The Rosen Law Firm
The last thing you want to do is take a legal advice from your friends. It’s a terrible idea. I’m Lee Rosen for the Rosen Law Firm. Thanks for watching.
Anybody that’s ever been through a divorce has had well meaning friends come over to them and offer advice, lots of advice. It sometimes feels like folks going through a divorce are advice magnets. Unfortunately, getting lots of advice from lots of folk’s causes confusion and results in difficulty when it comes to following your own well made plans.
Sadly, much of the advice we receive is misinformed and off base. Much of the time, its just plane wrong, why is it wrong, a bunch of reasons?
First of all, people outside the process don’t know all the facts of your case. Without knowing everything that’s going on, it’s very difficult to give solid advice. Many of us don’t want to tell these volunteer advisers all the facts of our lives. We like some privacy. We don’t feel a need to share everything.
Unfortunately, giving good advice requires having good information all of it, works and all. Second, the adviser is not a lawyer and probably doesn’t have all that much experience with the process. How are volunteer advisers usually have been divorced or know someone that has been divorced. What they know is what happened to them not what is going to happen to you. Steps they took that might have been a mistake for them might be exactly the right thing for you. It’s tough to know when you’ve only been through this a timer tomb and when it might have been one of your advisors friends or cousins or someone else that actually went through it.
Third, most of our volunteer advisers bring to their advice a certain bias or prejudice. They probably don’t realize that they lack objectivity but they do. They like you. They want to help you. They probably don’t see all the facts and they probably don’t understand why anybody would agree with your spouse or they may have other biased ideas. They might dislike man or woman or in-laws. It’s hard to know where they’re coming from but they are almost always coming from somewhere. Everybody has a bias in one direction or another.
Finally, they don’t know your priorities and your objectives. They don’t k now what really matters to you. I’ve seen parents very deliberately make financial concessions to achieve greater piece with their formal spouse for the benefit of the children. I’ve seen spouse’s way, “pay” way too much alimony because they felt it was the right thing to do. Not everyone sees the world in the same way. You have your own sense of right and wrong, your own ideas about what is fair. Your advisors see things through their own filter, not yours and they may not really understand where you’re coming from.
The best thing for you to do is get professional advice. Ignore all the well meaning volunteers. When you have questions, talk to a lawyer or a councilor. Get your advice from independent, objective experts. Ask questions, listen to the answers and then do what you think is right. after all, you’re the one that’s going to have to live with the arrangements you make long after the does settles and the advisors have moved on to advising someone else.
For more information, visit our website at rosen.com. Thanks for watching. I’m Lee Rosen for the Rosen Law Firm.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services