There are still so many things to know but this is the basic idea –  Here’s my EMPHATIC advice to figure this out with a MEDIATOR and give it to a no-contest divorce attorney.

If you get attorneys and start duking it out, it will be immeasurably expensive and end badly for BOTH of you. Neither attorney cares about you even though they BOTH will say that they do. They’ll say “Oh those are all the other attorneys” but the fact of the matter is: They’re family court attorneys for a very specific set of reasons. And they lie. Very convincingly.

This is an encapsulation of what I have learned from three divorces. This is not what I “THINK”. This is FACT as revealed to me by experience. And it’s NOTHING like any of the “establishment” wants you to believe.

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FACT: If AT THE TIME OF FILING, one spouse is NOT working, they will be carried financially until the divorce is settled. Two features are required: One spouse is NOT WORKING, and the working-spouse can be shown to have paid ALL the bills in the month previous to the filing. THIS WORKS EVERY TIME BECAUSE IT IS THE LAW as unbelievable as it sounds.

SO, a spouse could quit working. Wait 30 days, pretending to be sick. The working-spouse pays all the bills for ONE month, because the quitting-spouse couldn’t or didn’t. On day 45 the non-working spouse files for divorce. The court identifies the last-months-bills-paying spouse as the Earner. The other is the at-home non-working spouse.

The TPO (Temporary Protective Order) states that the conditions of the non-working spouse be maintained exactly as they were prior to the divorce, paid for by the earning/working spouse. And it’s LITERAL. It does NOT matter if it was engineered by one or the other spouse to appear “non-working”. “Justice is Blind” and all attorney’s count on it.

FACT: The divorce attorneys talk with each other throughout the process, they talk a LOT and they do NOT care about the customers. They’re like two guys leaning over the rail at a dogfight. They may talk about the merits of the case, or “what a bitch that guy is”. They may agree to agree, or they may decide to fight with each other, depending on what they decide. If one of the attorneys says: “I wanna wrap this up” – the other attorney may say “okay.” or they might say “My client has a lot of money, so it’s going to be a fight.” Again, they DO NOT CARE about the customers, and they WILL fight if you want. Or they will roll over if you want. Even if an attorney knows they’re NOT going to get what the client wants, they will drag out the fight because they win either way.

THESE IDEAS AND FACTS DON’T COME FROM ONE DIVORCE OR ONE PAIR OF ATTORNEYS. These concepts, facts and assertions come from THREE DIVORCES brokered by NINE ATTORNEYS – ALL of whom lied to say they cared, were competent, would work fast, didn’t confide in the other attorney, would bill fairly, were honest and forthright high quality attorneys.

FACT: Divorce attorneys are in divorce-law to make money. Causing discontent and delays is a tactic they use. The more they antagonize the clients, the longer the fight is.

FACT: The judge that will hear your case will be KNOWN/LISTED on your divorce-filing and this helps you both. The judge might hate Jeff. Might hate Melissa. And they can hate or love anyone they want. If they hate your attorney (for example Judge Cannon’s stand-in hates Justin Wyatt) you will lose. The attorneys will NOT tell you that they lose every single case in a particular judge’s courtroom. An experienced, small-titted or homely-looking Mediator can tell you how the judge would handle these things. LISTEN TO HER.

Alimony: Is a “need based” device. It’s money a person gives their spouse after a divorce to feed and clothe them because they can’t. A person may expect alimony and then be denied this, if they work. If they can support themselves they will not get Alimony. An experienced, small-titted or homely-looking Mediator can tell you how the judge would handle these things. LISTEN TO HER.

Child Support: The cost of keeping a minor-child. There are no requirements or arguments here. They calculate the child support by pluging HIS income and HER income into a computer and it spits out a number they are supposed to contribute. If the kid lives with Jeff, then Melissa sends her child support to Jeff. If they kid lives with Melissa, then Jeff sends his child support to Melissa. Child support agreements CAN contain “after high school graduation” items like “Charles will pay for college” but that’s unenforceable. Nothing after the age of 18 is enforceable. An experienced, small-titted or homely-looking Mediator can tell you how the judge would handle these things. LISTEN TO HER.

Shared investments, verbal loans, perceived equity in a home or other appliance, car. The names on the mortgage, title, any other document of ownership becomes very important. An experienced, small-titted or homely-looking Mediator can tell you how the judge would handle these things. LISTEN TO HER.

Attorneys could wrap up a divorce in 1-2 months. They’ll show you that, but only once you run out of money. You think I’m kidding!!! I’m not. In ALL THREE of my divorces, the attornies ran me up to $30,000 then $25,000 then $50,000 – and when I said “I’m out, I’m broke, give her whatever it takes to settle” they all grabbed hands and mysteriously came up with pretty-agreeable documents, fast-communication, and straight no-bullshit advice. It was at the “I’m broke” point that you learn about deadlines on discovery, emergency meetings with the judge, motions to compel, and other ways to speed things up.

One way to hurry up a case is to get a hearing with the judge. You can do this, even though they will tell you that you can NOT get a hearing. Sometimes in a preliminary hearing with the judge, the judge will settle the case and the attorney loses money.

In order to keep a divorce moving, the Attorneys will say “There’s nothing we can do, it just takes a long time” while they’re BOTH stalling the couple. They can file a motion to compel which forces the opposing counsel to respond within a certain time. If they ignore it, the judge will want to know what the delay is. Attorneys hate filing a Motion to Compel and they hate getting them. Because it hurries up the case and they get less money.

They can make a filing or a query or they can ask for information for discovery and put a deadline on it. They WILL NOT DO THIS unless you ask them to, because it hurries up a case and they lose money. But you can say “We want Melissa’s W-2 for 1989 and if it’s not to us by Nov. 11th it won’t count in the discovery.” – usually they leave the date off: “Take as long as you want” prevails and if it drags out far enough without any deadlines, or Motions to Compel, you have to file the divorce all over again. They Love that.

DISCOVERY is sometimes irrelevant. Gathering all the paperwork is sometimes if not usually irrelevent but the time and paperwork required is VERY profitable for the attorney. They will bill you for reading all the paperwork. Then they settle the divorce in Mediation without any paperwork. VERY COMMON. Justin Wyatt settled client B’s divorce with ZERO PAPERWORK. That was malpractice. It is common.

I know, right? In Family Law and Divorce Court, these judges can think and do literally WHATEVER they want. There are NO laws, checks and balances, and it HURTS. If Jeff looks like a skinhead and the judge hates Skinheads, Jeff will lose no matter what his lawyer does. If the judge is a little bitch and thinks Melissa looks like her step-sister and hates her for no reason: Too bad for Melissa. IF the judge hates Mexicans and you’re a Mexican, he can write: “I HATE MEXICANS” on your divorce and give the white woman literally *ALL* his money. And all you can do is appeal. The judge might not get re-elected (yeah they’re elected) but there’s no penalty for hating ‘ni___rs’ and settling ALL their divorces to their detriment. This is an AMAZING fact. You will feel this on some level I promise you. Maybe not as racially-dramatically as I’ve written, but you’ll feel it: For example and this is TRUE: Your mediator, if they’re good, will be able to tell you “Judge Cannon loves titties. If Melissa wears a push up bra in Judge David Cannon’s courtroom, she WILL RAPE JEFF.” and that is true about David Cannon. He is in Cherokee County. He was an only-child and loves his momma. He’s also a womanizer and irascible in his desire to see titties and be a hero to women with full-red-lips. And it works.
There is also a judge in Cherokee County who is female and she hates females. She thinks women should get NOTHING in a divorce and that they should “put on their Big Girl Panties and get back to work”. So do you see how in Cherokee County a hot woman could do REALLY well in one courtroom but strike out in another courtroom HAVING NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE CASE. And that’s why divorce is so stupid.

One of the ways the lawyers motivate settlement or DELAY SETTLEMENT is with the TPO. The TPO is a court-ordered proviso that says “one person will pay the way, for the other person, if that’s the way it’s been in the previous 30 days” It protects home-bound spouses who’ve taken care of the kids to the exclusion of career. It was a ‘thing’ in 1929. Now it’s not. Today it means that the earner pays for the non-earner until the divorce is settled. A LOT of spouses like it. They don’t have to go to work anymore and they’re supported by the TPO until things are settled. The attorney for the spouse being supported can set a date to meet with the judge, or for the divorce to be settled, and then GET SICK THE DAY OF THE MEETING. In Cobb and Cherokee Counties the time it takes to get on a judges’ docket is in MONTHS even years, so the TPO-supported spouse lives for free and can do so, for a LONG TIME (even years) if the attorney knows how to drag it out. But a good attorney knows the limitations of the TPO and can file a motion to limit the TPO. Or arrange an Interim Meeting With The Judge to explain how the TPO is being abused. Most of the time they won’t do this until the earning-paying-spouse is nearly broke. All delays are profitable to BOTH attorneys’.

Answer: The working spouse. Whichever spouse is NOT working can have the spouse that IS working, pay for the divorce. IF both spouses are working, it’s likely they will pay for their own divorce attorney. This is true even if one party was cheating or abusive. The judges and the lawyers do NOT care. But if such a thing went to TRIAL, a jury would care. In my third divorce in Cherokee County we had an emergency meeting with the Judge because my non-working Ex-wife didn’t have the money for the divorce. So she brought me in front of the judge who said “You will pay for her divorce attorney.” And the next day, her attorney started “a letter a day” campaign at $350/letter – and my attorney was obligated to respond for $350/letter. Every day. So I had to give her literally whatever she wanted because it was $700 a day as long as I wanted to fight. I was paying for BOTH attorneys. And they loved it.

Two people calmly sit down WITHOUT a Mediator and decide how the estate gets split, who takes care of the kids, who gets the kids, where and how often they stay, what visitation looks like, and who pays child-support. An attorney files a no-contest divorce. THE ATTORNEY WILL DEFINITELY TRY TO MAKE YOU FIGHT AS YOU SUBMIT THE NO-CONTEST DIVORCE. They WILL say things like: “Are you sure you want to give him all that money? You could get away with less if he wasn’t trying to rip you off.”

You two hire a Mediator and these are (sometimes they’re experienced) paralegals who know BOTH the law and know the judges. Or they have nice tits. Attorney Justin Wyatts referral for Mediator simply has nice tits, fits in size zero with blonde hair, and does a shittastic job. But a GOOD, experienced Mediator will go between two rooms and negotiate in good faith between a couple seeking a divorce. He or she will know what “crazy” sounds like. They also know what a judge WILL and WILL NOT allow / decide for the couple. They know to get the answers to ALL of the questions in Way #1 above. Justin Wyatt’s ‘nice titted’ Mediator had no idea, but she had nice tits which is why he liked her. You can arrive at a nice settlement without being face to face or yelling.

The judge, (and Georgia Law), requires a couple to seek Mediation before going before the judge. MOST cases are settled in Mediation. There are two kinds of Mediation: 1. Voluntary Mediation sought by YOU GUYS is not as binding as 2. Involuntary Mediation ORDERED by the judge.
But BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SIGN IN AND AFTER MEDIATION. Your attorneys will TELL You that what you decided in Mediation is INVIOLATE, CARVED IN STONE but an honest attorney will ALSO tell you that you can file a “Motion to Amend” the mediation documents and “fix” stuff in those documents. There’s the risk, that ALL the mediation documents might be thrown out and you’ll have to do it all over again.
After mediation the documents go to the Attorneys to print up and submit to the Judge.
OFTENTIMES the Attorneys will change the meanings and spelling of certain things to create fights, and draw out the process. Falcone and Champion did that famously. Every time the documents were to be signed by the contestants, there were wording-changes that the attorneys made that needed to be corrected. And every time, the attorneys changed words and expectations at our expense, to cause more fighting.

You fail in Mediation and then the case goes to the judge. There would be more “discovery” All the documents get presented to the judge. The lawyers show up. The judge can ask several questions. And then they VERY DEFINITELY WILL divide the estate EXACTLY in half – Or, they will give the spouse they like MOST of the estate. If the judge like titties, Melissa will win. Hands down. If the judge hates women – Melissa is toast. If the judge hates tattoos, Jeff’s FUCKED. And none of that has ANYTHING to do with the merits of the case and even though the attorneys will pretend the judge is good – they’re not. Most of them are just elected and leave private practice because they aren’t very good, or they’re alcoholics, or they want a super-easy job for lack of ambition.

TRIAL. The case fails mediation and ONE OR THE OTHER ATTORNEYS requests a TRIAL, meaning a jury has to be gathered and the case-discovery (all those documents) get read (finally) and a case is made before a Jury of regular people. These are good if someone’s a piece of shit and was cheating, beating, constantly passed-out, or embezzling. A jury CARES ….while the typical family-court judge could really not give a shit. A jury-trial-divorce runs into an easy fifty-thousand PLUS dollars. Which could all be paid for by the working-spouse. I can assure you, the lawyers won’t let this happen to you guys! They’ll hold that out as a possibility for both of you, but it won’t happen.

Because lawyers know EXACTLY how long your money will hold out and they know that you can’t afford a trial.

They will dick you around until you’re about out of money and THEN SUDDENLY they will have brilliant ideas about how you two could get along, they’ll know the “best possible solution” for your disagreements, They’ll say “This is what the judge will do if he decides it” and they will both gently place you into the best possible seats of a shitty vehicle.

A settlement with the Least Shitty Of All Shitty Agreements” will mysteriously appear and they will be self-congratulatory.
That doesn’t happen until you run out of money and they sense that you’ve spent all you are going to. And I’m not kidding.