The legal answer is you document everything. You keep track of everything. You have a journal, you write it all down. You create the evidence, the text messages, and the emails, and you don't reply in kind. And that is so important here because you don't want to give this person the ammunition to say, see, I told you you are the problem. And you just, you keep a business life. Like you keep it civil, you keep it short and child focused. You don't have to respond to any disparagement. You don't have to respond to the yelling. You don't have to respond on their timeline. You can say, okay, the boundary that I'm setting is I will reply to all non-emergency communication between the hours of nine to five. And if it comes in after hours at 10 o'clock at night, I will respond at 9:00 AM tomorrow. And you hold that boundary. And so also what happens is you start to train them to, to realize that you're not gonna respond to something unless it's in, within this window. And so you can control that. You can control that. You're not responding right away. And even though it triggers you, you put your notification on silence so that you're not getting that. So those are the it's, it becomes a, what tools do you have in order to deal with this person who's in your life for a very long time? Because I'm assuming you had children together. And that it's you can either stay, you have a choice. You can either stay embroiled in the conflict and the chaos that they thrive in, or you can remove yourself from it if you remove yourself from it. Now, you are the one steering the ship. You're the one who has to set the boundaries and do the things and cr and decide what you are going to allow them on board or not, and and make that decision that while they're. They're on that path, and they're never gonna change, and they're not gonna do the healing or fix or whatever is going on there. You don't have to be on it with them. And it will infuriate them that you're not responding, that you're not emailing them back at the hour that they want, or you're picking up the phone or you're not engaging with them. It will, but you're sucking the. The oxygen out of their room, so to speak. And you just remember to reset every day and say, okay, I'm not going to let them live rent free in my head. And it. In my joy and in my happiness. Like they don't belong there. They don't have a free, a all access pass to what's happening in my life. So I, and then you say why should I have to do all of that? They're the problem because you don't have a choice. Here's the truth, telling the hard stuff you have to. You don't have a choice. You have to be the one who says, even though this person is like this and is not going to change I'm going to have to take responsibility as to how I allow this relationship to impact my life and my happiness and my future. And that's so very true because it. Nothing about being partnered with an abuser is ever gonna be fair. It's right. Fairness is out the door. When you have an abuser, you are not responsible for the abuse that you endured, but you are responsible for your own healing after abuse and during abuse. Because we also have post-separation abuse and it is not fair, but you have to let that go. That also keeps you stuck. If you're that's not fair. Why do I have to do all the heavy lifting? Why do I have to, create these boundaries? Creating the boundaries is the easier thing. It's enforcing the boundaries. Yeah. And once you have those boundaries, you have to enforce them a hundred percent of the time. Because if you acquiesce with a normal person, you could ebb and flow you, you'd make exceptions, you would compromise. But these people aren't capable of compromise of, and if you give them an inch, they will literally take a mile. In fact, they'll take 10,000 miles because you've just opened the door. So if you have boundaries around your communication when you're going to. Respond or not respond, what you're going to respond to or choose to not respond to. You have to stick to that because not only are you reconditioning yourself, and at first, it's very scary, right? Because again, this is a a boundary and you've been conditioned to have zero boundaries with this person, but you're also reconditioning them to rely less on your responses and your reactions to their engagement. And they're always gonna tantrum. They're gonna tantrum louder and harder when you start to enforce boundaries because they truly view you as an investment. They have spent time and money in investing in you to be as like an ultimate source of constant supply to them. And now they're. Their toy is no longer, playing the way that they wanna play, and so they're gonna get mad. Yeah. That is not your cue to give in. That's not your cue to acquiesce. That is your cue that, hey, this is actually something that's really important for me now and also for my future. My future self is gonna thank me for, sticking to my boundaries. Yeah. And that is how you create peace. These people will never change. So for anything to change, you have to be the one to do the changing again. It's not fair. But it's what you have to do and your future self will. Thank you for doing that hard work now and again, healing is not a destination. It is a journey, and we're constantly healing. Even if you had no trauma in your childhood, even if you were happily. Married and your co-parenting. We all have stuff to unpack. That's just the reality of life. We don't, live life unscathed. And so it's our job to do the hard work and to heal and to connect with the right people, community experts and to have the right tools in our toolbox so that we can live our best lives despite what anybody in the world or anything that happens because life has traumas, we, we can be blindsided by our exes, by, accidents. And we need to learn to be able to adapt and pivot and create lives that we love. Yeah. So thank you so much, Renee. Do you have any last minute tips for people? Insights, perspective. Sometimes it's just like a phrase or a word and people are like, Eureka. I don't think I have the magic phrase, but it's just the, I, let me, I'll end with this. This story of a client that I had who. Was someone who would have stayed married forever. She was in an unhappy marriage and her husband was an alcoholic and he was having an affair, and he was, you could probably label him with. The narcissist term or some other, a few other things that would fit him quite well. But she would've staying married because in her mind she had financial security and the unknown was scarier to her than staying in what she knew and the divorce happened. And up until the last day, right before she was signing an agreement, she would have, I think if he said, I want to reconcile, she would've said, okay. Even though none of those things fixed. So she gets divorced and a year later she emails me and says, I just wanted to let you know I have never been happier in my life. I'm traveling. I even started dating. I found a job that I love because she was always a stay-at-home mom, and I'm so grateful that I was forced into this situation that I would've never chosen for myself. And so I share that story because. For her, she never wanted the divorce and she would have, she would've stayed there, stuck. And sometimes we're forced into situations that are really the best thing that could ever happen for us. And for any of your listeners, if they found you, it's probably because they're in a relationship that's so toxic and. Abusive and so many of the other labels. And maybe it's a redirect of, geez, you know what, maybe I didn't pick this, but maybe there's gratitude that you're going through something like this. Because on the other side of that is the possibility of what life can look like when you're not stuck in that, that, that chaos. So I like to just say sometimes, sometimes the universe has plans for things and they shove us when we're not making the choice for choices for ourself. It also really reaffirms how strong you are and if you've navigated this type of relationship. This is really a test of your strength, and you have survived a hundred percent of your worst days, a hundred percent. You're still here and there's so much possibility on the other side, and the other side can be on the other side of divorce, on the other side of quote unquote co-parenting with your abuser on the other side. You just have to take action. And it doesn't have to be crazy action all at once. It can be small steps, but you have to take action. You have to be proactive. Ideally, you'd be preventative in how you move through this because that can save you so much heartache and strife and pain and also money. But you have to take action, baby steps. If you can't run, then just take baby steps. And the more you do, the more forward momentum you, you take, the better off you'll feel. And if you have children, the better off your children will be as well. So thank you so much, Renee, for I, I love that story because it is, it's so scary. Divorce is scary, even at the best of times. It's the end of something and it's the doubt. How is this gonna be on the other side of this? This is all I've known. And it might not be perfect, but it's what I know. And the unknown is sometimes far scarier than what you currently know. But if you just push yourself, if you just take that leap of faith and believe that it's going to work out, there's so much possibility on the other side. And for those listening, I will have all the ways you can contact and listen and follow Renee in the show notes. So don't worry about that. And thank you so much, Renee, for taking the time outta your full life and professional life as well, to be here to impart your amazing knowledge. And it's just. Very, it's common sense. It's not crazy. You're not saying, Hey, you need to buy all this software. You're just giving people real life tools and tricks that they can actually implement themselves for little to no cost to be able to save themselves time and also money and also energy. Yeah. So thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the Survivor's Playbook. If today's episode helped you feel less alone, more confident, more empowered, more educated, please share it with others who may also need this validation. And if you're ready for deeper support, you can join my monthly membership or grab free tools and resources on my website. It is in the show notes. Remember, your clarity is your power. Your calm is your resistance. You are not crazy. You are not alone, and you are actually not powerless. Until next time, keep going. I see you.