What is Collaborative Divorce

Thomas Marks

Law Firm, P.A

Tom is the founding partner of The Marks Law Firm, P.A. – Family Law & Divorce Attorneys. With more than 38 years of experience practicing law in Central Florida, Tom zealously represents his clients with integrity, dedication, and personal attention. Tom has built a solid reputation with his clients, colleagues, opposing counsel, and the Courts of Orange, Osceola, Lake, Brevard, Volusia, and Seminole Counties. It is Tom’s mission to be the best small family law firm in Central Florida. He is dedicated to excellence and has built a great team of attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants and support staff at 

The Marks Law Firm, P.A. – Family Law & Divorce Attorneys. Tom is committed to his clients, their well-being, and their goals. He sees success as a journey built on integrity, excellence and hard work. Tom cares deeply about his clients, their children, and their future success and significance. If reconciliation is possible, he will support those efforts and what is best for the family. If he is called on to represent his clients’ interests in Court, a Collaborative Case, Mediation, or elsewhere, he will be a zealous advocate, negotiator and wise counsel. Tom has actively volunteered his time and efforts in the Orange County Bar and has taken over 28 pro bono Legal Aid Society cases to represent those who could not afford an Attorney. Tom has volunteered over 200 hours of professional services in pro bono

Transcription Transcription

Hey everybody welcome back I’m Lee Wright and I am a divorce coach and I’m so glad that you have joined us at season EB and flow this channel talks about everything related to divorce healing growing and working through the process and today I’m excited to say that I am interviewing Thomas Marx and he is a divorce attorney and he’s with the Marx law firm and we are going to be talking about the collaborative divorce process so Tom thank you so much for being here um can you just tell us a little bit about your background what you do and then we’ll get into the rest of the interview okay sure Lee thank you so much for having me on your channel so um I’m a family law attorney been doing this for 38 years believe it or not um Actually March 1st we just celebrated our 32nd uh year of starting the firm so we had a little anniversary there um so I really started doing family law because I was low man on the totem pole and I was at a firm where none of the senior guys wanted to do family law and they none of them wanted to touch it with a 10- foot pole so they said give it to Tom he’ll take it he’ll have to do it and I loved do doing family law. 

I love my clients I enjoy the personal interaction uh so yeah been doing it for um over 35 years I did a little bit of other law uh practice before that um but I have I do exclusively family law now um I’ve done a lot of family law litigation over the years but about 15 years ago I started doing collaborative law and I’ve seen the benefits of it and how much better it can be than the traditional litigation model so um I’ve really uh started expanding my practice and doing more and more of collaborative practice nice so can you explain me the differences and the benefits of collaborative and how it differs from that litigation model yes so litigation model is something what we call the traditional litigation model where the parties hire attorneys they quote unquote lawyer up and they file a petition for disolution of marriage and then there’s an answer and a counter petition and mandatory disclosure and maybe depositions and hearings and unfortunately it can be very destructive to the family because they end up having to try to show how terrible the other uh parent is in order to get a leg up or to get a you know if it’s custody battle so they get more time or whatever or they try to show there’s been a waste of marital assets and some bad behavior the other um parent and then unfortunately in the litigation model they end up often times just hating each other unable to communicate unable to co-parent well and it’s really harmful to the children so conversely in the collaborative process the parties it’s a voluntary process so the parties have to agree they have to sign a collaborative participation agreement that says basically we’re not going to go to court we’re going to be uh transparent in the process we’re going to not hide the ball we’re going to express what are our common goals so there’s no going to court you’re set um within the collaborative process you’ll have a team each client has to have a collaborative attorney under the statute and then o oftentimes most often you’ll have a mental health neutral and a financial neutral and they’ll do a lot of the things that the attorneys otherwise would have done but probably for a lower cost and more effectively or efficiently because Financial neutral is typically like a forensic CPA that can very easily put together child’s sport guidelines and alimony analysis and equitable distribution worksheets and the mental health neutral helps the parties put together a parenting plan so the attorneys are more advisors and facilitators and encouragers through the process 

 that’s really interesting I never thought about the fact that if the attorney is not doing some of those financial or parenting plan pieces that you’re saving time if the others are less expensive and more expertise in those areas so typically the attorneys uh charge more per hour and so if it took them even if the attorneys did it in the same amount of time the financial neutral is going to charge less per hours so it’s going to cost less there mental health neutral charges less so typically family law attorneys make less money in a collaborative case but the results are often so much uh far superior I can’t tell you how many stories I have of like even the other side we don’t call uh the other attorney opposing Council on a collaborative we call them collaborative Council and we don’t call the other side opposing party they’re just you know the mother or the father or the husband or wife or you can have paternity or you can have um a prenuptual agreement through a collaborative process but most of them are dissolution of marriage uh better known as divorce but um I’m G to tell you like I have received uh photos of the say mom that I didn’t represent she’ll it went so well during the process that she’ll send me uh photos of her and the kids at Christmas wow crazy you will not see that in litigation it doesn’t happen right absolutely so um so that’s the kind of differences what are do you believe the benefits of um of using collaborative so okay probably the number one benefit is that the especially moms and dads that are going to have to continue to go on for many years forward co-parenting the children improves communication lowers the um animosity increases the amicable uh willingness to work together all those kind of the the and the result is more tailored to what uh the two parties really want to accomplish instead of putting it in front of a judge who’s just going to Broad brush it and say well uh we’re just going to sell the house I don’t care one party or the other wanted to keep it or we’re just going to do a standard uh time sharing schedule we don’t care if it could have been more flexible judges don’t have really the time or the ability legally to tailor things like you can do in a collaborative case so the benefits are there’s so much more flexibility um so much more um peaceful resolution but there’s some other factors like like um collaborative is way more confidential you don’t have to file the financial affidavits in the public record you don’t have to file the the uh equitable distribution worksheet the child board guideline so it’s not on the public record what the parties assets and debts are it’s not on the record uh how much child support one part is getting or how much alimony they’re getting so it’s I think it’s kind of safer that it’s not on the public record how much money is involved and who’s getting what right oh that’s very interesting yeah and one last thing I

 I would say that collaborative is way less expensive than a full-blown litigation Case by far um and the results are often I would say almost always I guess my experience yeah almost always better than litigation just because of the flexibility and what the parties really want to accomplish so yeah it’s really better for Mom Dad and the kids okay great um so just another question kind of related to the difference like in Florida with a traditional litigation divorce you’re required to do mediation first and hopefully the majority of cases do complete in Med mediation they have a mediator along with the two attorneys when you’re doing collaborative is it the two attorneys and a mediator and the two neutrals or no mediator is necessary because kind of the attorneys are acting as mediators um well in collaborative um the vast majority never need a mediation it’s only if at the end of the collaborative process we’re kind of stuck there is the possibility of bringing in a collaboratively trained mediator but I would say 90 Plus % of collaborative cases do not need mediation wow now in the uh traditional litigation model yes the judges have required that all the cases have to go to mediation why because yeah a good percentage of the cases are going to settle in mediation so the judge never has to deal with them it kind of like saves the judges a lot of time and effort yeah um but the mediation comes only after the petition is filed the answer counter petition answer to the counter petition all the mandatory disclosure is done any other Discovery request to produce interrogatories all of that has to be in place first then they go to mediation it’s probably the earliest it’s going to be is three months to maybe as far out as six months after it’s filed so whereas collaborative um the shortest collaborative case I’ve ever settled is one meeting uh the average is three meetings maybe four I’ve had a couple that have gone longer but um

 The Sweet Spot is three or four meetings for a collaborative case and you’re done wow and um do the neutrals meet with each party individually or with the two parties together and are the lawyers there when the neutrals are meeting with them that’s a great question Lee um it it can happen a myriad of ways it can happen uh with both parties together it can happen separately it can happen with the attorneys there or not I typically pick um the neutrals the mental health neutral and the financial neutral that I know are really competent and really a high integrity and quality I’m going to review everything anyway so I don’t don’t feel like I need to be there at the meeting with them I don’t need to charge the client for that I will prep with the client before they meet let’s say they uh I’m representing mom or dad it doesn’t matter I’m going to meet with them before uh they’re going to have a meeting maybe together husband and wife with the mental health neutral to talk about the parenting plan so here’s the time sharing schedule uh here’s all kinds of very unique details that they can get into a write a first refusal if one parent not going to be physically able to be present with the children do they give the other parent the option to take care of the child rather than lead with a babysitter um what about extracurriculars what about holidays what about out ofate travel what about you know special times in the summer you know everything’s unique because some people like Christmas is always a big one right yeah so some clients their tradition is Christmas Eve and the other one doesn’t care that much about it so instead of just splitting everything down the middle um one party might give the other spouse Christmas Eve every year and then maybe the other spouse get something special on Christmas Day I mean so there’s a lot of flexibility and ways to work in yeah okay and who chooses the neutrals do the two lawyers agree on which ones they want to use yeah so typically the parties come in so every every family law case under the um the Florida Supreme Court’s rules every family law attorney is supposed to talk to their clients about collaborative to give them that as an option or an alternative to the traditional litigation model so I find oftentimes um I hate to say this but I’ll have clients come in oftentimes whove met with a another attorney before me and I’ll I’ll say I’m I’m sure you you’re aware of collaborative and they’re like no I’ve never heard of it oh okay well and then I’ll tell them about it and invariably they’ll want to do collaborative for all the benefits we talked about previously um so yes the clients typically come to the attorneys first and then the attorneys um communicate and mutually pick the collaborative team a financial neutral and a mental health neutral okay that’s great um so thinking about originally

 I thought oh you’re involving more professionals it probably is more expensive but how would you compare the cost of collaborative versus uh litigated divorces okay so pretty much as I said before collaboratives typically going to be far less expensive than a litigated divorce in the sense of if the if say it’s a custody ble and it’s going to go to trial it’s going to be way more expensive um however if the parties have a simplified case let’s say there’s no minor children there’s no significant assets no one’s uh has a privately held Corporation or business they’re not self-employed they’re like W2 wage earners yeah those cases um have a very high um settlement rate so I would say on cases like that um it can settle at mediation or even before mediation I will off often times with my client uh put together a a marital settlement agreement um before we even filed a petition but certainly before we go to mediation and send it to the other uh side and we typically resolve it um either before mediation or at mediation and I’m going to say probably those cases would be less expensive than collaborative okay yeah that makes a lot of sense so for some people it makes sense to avoid so in those cases that are very simple and you might you know finish the settlement before you even get to mediation those people hire you as an attorney the one side and they have an attorney on their side but you’re working collaboratively still it’s just not it’s more amicable but it’s not using the collaborative format yeah exactly it’s what I call collaborative with a small C rather than collaborative with a Capital C Capital C is you’re following the uh precepts of the statute that the legislator’s passed small C says you each have picked a lawyer that’s actually going to do what’s in your best interest and help you work it out amicably and not make it into something that it shouldn’t have to be I will say this I often get clients in who spouse doesn’t really want to pay for an attorney so we do the work of putting it together I draft my settlement agreements and plain English they’re not in Latin everybody can understand it the other side uh doesn’t really need uh necess well that’s up to them I can’t give them legal advice often times they don’t hire an attorney because it’s pretty straightforward um but they have the right to take it to a lawyer for like a onh hour consultation just to look at and often times uh it just goes through and they save a whole lot of money yeah that’s that makes so much sense it’s pretty straightforward it just seems like it shouldn’t have to cost $10,000 or more to if you can agree very easily yeah I mean I have seen um litigated uh custody cases in Orlando cost into the six figures and I’ve seen um yeah it’s I it’s can be very expensive um collaborative obviously is way less than that depending on the number of meetings every meeting is an expense so it’s the clients often realize that and they go okay well let’s get this done because we’re doing it amicably and what’s there there’s nothing to fight over because we’re what’s really kind of cool about collaborative what I really like is in the very first meeting the client I um tell the mental health neutral what their goals are so let’s say um let’s say I’m representant dad and he says you know I want to protect the kids from the litigation process I want to uh make sure that they’re well adapted and healthy I want to make sure they’re doing well in school I want to make sure that we don’t spend all our money on litigation so that we can put money aside for their college fund and then mom gets up there and says I want to protect the kids from litigation I want to put money aside for their so then all of a sudden their goals are the same and it’s like it’s kind of like sometimes it’s like singing Kumbaya and it’s we move forward very quickly yeah that’s great I think it would be so nice if every divorce could be more like that because if you can co-parent well if you haven’t destroyed the relationship as a war during the divorce course like it is so much better for the kids and for both parties long-term mental health and so yeah yeah and you probably get a chance to talk with your clients a lot about the benefits of collaborative versus litigation yeah I always speak about the importance of trying to do it amicably whichever process you choose whether it’s collaborative or going through mediation and ensuring that you have attorneys who are not trying to escalate things and um you know for families for couples who have children I just keep saying to them as long as you keep your kids front and center in your minds then chances are you’re going to make the right decisions for your family it’s really good advice and what the statute says is the party should be doing what’s quote in the best interest of the minor children yeah makes yeah 

what about in these situations where uh you know let’s say hypothetically the husband or wife comes to you and says I want to do this amicably my sunab ex is really difficult like I would classify him as a narcissist or her as a narcissist and I’m dreading going through the divorce cuz I just don’t feel like they’re you know mentally healthy and so but do you think collaborative could work in situations like that when one of the parties is you know kind of you never know when they’re going to lose it right yeah well I mean having done family law for over 35 years I’ve seen every variation of Personality Disorder whether it’s narcissism or or borderline personality or hisonic or whatever um yeah I think it can work and what’s actually really great about the collaborative process for cases where you have one of the parties that is um has a personality disorder you have a mental health professional you have a mental health neutral typically can be a licensed mental health U social worker therapist PHD psychologist so they’re they know how to work with people like that obvious I’ve had to deal with those types of individuals for a lot of years and you know I always say to myself what is it that a narcissist really wants right what they’re really interested in is what they want so it’s not a bad question to ask them what they want and to give them some psychological air let them talk a little bit let them feel heard and then they’ll let their guard down some some are harder than others I get that that um but ultimately um they after they feel fully heard and they’ve gotten it out then they’re more open to hearing what you know their spouse might want and so I I got that from Stephen Cy’s book Seven Habits of Highly affected people yeah his fourth habit is um seek first to understand and then to be understood so and the whole psychological air thing I mean yes I’m a family law attorney but I’ve learned a lot about psychology over the past three and a half decades yeah I’m sure you have learned different ways to navigate challenging personalities for sure yeah and I’m sure you have too yeah yeah it’s it’s interesting as you learn what works with different people and everybody has their things that they need that are different from someone else and just understanding that is very helpful yeah absolutely um what about uh the success rate of collaborative getting to the conclusion is that uh any different to um you know litigated divorces uh you said sometimes they’re a lot faster but do some of them I guess I’m guessing some just can’t come to conclusion and then they have to change course away from collaborative yeah so um I for personally my success rate is right around 95% I mean it’s uh it’s unusual for a collaborative case to fail okay um and every the another good thing about collaborative I probably didn’t say before is that everybody is invested in the success of the collaborative process both attorneys are invested in the success both neutrals are invested in the success and um some people see this as a great positive and some people can see it as a negative but the statute says that the attorneys have to agree if it’s a collaborative case to withdraw if it fails and not go forward with the litigation now the reason for that the Florida Supreme Court put in there or the legis was that it wanted to remove any incentive of the attorneys to cause it to fail so that they would make more money in litigation now brilant that would be unethical lawyers are not supposed to do that and I would hope and pray my colleagues would not do that but U that takes away any incentive of the attorneys um to not want it to succeed yeah ABS is another I should just say there is an offshoot of collaborative that looks identical to collaborative and it’s called Cooperative it’s not actually fully under the statute like collaborative is the attorneys don’t sign the disqualification Clause that says they have to withdraw bills in Cooperative case the attorneys may stay on if it uh if the Cooper case fails um and sometimes clients get very attached to their attorneys and they don’t want to lose them yeah the client wants it to be cooperative sometimes the attorneys want it to be cooperative okay I’ve I’ve done both and surprisingly The Cooperative cases settle uh as much as the uh collaborative cases in my experience nice and the Cooperative also still uses the financial and mental health neutrals yes and all my really yeah all of my cases I use both of the neutrals technically under the statute the um statute only requires the parties to have collaboratively trained attorneys um and doesn’t require the neutrals however I think the neutrals are of great benefit and as I said before our cost savings to the clients because they can do the things for less money um I would be open to doing a collaborative without out if if the clients insisted on it but I do encourage the clients to have the mental health and the financial neutrals and the financial neutral do they uh just focus with the clients kind of on how to split assets or do they actually even work with the clients on when this is done this is what your budget looks like this is you know what what you can expect with uh what financial situation you’re going to be in post divorce yeah so the um the financial neutral can do a uh financial affidavit for each client to see what their expenses are and uh compare that to their income um assets and liabilities too and they can also do um like what’s called a lifestyle analysis and that’s often done in terms of uh alimony like what are what is their need going to be after the divorce is final uh for spousal supporter alimony so let’s say um well let’s flip it mom makes 10,000 net a month and dad makes 2,000 net a month probably going to be some alimony there we have a new Statute in Florida uh the legislature passed July 1st the governor signed it’s been in the works for years um where the legislature did away with permanent alimony so we don’t have permanent alimony anymore but it enshrined for durational alimony a formula and so we can use that formula now we’ve never had a formula in Florida for uh statutory alimony and I could get into the details but probably beyond the scope of this sure but the financial neutral can use that with the lifestyle analysis with the financial affidavits to let let’s say the parties both know how much money they’re going to need to cover their expenses in the future right yeah that’s so important I think setting your expectations like especially the first few years post divorce it’s going to be an adjustment for many people yeah and there’s a savings to the clients too because instead of the husband hiring a financial expert and then the wife ing a financial expert and then them having different opinions or whatever because of who they represent and then maybe having to file to hire a third Financial expert you you avoid all that that happens in litigation and you just go with the one Financial neutral and I’ll say this too the financial neutrals are neutral in the sense that they don’t give advice to either client only the lawyers get the clients advice and the neutrals um what they learn in the case is not confidential what their attorneys learn in the case is confidential and then finally the neutrals are not allowed to continue on representing either client after the collaborative case because that would have shown maybe some bias so they you know if you have a financial neutral that um deals with uh selling Financial products they can’t sell Financial products to either client after the collaborative case unless there is an exception I hate to get into the weeds but there’s that’s great there’s something called Allied professionals 

Allied professionals are not the neutrals they’re brought in in addition believe it or not some cases might bring in a realtor or a divorce coach or um a financial advisor who then yes that person can come in and still sell products or represent the clients after the collaborative but not the neutrals okay that’s very interesting yes and then um so do the two lawyers and the two main neutrals meet together alone without the parties just to go over the details and or if there’s a sticking point or is it are anytime there’s like a meeting with all parties of the professionals are the clients participating that’s another great question so um there will typically be a professionals call meaning the two lawyers and the two neutrals just the four before the first collaborative team meeting which includes the clients right to prepare for it to figure out what are the issues the financial neutral will then end up meeting with the clients before the first collaborative team meeting and getting the documents they need to present the equitable distribution worksheet or whatever they call it they have different names for it I call it equitable distribution worksheet sure mental health neutral will meet then with them before but um in every collaborative team meeting they’re typically three hours the first half hour is the professionals meet for that 30 minutes before the full meeting to be fully prepared for all the issues that are going to happen and the client show up for two hours and then the professionals meet for the last 30 minutes to debrief and to make plans for what’s going to happen uh before the next meeting ah okay there is one other person believe it or not that um I often recommend to the clients and the team to have at the collaborative team meetings and that is a quote notetaker they are free they do not charge for their time they’re learning it’s an opportunity for them to see a collaborative case they may have never have handled one and they want to get an experience to see what it’s like so they’re going to volunteer their time they’re going to take all the notes from the meeting so it frees up the lawyers and the neutrals to focus on what they’re doing rather than sitting down taking notes right then the not taker we’ll type them up send them to the team we all look at them you know make whatever adjustments are necessary and it’s it’s a thing of beauty because yeah I really don’t like taking the notes during the meeting because I want to yeah you want to be able to really focus and keep everything moving and Converse and notice the nonverbals and anything like that which I hope I’m not giving too much detail because I know it’s it’s a lot right to take no I think this is so helpful people I think the hardest part about divorce since most of us haven’t gone through it is it’s like a black box that you have no idea what to expect and the more you know like knowledge is power and the more you know what to expect and so I think sometimes the details like people might get a little overwhelmed but at least they know what to expect expect and so that’s why I feel like a channel like this is really helpful to provide the details behind the scenes so that people can make the best decisions for themselves yeah that’s really such a great point because I always meet with my clients before the first collaborative team meeting to kind of paint a picture of what to expect I even say where everybody’s going to sit it’s going to be in my conference room there’s going to be an easel over there with his oversized Post-it note thing that you know we’re going to write your goals and your spouse’s goals and then you pull those off they have a sticky on the back and you stick them on the wall and we’ll have them at all the meetings and so the goals are one of the most important things to really consider because it sets the tempo for the first meeting and if you can get agreement on the first three or four goals W with your spouse it just helps facilitate the process and helped reach a settlement that much more quickly nice well I will say kudos to you for doing such a good job preparing and giving them a good expectation of what the meeting’s going to look like and because I will say I don’t think all lawyers do that um I don’t feel like there was a lot of expectation setting or picture painting for me and a lot of my my clients feel like they’re not getting enough information or expectation setting and then again you feel like you’re navigating in the dark and so I think great lawyers obviously do a good job with that but there are a lot of people who don’t get that and you know it’s just it can be very confusing and overwhelming because you just are like showing up to meetings and you have no idea what to expect so I really believe in practicing the Golden Rule I mean doing to others as you would have them doing to you and I that’s how I would want to be treated I would want to know what to expect I would want uh to to know that my attorney really cares about me I would want to know that they’re going to communicate they’re going to return my phone call if I have a question or if I send an email um because the the worst thing for a client is to be out in the dark and feel like they’re not getting responses you know I often say that to a client like if they call you it’s almost like every minute they’re waiting for a response is like an hour every hour is like a day like every day is like a week so my goal is to get back to every client every day before the end of the day if I haven’t gotten back to the client by the end of the day I’m going to call them on my way home I’m going to make sure all my s are made taken care of so then when I walk in the door at home hopefully I can give my attention to my family and actually disengage a little bit I will admit I do check emails at night too just because I don’t want clients waiting until the next morning but I do have some some boundaries there I like to have some healthy boundaries but I do really you know put my clients um first I guess and I try to do what I how I would want to be treated that’s wonderful yeah boundaries are important but it’s really nice to uh put yourself in the shoes of what the clients are feeling and try to give them the support that they need as fast as possible it’s great yeah um just uh I thought we could uh close with when you talked about uh giving your family attention and your own Hobbies we’ve talked a little bit about your interest in horiculture and growing fruit um so I thought it’d be nice for you to tell us a little bit about your personal Hobby and why you love it and what that looks like well great question I love to talk about this topic I mean I think it’s really important for lawyers for everyone to have other interests that or passions that really fill them and in some sense complete them and and bring joy into their lives 

so I have always loved  working Outdoors um it’s almost a little embarrassing but I have 26 avocado trees in my yard wow and um yeah and I have a total of about 80 fruit bearing trees in my yard I know it’s crazy um what do you do with all the fruit well I give them to my clients I bring them to collaborative meetings I give them to my uh Team here at the office nice um I I just enjoy growing them and you know like avocados okay like most people think I’ll ask them how many different varieties of avocados you think there are and a lot of people say well there’s two there’s that big green one and the little pebbly one or whatever um honestly there are over a thousand avocado varieties worldwide believe so I have um 22 different varieties of avocados my goal is to I picked varieties that produce at different times of the year so my goal is to have avocados year round um I actually have them on a spreadsheet a lot of my trees are younger so they’re not uh producing last year I had Seven Trees producing this year it looks like I may have H 14 trees so it’s wble and um little known secret I just bought two new avocado trees and pots that in the spring I’m going to plant so I will have 28 avocado trees in my yard yes nice well you must have a pretty big yard in order to have that many trees yes and I don’t have much grass left because it’s mostly trees now but it’s something I really just enjoy and really the trees aren’t that much work um once you get them established you know it’s not like uh growing vegetables that you’re always weeding around I do mulch them and and fertilize them but um it’s really not that much for yeah yeah talking about something that brings you Joy that’s really something that I work with my clients as they are coming out of a divorce like to reconnect with themselves and find whatever it is that brings them Joy whether it’s gardening or dancing or you know learning an instrument but something that either they’ve always wanted to do or used to do and it fell out of it and you know just remembering that you can bring yourself joy and you need to find those things again absolutely another thing I just find joy in is my um I have a boxer dog and he’s my seventh boxer I’ve had boxers my entire life he’s always with me in the yard he’s always ready to go for a walk he’s always you know yeah wanting me to psychic right and having pets is I have a cat too I had never been a cat person until my daughter and my wife started wanting to have cats and so now we have four cats in the house and one of them yeah one of them for some reason has picked me and wants to be on me all the time so um I guess I can’t deny it anymore I guess I’m a bit of a cat person too yeah I think once you end up having a good cat uh you kind of change if you think you don’t like them yeah for sure yeah so um if my if people who are watching want to get a hold of you uh how do they reach you or where can they find more information so probably the best way is just to call the office it’s the marks Law Firm we’re uh just north of downtown on Magnolia Street um the number is 407 872 3161 I hardly ever give out the website so I always have to look it’s www.m marksa la.com that’s m r KS uh L A wfla.com we have a website you can see that um we have a lot of five star Google reviews and um we have oh I I actually started a YouTube channel during the pandemic I think I shot about 130 videos so I have a lot of videos on topics for clients a lot of my existing clients really like to watch them because like I have a four-part series on the 20 factors that the court has to consider in a custody case and broke it into four uh videos each focusing on five of the factors so that saves my clients you know a couple hours of me explaining it to them abely so they can watch it for free on my uh YouTube channel the healthy family law attorney and you there’s a link to it on our website yeah and I’ll put links to all of these in the description but yeah I’ve watched some of your videos and they’re really informative so I definitely recommend people to take a look it was uh it was something new and different when I started I I don’t know how good the first ones were but I kind of got a little bit more comfortable as I um went on yeah I enjoyed it I and I’ve really enjoyed this too you’ve been a a a great interviewer here oh well thank you I I enjoy it too I I like asking questions that I’m really curious about and I feel like I learned so much just by listening so so yeah well you’re you’re good and inquisitive and I hope I provided some helpful information today so for you and and of course your viewers yeah well thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate it well thank you for having me on and I’ve really enjoyed myself thank you good good good all right take care okay you

01:48:56

reclaiming my sense of myself and my own power and
voice and healing my nervous system from even the  upheaval of divorce

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