Speaker 1: 0:00

She wanted someone with more experience and I totally understood that I didn't even push it. I did ask her if she felt that she had a good consult, if she would be kind enough to leave me a review on Google, and she did. She left me a super nice review, smart move, my man.

Speaker 2: 0:13

Yeah, thanks, Smart move. I like to hear that. Well, hello and welcome to the Jay Sterling Hughes Show, where we share how we have built our family law practice from zero to 25 plus attorneys all in the past 10 years and 15 million in revenue. And my purpose here is to document what's working and what's not working, with hopes that you can take, that you can recontextualize it and shorten your success curve. My name is Jeff Hughes and I'm your host and we're back again following Tom Harden.

Speaker 2: 0:41

I'm so excited about this podcast today I literally have been like waking up thinking about this Tom, wanting to like get a sneak peek, but I wanted to save like my exuberance and excitement for the actual podcast so we can get my emotions yeah, authentic emotions here. So this is I think, our seventh or eighth podcast and we're following Tom as he's starting up his family law firm in New York Long Island area and he launched on July 29th was his launch date. It was kind of a soft launch date, Tom. I know you had vacation in August. You didn't even start your advertising until the end of August, on the 26th, but we have already had success and September is following August and it's already gangbusters. So let's go back, and I'm imagining that there's our people on this listening to this podcast who haven't heard the story yet. So you started on the 29th of July.

Speaker 1: 1:28

Tell us what happened after that? Yes, let's start from there. So on July 29th I started two jobs. I started this new firm and I started kind of back as my old job as a patent attorney doing like some contract work. So I'm kind of splitting like two days a week as a patent attorney and three days a week doing my family law firm. So July 29th was kind of my return to patent law and also the start of this family law firm which, you know, obviously at some point the family law firm will get big enough that I'll plan to step away from patent law in general.

Speaker 1: 1:57

So I, going back to July 29th, that was when I launched and shortly after had my and you remember, my website was running for a little bit before that, but kind of in the background I wasn't really doing anything. My website launched and it was there but I, you know there was no content being published, nothing. You know I wasn't accepting phone calls, anything like that. I was very careful with, you know, not not any any conflict of interest with my previous job. So once I left that job, which I believe was on the 26th of July, then I was able to start answering phone calls, publishing some content, stuff like that. So, as of July 29th and into early through mid-August, I had a presence on Google Maps. Obviously, I had no SEO presence yet I still really don't, which you know. That's not surprising. I had a presence on Google Maps in a really small like kind of confined to my zip code, and even within my own zip code I wasn't really ranking number one yet. Again, not surprising.

Speaker 1: 2:49

So we're covering, like you said, covering the period of August 1st through August 31st, and I also had a pre-planned family vacation from August 18th through August 20th. Not the best timing, but unfortunately this was planned back in January. Back in January I had no idea of launching a family law firm was in my head at that point. So things moved rapidly and so, needless to say, for the month of August my phone was not ringing off the hook, did start running Google ads on August 26th and, as you said, september has been kind of the opposite, been a little bit crazy with the amount my phone's ringing, the cases that I of the opposite, been a little bit crazy with the amount my phone's ringing, the cases that I'm handling. There's a lot going on.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Going back to August, I signed a whopping one client for a low fixed fee and that client had turned out to be a bit of a mess, and thankfully not on my part, and thankfully I spent a lot of time putting together my fee agreement. I got one from you, I got one. James Joseph also was generous to give me his agreement. I got one from another friend of mine who's a family attorney out of state kind of like, merged them like all into one, added some of my own stuff, just kind of made my own, double checked with the laws of New York State yeah, and so thankfully I can get into why that that let's uh, let's go back and stay in august right now, just because we can get this month by month.

Speaker 2: 4:11

How many consults total did you have in oxen? Can't be generous in your description of consults. I know you had some calls, so whatever one of those initial calls kind of rose to the level of the consult, include that in there, just so we can get some good numbers here.

Speaker 1: 4:25

Sure. So I had three consults and you recall what each of those were for. So two, obviously three consults, one of them signed. Would you like me to discuss the ones that didn't sign first?

Speaker 2: 4:35

Just tell me, the two that didn't sign. What was the nature of those cases? And then we can talk about the one that signed.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Yeah, and so actually I had some questions for you relating to the second one here that didn't sign. So let's start with those. So first consult one of them. This was a divorce case Actually had a really great meeting with her, but she, this lady, she was doing her due diligence.

Speaker 1: 4:55

She was interviewing four attorneys and there were some complex issues in her case. Mostly, her husband owned a business and she thought he was hiding money and she like had idea that he had like some Bitcoin and that he might have had. He was from another country, I think. He was hiding some money there. There was a lot of like kind of complex stuff going on.

Speaker 1: 5:14

So when she left the console room actually I felt really good about that one I kind of I left and I was her first of four, which kind of puts me in a bad position, but, you know, I thought it went really well. We, you know, on a personal level, the interactions went really well and I felt good about it. She did call me the following week and she expressed that she like really liked meeting with me. She felt the same way that we connected. She liked my personality, felt that I was really empathetic, but ultimately, given the nature of the case that there was, you know. But ultimately, given the nature of the case that there was, you know, there was a business valuation or possibly hiding some money somewhere. She wanted someone with more experience and I totally understood that. I didn't even push it. I did ask, you know, if she felt that she had a good consult, if she would be kind enough to leave me a review on Google. And she did. She left me a super hot review.

Speaker 2: 5:59

Smart move, my man. Yeah, I like to hear that. So she liked you, but she was good enough to actually call you back and say I'm not hiring you, and here's why that's gold, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:11

Yeah, you can't help the fact that you don't have that much experience. So right, well done.

Speaker 1: 6:16

So that one went very well. I absolutely didn't get that one, but I, you know nothing I do.

Speaker 2: 6:30

I don't recall what you quoted her. You don't have to give exact details, but I'm just trying to get a sense for your quote. I don't okay, because when you're describing it, you're you're talking about a very complicated case, so in my mind that's uh easily at page one, ten thousand twelve thousand fifteen thousand dollar stage.

Speaker 1: 6:36

It sounds like yeah, right, okay, so now. Now we're gonna get to that on on this side. Okay, uh, this one I had a little bit of a hiccup first one, I didn't get, um, but I I feel like I did nothing wrong on that one. Uh, so this one, I'm not to say I did anything wrong, but this was another, another case where it was an I don't want to say older woman, but she was, and you know nothing, no cases with, like, minor children, I would say probably, probably in like mid to late 50s. You know, same thing.

Speaker 1: 7:00

I thought the console went, went pretty, and she ultimately, after the consult I called her, called her once. She didn't answer, waited a couple more days. I called her again and she told me that she was going to give her husband another chance and kind of. So she told him about the divorce. He, I guess, kind of talked her into staying together and him trying to work it out, and so she said giving him one more chance, but if it doesn't work out, she definitely would give me a call back. I don't know how much of that is true, or just her being nice, I don't know. I mean she did answer the phone, so that's actually pretty common.

Speaker 2: 7:35

That's very common. I think a good third of the people who actually come see us never go to court, meaning they don't ever file. So they're there to get information. So that's very consistent. And the fact that she I mean celebrate that with her right. Hey, their marriage has a chance to stay together. So great Love that Okay.

Speaker 1: 7:50

Let's let me take a pause here. So you get, you get a case and you get a client in Wisconsin. The client says I want to sign with you and they sign the agreement. What's your first step?

Speaker 2: 8:00

in the case after they sign with yeah, okay, they need to know the next step. So, whatever that is relative to their case, the next step is gather your financial basic information together so we can do a temporary order hearing and prep for that or depends on where the case is going- Okay, my question and I think the last time we spoke again this is really probably basic family law stuff.

Speaker 1: 8:20

That just didn't cross my mind uh so my understanding, and now the way I'm like processing things, is we can kind of immediately file something with the court, right, and that that's how some cases are going to go. And I think that's probably especially true if there's issues of like, you know, we need like temporary seeking, some temporary relief, whether it's like a protective order, or she needs attorney's fees paid, or, you know, immediate custody issues, stuff like that. But in other situations so like, for example, this person here where there were no minor children, uh, they got along and marriage was just kind of fizzling negotiation you can kind of start negotiations without filing anything with the court. Just does that sound? That sounds right? Okay, so that's kind of where I was going with this one, and so I think this one was actually before my vacation and I hadn't even finalized my pricing. So I don't even think we talked about pricing. I don't think we've got there. So I told her was you know the fixed fee model? I was literally going with your model and when you had explained the model to me, in my mind every case was filed in court. That's just how I kind of thought divorce, because I've seen two divorces in my personal life and that's both how they went. Looking back now I know why. But yeah, that doesn't doesn't always have to go that way, especially in situations like this where the couple is amicable, right?

Speaker 1: 9:34

So I said I was starting to walk through the agreement and I was like again, I don't think I quoted her price, but I explained how it's going to work, that you would pay a first fee for what we call stage one, which is the first 120 days of the case, and then there's a stage two which takes us from that 120 day mark all the way through 365 days, and then a stage three if the case goes to trial. I think I quickly was like your case is not going to go to trial, your only issue is valuing the house and how the house. And? And then she asked what is the purpose of the stage one and the stage two? And I guess I hadn't given that much thought yet and the only thing I that could come to my mind was that in new york and I don't know if it's a sam in wisconsin, is it?

Speaker 1: 10:17

If you file in court, you have 120 days to file a request for judicial intervention, right? So that first 120 days you file with the court, really that first, like you could take 120 days to just like negotiate between the parties. Right, you serve summons in the complaint and, uh, it's really just negotiations. At that point, you have 120 days to request a job to be assigned to the case. So that was that was my. That was the answer that I gave. I was like 120 days, it's tied to this. And she was like but we're not filing in court, right, we're just, we're just negotiating, and so, what's like, what's, where does the 120 days come from?

Speaker 1: 10:50

and, jeff, I will, I just didn't have anything you'll have more moments like that yeah, so, uh, so, yeah, this one, uh, probably wasn't my best, yet maybe I do tend to think she was telling the truth that, uh, you know, maybe the divorce probably what's happening right now, but yeah, I don't, I don't think that was my best.

Speaker 2: 11:09

That's. That's nothing compared to more experiences like that you're going to have. So the most important thing in these consults is to connect with the client and listen. That's more important than what you did say or didn't say. If you want 80 20, that's going to matter. 80 percent of the time is how well you listen and connect it, not the actual words that came out of your mouth, right, or being surprised when she asked you that question.

Speaker 1: 11:30

I was more surprised that I didn't have an answer, because I, you know, I gave one and I was like, oh, that's the answer. And it's like, well, it doesn't make sense here. And I was just kind of like you're right. And then there's kind of like an awkward, yeah Well, and I was like you know, there needs to be some kind of breakup. I didn't, you know, I didn't, I don't want to charge one single fee between now and trial, because obviously then that's going to be a higher amount, yeah, so, you know, I have to break it up somehow, and this is the best way that we found to break it up.

Speaker 2: 12:00

I did say that eventually, but I'm sure I stumbled a little bit there. Well, the agreements I sent you were based on Wisconsin law, which requires a 120-day waiting period after filing. So that's easy for us. So we don't have that mechanism you have there where you can start negotiating and then just file everything at once. That's not something that our courts here do. So here in Wisconsin, once the action's filed and the other party is served, that starts a 120-day waiting period before the court can finalize the case. Okay, so that's how we structure our could finalize the case. Okay, so that's how we structure. Our agreements are based around that.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Okay, but even if, in like in this case, the parties want to negotiate outside of court, is your fee structure the same thing?

Speaker 2: 12:35

No, it's. It's a little different than how we'll structure it Like.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Illinois.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Illinois, Illinois. They could actually do it much faster than we can here, so our agreements down in Illinois are a little bit different than the ones up here.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Yeah, I don't. I don't think we've ever spoken about that where a case where the negotiations start and then you know my understanding you come to some kind of like stipulated agreement and you file an uncontested divorce with the court and then it just hopefully gets stamped by the judge.

Speaker 2: 13:00

We have an action down in Illinois that we call amicable agreement, where we charge him a flat fee, and that's just for what you're talking about right there.

Speaker 1: 13:09

And that's funny because that is I'm kind of like trying to like redo the fee structures in my head and that's exactly the solution that I came up with. I was like I'm going to stick to Jeff's thing for court cases because we have, you know, a little bit different, but there is like 120 day period where a judge gets assigned and then it gets a little bit more serious. Obviously you continue to go to shations, but you know, at that point the judge sets the deadlines. The clients are no longer saying it. I kind of decided I'm going to set a separate agreement for cases that are just being negotiated outside of court and then, you know, have that kind of court retainer as as a separate thing, if you know, if the negotiations fail and we need to file with the court and kind of start from scratch.

Speaker 2: 13:45

Yeah, so, yeah, let's talk about the one that actually retained. Tell us about that one, whew.

Speaker 1: 13:52

Okay, let's get to that.

Speaker 1: 13:54

So it's a woman. She's about 30. A couple years younger than me, has a child with an ex-partner. They were never married, they were living together'm gonna try to give enough to give some context to the case without saying too much. There's some substance abuse, alcohol issues involved and the basically she. You know we met.

Speaker 1: 14:13

She was really nice, I felt for her and understood her situation. She had a history of substance abuse but she had been through a rehab program that she had like a graduation certificate from and she has been in therapy after that for about six months and her ex is being like really, really difficult about letting her have, um, joint custody. He's really fighting for sole custody. And really she like hired me to kind of like attend, like kind of just like review the file and attend the negotiation with her and just kind of, you know, just kind of be someone on her side, because she had previously had a legal aid I guess she qualified legal aid and she felt like the legal aid was not, was not helping her. She, you know, couldn't get the legal aid to answer phone call, was not responding to emails. Uh, when she asked her questions, the legal aid was just like quickly getting quick answers and kind of being dismissive. Yeah, uh, so that I was like, okay, you know, in my head I I'm trying to stick to flat fee. I was like, all right, so let me a couple hours to review the file. Figure. The negotiations will be like an hour or two and then maybe, you know, maybe a little bit of time afterwards built in just as as like an extra um, so I, you know, thinking'm going to have a low billing rate at this point, probably somewhere around like $300 an hour. This is going to take about five hours. I quoted her $1,500 as flat fee for this and I completely blew the roof off of that Just because of things that happened.

Speaker 1: 15:42

So the negotiation happened two nights ago, so it was Monday night, right, today's Wednesday. Yeah, happened Monday night, still exhausted. It was unmitigated disaster, just a lot of arguing. The opposing counsel is a nightmare and I don't know. The specifics of the case are really interesting, but I don't know how much I can say. Probably not much here. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2: 16:05

Which is unfortunate. So this is a what we would call in wisconsin. I think you would call it a paternity case. Is that right? So there's not. They're not married, but they have a child together they.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Yeah, I don't think we call it a paternity case here, but yeah, you're right, they have a, that's what we call it, so whatever you call it there.

Speaker 2: 16:19

So post case is the action scheduled for a trial at this point? Are you going to still recommend her through that?

Speaker 1: 16:27

I am and I have a it is. So it's currently 3.09. She, I have another meeting with her at four o'clock in my office and I think that I am going to. The trial is scheduled for October 1st. Okay, Wow, that's quick. Yeah, that's coming up pretty quick. And I, Jeff, I know very little about, like, I think my knowledge of family law is coming together pretty good. I think my knowledge of procedural stuff, especially family court right, you learn a lot about certain procedure in law school. I mean, still that's 10 years ago. At this point I've probably forgotten most of it.

Speaker 1: 17:00

You don't know, as far as I remember, learn family court procedure. It's completely different. You know, discovery is just crazy. Will there even be any discovery at this point, with the trials coming up on October 1st?

Speaker 2: 17:14

You're going to be winging it.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Yeah, which, which is fine with me. I can handle it. And opposing counsel is I said she's nasty, she's just not a nice human being and I'm going to have a little fun with it. And I did. Just not a nice human being and I'm gonna have a little fun with it and I did. I did at the meeting. You know I go in. My intent is to always be as nice as possible. This is not a disagreement between me and me and her. It's between between the clients. But she made it personal and she every time I asked a question like that. So there's also a nafc attorney for the child I assume you have.

Speaker 1: 17:43

You have the guardian to light them okay, yeah yep, and he would like say things that he would use terms, like he used the term I remember at one point, z meeting and I was. I was like I'm sorry, can I like? Can I ask what? What do you mean by z meeting? And he meant like meeting about visitation. Okay, she rolled her eyes, jeff, like like you felt the room shake right, rolled as if I asked like well, I don't know what is child support like I don't know, I don't know what you meant by z beating, I'm sorry. And then at one point in the beginning of the meeting she called the meeting a four-way and I was like you know just, can I just confirm what you mean by that? She's like well, clearly there's four of us here, so it's a meeting between the four of us, and said it really nasty wasn't personality that yeah, and you know what I said.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Actually, there's five, which is true.

Speaker 2: 18:26

And she's not good at math either. You're good at personality and not good at math.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Just not nice. She's going to be like that at trial and I have ways to deal with that. I think my client says the judge is like is really nice. And I just think the first time she does something like that I'm just going to be like your honor. It's really hard for me to concentrate with the opposing counsel rolling her eyes next to me or something. It's going to be tough. So not only is she a little difficult to deal with, but she has been practicing family law since 1993.

Speaker 2: 18:54

She's probably going to act different in front of the judge first off. So I wouldn't-.

Speaker 1: 18:59

No, it's not going to be. I don't know. The judge had actually said something to her once.

Speaker 2: 19:02

Okay, said something to her once. Okay, well, she's got a reputation Everyone knows, so you probably don't have to say much. You probably just have to do your game and let the judge filter it out. Yeah, I would make sure you prepare your client for that, though, because a lot of times clients interpret that as effectiveness and that's the opposite.

Speaker 1: 19:16

Yes, oh, right, and I think she knows that. And yeah, I do need to prep my client. She has to like talk too much, like if asked the yes or no question. There was one time during the meeting where she just like volunteered information and I I actually kept her under the table. I wasn't sure what to do. Come stop talking, yeah. So I mean that won't be one thing I need to do. I'm gonna see if we can get her counselor to be a witness. I don't I still don't know if it's too late for me to do that. I actually spoke to her counselor. Her counselor, she called me while at her counselor's office and her counselor is like, like, absolutely loves her. I would love to get her on the stand, but again, october 1st, there's not much breathing room here.

Speaker 2: 19:52

So since October or, excuse me, since September started. So we're here on the 18th and you've already had two clients sign up since the first of this month, right?

Speaker 1: 20:01

Uh four, I've had two divorce clients and two other post-judgment clients Wow Okay. And how many consults total have you had month to date? Just four. I would have to go back and count, but I've had a pretty good closing rate. I'd say either six or seven, probably six, I think.

Speaker 2: 20:19

Okay, that is great.

Speaker 1: 20:22

And for them to sign up that quickly too. That's pretty fast. And yeah, of those, some of those consults might have been like towards the very end of august. I have to go back and check the dates. I checked when I got, like, a retainer paid and this client was the only one that paid a retainer in august. So for september, probably, at least one of those consults was in august. But so far, in terms of retainers collected, yeah, there's been four and one other that 98 confidence, confidence, she will sign Jeff. I'm almost at the point where I'm like I think I need to take a break for a couple of weeks and not accept any more clients, because, especially if this one like if on the off chance we're able to settle this one, this gives me some breathing room. But if anyone calls now, I'm kind of like I'm happy to take you, but I really can't do anything before.

Speaker 2: 21:02

October.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Do you have a sense for what you've spent in marketing dollars thus far this month? I do so. My monthly bills are very steady. I'm trying my best to keep them low. My office is $1,200 a month, which is very low by standards. Along that line, I pay Paul with Honorable Marketing, who I met through you $1,000 a month for the SEO and publish. We publish like 10 articles a month and he's in the process of doing like backlinks and all that stuff, Google ads. I'm currently running $1,500 a month. Okay, Wow, that's $3,500. And then I estimate about $4,000. There's some other little expenses. I signed up for a Lexus subscription just for family law stuff which I need. I think that's like $220 a month or something like that. And then you know other small things Adobe, Microsoft Office stuff.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Yeah, I just pay monthly, so we'll track these all separately. But just from a standpoint of marketing spend, you're going to spend about $2,500 in the month of September and thus far today you've got four clients from that. Yeah, that's right, and we've got obviously 12 days left in the month so you could add to that number, I'm sure. Yeah, I think so. Perfect, yeah, so you're spending somewhere around 800 bucks a client. Do you know what your total?

Speaker 1: 22:13

value. Probably you won't know that yet because you're so new, yeah, and so I'll back up and say one other thing because of that that whole issue with the fee agreement that I had, where she asked like 120 days and then me coming back from vacation and just and then having this, this case, going on with the negotiations. So for these divorce case, for the two divorce cases that I signed, I'd had to do them on an hourly basis. I just I didn't have time to put together a new fixed fee agreement structure or or come up with pricing or something. What part of me was like price it at like six thousand or something. I'm gonna play it safe.

Speaker 1: 22:42

I took a pretty low retainer, both of them signed with credit cards, so I'm just going to do monthly invoicing, but I hate, hate, hate tracking time. I will, I'm definitely definitely getting back to the fixed fee model, but between now and October 1st I don't think I'm going to have time to put all that stuff together. So that's probably an early October project. I had someone call today and so it hasn't paid me up, but she will Asked about prenuptial agreements and it wasn't even really something I had thought about before. I was like I'll do it. It's easy. Yeah, easy enough. There's plenty of resources out there for a prenuptial agreement. She asked how much I would charge and I quoted a flat rate of 2000 and she was like that's awesome, it is awesome.

Speaker 2: 23:21

It's low. I have no idea.

Speaker 1: 23:27

You're learning.

Speaker 2: 23:27

Man. This is great. This has been a very, very good start to your firm. So just make all the mistakes now, when the stakes are low. Yeah, I think just getting momentum is important. So I think it's great. Just get momentum going and start earning money. So you're still working two or three days a week as a patent lawyer. I am. Yeah, you're juggling a lot. I know you got two little kids and, yeah, I don't know if you can tell, I'm feeling the heat a little bit this week.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Sure, and what I really wasn't up until, like Monday evening, that's that set me, set me back a little. I had a feeling I'm going to be feeling like this until October 1st is over. So I think one thing I need to get a little better at, other than selling fixed fee. But that's, you know, that's once. I need to put the agreements together first, I kind of need to keep my patent job for a little bit longer because we've talked about this before they're providing me with help. So I'm working two days a week, maybe a couple extra hours on top of that, and, you know, making a good salary and getting help. So it would be as much as I want to just build my law firm and as much as I can.

Speaker 1: 24:26

It would be crazy to walk right now, especially until my wife goes back to work. But you know my kids are too young, they're not in school and you know she's to say, oh, mom, I like it that way. She enjoys raising the kids and you know we're happy with that agreement. But you know, if I were to go full time, fat law health insurance is probably for a family of four, probably four thousand dollars a month. Wow, yeah. So that plus the salary. I mean it'd be crazy to walk away from that. So I kind of want to until I think I'm like really really, really busy enough that my the calls just like won't go up, and I think my higher, even even though I'm not a full-time family.

Speaker 1: 25:01

I think that's that's kind of where my head is at. Talk to talk to a few people, you included, like what's the average amount of cases that an attorney handles a month? I mean at a time consecutively? I think we decided about 30. We've talked about that. So if I'm doing this halftime and gotten low halftime, if I'm at a steady 15 cases and the phone is still ringing off the hook, I think I pulled the trigger and look to hire someone, whether that's a paralegal, to kind of ease my burden, or I'm leaning towards just an attorney.

Speaker 1: 25:29

So I don't know that's where my head is at, but I do think, wow, before I get to that point, one thing I need to get better at is being a little more selective on which cases I accept and I know that sounds crazy, because I've been doing this two months and I should take everything that comes through the door. But looking back, maybe, maybe issues where there are cases where there are substance abuse issues I might stay away from for like a few months, six months or so, uh, because there's it's tough and it's hard. It's a little hard like mentally, too emotionally, which I I'm not generally one that like takes work home with them, but this one, yeah, this one's tough a little bit well.

Speaker 2: 26:04

Are there any other issues you want to mastermind and talk through?

Speaker 1: 26:08

I don't think so. My my head is just patent law and this trial. Literally I have all the all the other retainers I have. Like the divorces are both like they're not pushing me at all, they're both signed and I, like I said we're filing, both of those are being handled outside of court. Both of them paid their retainers but basically was like, uh, I'm gonna wait and talk to my husband, he'll get a lawyer and then we'll get things going. So those are naturally on a waiting period, which I'm happy about.

Speaker 1: 26:31

The other child support cases, kind of the same thing. The other one of them had like back child support. I told him, before we file something with the court, pay that. So he's going to do that. It wasn't that much, so he's paying that off. I thought it was good you know, rather than if you're filing to reduce child support, especially that he was paying child support to the mother, that the child is 18, no longer lives with the mother actively, the child at the house, wow. So you know, obviously he's going to want to file to no longer pay child support. But I said you should probably pay off the back child, the arrears, the back child support, before we file something with the court and arrears the backshot support before we file something with the court. And he was fine, he's good advice. Yeah, and that, there's that. And the prenup they said the marriage is. They don't even have a wedding day planned yet, so all waiting till after october well, great start.

Speaker 2: 27:14

Looking forward to getting back with you next month and hearing how the month closed and how october started yeah, they hopefully uh should have some and how your trial went on the first yeah, okay, all right, tom, thanks, have a great week.

Speaker 1: 27:26

Yeah, you too. Great talking to you. Jeff, thanks for having me.