Why Relationships Die & Which Ethnicity is WORST in Divorce | The Divorce Expert

YERRR NYC’s top divorce lawyer James Sexton came to get Flagrant with the guys. He explains his wildest stories from the courtroom, find out what really ruins relationships, debate whether love is a scam, and learn why all marriages already have a built in prenup that is worse than you can imagine... All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE 00:00 Intro 00:57 Public profile 3:10 K*ll instead of divorce + Hiding wealth 6:49 Being frank + repping the worst 11:22 Being the hero + Charm hiding DV 19:51 Finding out you're repping the villain 24:55 Mediating rather being adversarial 29:17 Craziest stories, Cheating & iPhone discovery 35:55 Cheating isn't always the end 43:02 Custody battles + Less you care, more advantage 50:00 Judge Trans stipulation 53:31 Weirdest way getting paid + Hooking up? 59:31 You should get a PRE-NUP 1:12:07 Child support 1:13:36 Why does alimony exist? 1:20:50 March Madness + Brackets fun 1:26:02 Why get married? 1:43:27 This could all be easier 1:53:08 Let's rebrand pre-nup + No fault divorces 1:59:49 Pitted against each other + Estate planning 2:06:01 Good faith bad advice 2:09:08 Stereotypes are a real time saver 2:14:14 How do you define infidelity? 2:16:34 Legal marriage origins 2:19:35 Who has the most volatile divorces? 2:21:54 What was Jim's divorce like? 2:23:49 Politics driving divorce + Pettiest divorces 2:28:56 No issue repping the bad guy 2:31:09 Religiosity impacting marriage 2:36:42 What makes marriage successful? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Why is it rude to say to someone, "You guys are getting along, you're in love, you're having fun. Why do you want to get the government involved?" What most people call "love" today was something that was invented in the 50s to sell shampoo. Wow. All three of you have a prenup. The government wrote it. You think that's a good idea? You ever been to the DMV? You ever walk into the DMV and go, "These people should be in charge of everything."

• 0:23Speaker 01

  You are pro-marriage, you're just anti-marriage without a prenup.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  People want to do dumb shit.

• 0:29Speaker 00

  You want to do some dumb shit, do some dumb shit. Just admit you're doing some dumb shit.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  What is your craziest divorce that you lost?

• 0:35Speaker 00

  I shouldn't say this in public, but I will. Her husband ran her over three times and stabbed her 16 times.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  Who's the worst in divorce? Culturally, ethnically, racially?

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Sometimes stereotypes are a real time saver. Let's just call that it.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Russian women, in my experience professionally, they get fucking ice cold. When you're married to a Russian woman, there's nothing she won't do for you. And when you're divorcing a Russian woman, there is nothing she won't do to you. Like, she will fuck your shit right up.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Is there anything that you've learned through all these divorces about what makes marriages successful?

• 1:08Speaker 00

  I've learned a lot by being a divorce lawyer about what keeps people together. What I've learned, I would say more than anything else, is just pay attention. People get divorced the same way they go bankrupt. Very slowly, and then all at once.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  What's up, everybody? Welcome to Flagrant. And today's guest, I just want to point out, was not suggested by any of the people that were sitting here.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  All happily married or in great relationships, and none of us would suggest such a guest, okay? A prolific guest, mind you. Okay, we got Jim Saxon here. The world's... The world's most, um... murderous divorce attorney. Wow.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  That's going on the website.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  The world's most murderous divorce attorney.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Show of Netflix fame.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  Really, yeah.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Obviously, obviously, you're incredibly successful. We've seen a bunch of the content that you've put up out on the internet, like mostly interviews that you've done. It's kind of interesting because you've been this divorce attorney for decades. And now you have like a public profile about your job.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  So bizarre.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  So bizarre. I can't actually stand still anywhere in New York City.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Because people know you.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Someone coming up going, you're that divorce lawyer, you know?

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  The problem is when you do, like if you're gonna be known for a viral clip, don't be wearing the same outfit you wear every fucking day.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Like Batman.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Because there's no way to cam- it's like your mustache.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  Like if you change that shit, you could probably get away with it for a few days. Yeah, you could blend right in, but.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Maybe that's what I'm playing.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Without that, that's what you gotta do. You wanna take a week or two off and just get that right out. That's my advice. Free right there.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Are you in Saleno and Barnes for us New Yorkers?

• 2:44Speaker 00

  Wow. Wow. I could be both Saleno and Barnes.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Man, that's a high.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  They had a bad breakup. Did you work on that before?

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Get out of myself, yeah. You know, it's.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  That's a deep cut New York reference. I just wanted to know. These were like iconic New York lawyers. And it was like one of the first like call lines for law advice, right? Like 1-800-888-8888.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  Saleno and Barnes.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Here's your reattorney. 1-800-888-8888. There was a lot of eights.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  They had the most brutal breakup, like epic level breakup. And then, then what's his?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  One of them died in a plane crash.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Which is like, you know, here you go. Like you finished this brutal hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to get away from each other and then one of you dies.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Fuck.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  That's pretty lucky for you.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. The other guy, he was like, shit, I could have saved some counsel.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  How many people just kill their wife instead of divorcing them?

• 3:37Speaker 00

  Surprising number of people killed.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Have you ever been involved in one of those cases?

• 3:41Speaker 00

  I've never had one where someone was killed. I did have a client who her husband or estranged husband, now ex-husband, ran her over three times and stabbed her 16 times.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  This is during the divorce?

• 3:53Speaker 00

  During the divorce. And she survived. Like this guy couldn't even get that shit right. Like. Stabs two and six three times, run him over three times and she's alive to tell the tale and he's in fucking prison.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Okay, so she got a hundred percent in the end, probably, right?

• 4:09Speaker 00

  She got a hundred percent. She also had to get like another kidney and some other things. So she lost out.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Probably can afford that on the black market.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean with the amount of money, yeah, she did alright.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  Now, what role do you play in that?

• 4:20Speaker 00

  I wasn't like the lookout, if that's what you mean.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  There she is! Meaning like, how much pressure were you putting on him?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  A lot, yeah, a lot. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when you're dealing with like high net worth and ultra high net worth divorces.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  What is high net worth?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  So high net worth is generally defined as a divorce where the estate is more than ten million dollars. Ultra high net worth is over a hundred million dollars.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  So, that's, it's a different level in some ways because you're fighting over bigger numbers, it's harder to track the values. A lot of the stuff that people do for like wealth preservation and tax avoidance.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Like, super, super rich people don't own anything. They have trusts that own LLCs, that are beneficiaries of, they're like great grandchildren that haven't been born yet, own everything and they just borrow it from them. Yeah, so that's why they pay like less in taxes than a guy who works at Burger King.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  So it's unbelievable.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Because they're not actually generating income.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  No.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  And you only pay tax on income. I guess you could pay capital gains too, but like...

• 5:20Speaker 00

  But not if you do it the right way. Like, so what happens is these people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to accountants and tax attorneys to make sure they don't have to pay taxes. But they don't anticipate that when they get divorced, this is just gonna blow up in your face.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Wait, why, why is it?

• 5:35Speaker 00

  Because it makes it so complicated to figure out where is the money, what is marital, what is outside the scope of the marital estate, what can the judge get their hands on, what can't they get their hands on? So it becomes a really, really tricky, messy thing.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Do you prefer the high, the ultra high net worth clients, those cases?

• 5:52Speaker 00

  I mean, they pay their bill on time, which is nice.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  But outside of payment, like, is it just more stressful, is it more grueling, is it...

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Um, you know, I'm very blessed. I'm at the place in my career now where I have high net worth and ultra high net worth clients and you can have a smaller number of clients who you give a lot more personalized attention to.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  Anybody who's at like a certain level of net worth, they are used to being waited on and they're used to their professionals. Like they've not romanticized a lawyer, like they know lots of lawyers. So they look at lawyers like you'd look at like a plumber, like, you know, there's a lot of people that do this. You work for me and you know, they're used to, so, so you have to give them a certain level of attention. But unlike a plumber, like you do get to yell at them.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  Like, and sometimes that's what they want.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  This is interesting. Yeah, you're almost like an authority figure, even though, okay, you are.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Even though they're hiring you, that's, that's really, yeah, it's like, there's few positions where you're subservient to the person you're hiring. Like a trainer is one of them, like your trainer can yell at you, tell you being lazy, get your ass together, stop eating this shit. There's lawyer and then maybe like doctor.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, two people you should never lie to are your doctor and your lawyer. Cause like everything you tell us, every single thing you tell us is protected by a privilege and there's absolutely, our only job is to protect you.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  How do you do that in the beginning? So you're sitting down with somebody and you could tell they're being a little fugazi about the information? How do you just go, dude, you're gonna screw yourself if you don't tell me where the fucking bodies are buried?

• 7:17Speaker 00

  I literally say that. I mean, I like, I don't pull any punches on it, like I very much. But what I, what I usually will say to them, just to kind of like take it to a place that they can understand is I'll say, look, I just want, at the beginning of this relationship, I want you to understand, I represent people who've been victims of domestic violence. I represent perpetrators of domestic violence. I represent people who are by any objective standard, amazing parents. And I represent people who just want to put the kids in the middle for leverage for child support. And I am no one's moral compass. I'm a weapon. And a weapon in the hands of, of, of a hero, right, is gonna protect people. And a weapon in the hands of the villain is gonna cause chaos, but the weapon is kind of neutral, right?

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Who's the worst person you've defended?

• 8:01Speaker 00

  Who I can't, I mean, obviously, a lot of my clients, I can't disclose who they are.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Not, not in.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  What did they do?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  What did they do?

• 8:07Speaker 00

  Oh, I've represented people who are, you know, by any objective metric are, are, you know, malignant narcissists. I mean, so unfortunately, the traits that make people very successful, particularly in high finance, which is what New York is really like. My colleague Laura Wassers in LA, she represents like every celebrity you've ever seen.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  I represent a lot of people in finance.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Different type of narcissist.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  Who could buy those celebrities 10 times over, but would walk past you on the street, you'd never know who they were.

• 8:33Mark Gagnon?

  Did you represent any current or former presidents?

• 8:36Speaker 00

  No, no presidents yet. Yeah, no presidents yet. They all seem to keep it together, right?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're not.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Clint and I got my fingers crossed.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  How do you come?

• 8:42Speaker 00

  No.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Bomber, maybe. Real, real quick, because I don't want to get away from that. The reason why I was asking that question, like the worst person you've represented.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Like, talking to you even before, you don't seem like a sociopath. Like, you seem like, even watching videos of you, like, you seem like quite, like, empathetic. You have a lot of emotion, right? I've seen you get, like, sensitive in interviews, for sure. So, I understand, and there's a lot of times this happens with, like, defense attorneys. You go, how could you, how could you represent this person?

• 9:06Speaker 00

  It's a great question.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  So, you're, you're representing sometimes scumbags.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Awful people, yeah, awful people.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Is there ever a moment where you're like, I can't fight for this guy?

• 9:14Speaker 00

  No, because.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Real quick, just a caveat.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  This guy abuses his kids, or this woman abuses her kids, and by fighting for custody, I'm enabling the abuse of those kids.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so you have that thought. Like, so, so first of all, yes, I'm, I'm, I'm a sensitive person. I don't think I could do this job well if I wasn't. Because to do this job well, it's just like, I think it's like being a comic. I think you, you have to have a sensitivity.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  You have to be able to read what's going on with this audience, and you have to know what's working, what's not, be able to shift, right? So, it's the same exact thing. It's just my audience is a judge. So, and, and, and I'm really here, like, our job's the same. We're here to manipulate people's emotional state.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  That's our job. Like, your job is to manipulate people. You want them to laugh, relax, and enjoy.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  I want the other side to be scared. I want my client to feel safe. I want the judge to like my client and hate the other side.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  So, I'm here just manipulating everybody's emotional state, and to do that well, I have to be very open, receptive, empathetic, and sensitive.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  The downside of that is, yeah, I'm sensitive. I'm empathetic. I feel a lot of it. I, I don't, I represent the client, but I also represent the system. And I don't always believe in the client, but I believe in the system.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Give me an example of that, where those.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  I, I, I was talking about it on Mark's show some time ago, when, when, um, you know, I represented a guy who was a pimp. Like literally a pimp, that was his job. Like he actually was, you know, he, I mean, he had other, he's in federal prison now for guns, but he, he was an atrocious human being. He was an abuser. He was, and I was up against an adversary who was an unskilled attorney and, and very, like it was all this woman could afford.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Oof.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  And, um, I absolutely ran her over.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  And we walked out of court and the guy patted me on the back and he said, man, one good lawyer is worth 20 stick up men. And I just remember thinking like, I want to go home and just take a shower right now because that just feels dirty. That's crazy. But.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  So you do have, I've always wondered if lawyers had that feeling.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Of course, of course.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  And then, and then can you compartmentalize that?

• 11:18Speaker 00

  I think you have.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  And move on.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  I think you have to because, look, what I, what I'll tell you is the truth has a way of coming out, sometimes despite my best efforts.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Meaning that guy ends up in federal prison.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Well, that's what ended up happening with that guy is he ended up in federal prison. I mean, I, I think the truth has a way of coming out. I have to tell my clients that sometimes. Like, look, I can throw up a lot of smoke and mirrors, but shit comes out. Like the truth comes out.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  I have so many questions. I'm sure everybody else does, but, uh, very exciting. Okay. So there's, there's this thing with lawyers where like a lot of times our engagement with lawyers is usually during maybe the worst times in our lives.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Right? So the connectivity that we have with lawyers is like, it's pretty abysmal, right?

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  But when you need help and a lawyer is helping you, they are heroic, as you just said. And you've seen like TV shows that talk about like Lincoln Lawyer was a great movie with McConaughey. Now they have this TV show where the lawyer is protecting the innocent that are wrongfully accused, et cetera. Like you've seen it with, uh, Joe Pesci and, uh,

• 12:12Speaker 00

  My Cousin Vinny.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  My Cousin Vinny and that kind of stuff.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Suits.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Are there, suits, are there ever moments? Where you get to be the hero?

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  And what does that feel like?

• 12:21Speaker 00

  That feels amazing.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  That's intoxicating.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Give me, give me example of like, somebody who you protected, it was like a woman who was being abused.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'll give you a great one. I, um, I'm a dog person, I love dogs.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  So, um, I had a woman come in and she said to me, you know, um, described this situation of like coercive controlled domestic violence she'd been in for ages. And, and this guy was controlling, abusive in the worst, worst possible ways, like insidious ways. But also was an incredibly charming narcissist. So like, no one would ever suspect. Like, if you said to anybody this guy was an abuser, they'd be like, "Him? He's the nicest guy, are you kidding me?"

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  And she, um, she told me her story, she said, "I'm afraid nobody's gonna believe me. He said to me, 'No one will ever believe you, you know, I'll make sure you're penniless. I'll do whatever I have to do to like crush you.'" And, and I'm listening to this, and I've handled a lot of domestic violence cases before. So I was like, "Okay, look, the system has a way of sorting these things out. And let's talk about what we can prove and what we can't." And she said, "You know, I have something." She said, "Um, we have a puppy. We have a six-month-old black lab puppy. And, um, the Ring camera of our doorbell caught him just beating the shit out of this six-month-old puppy." And I was like, "And you have that footage?" And she was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Okay, like, give me everything you have and I'll take a look." And I sat there that night and I watched this footage.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  And as a dog lover, like, I, I was shaking. I mean, it was to listen to it, to hear it, like, to watch this guy just beating this puppy. And the puppy, like, is a puppy, its tail's wagging, it's trying to like, kinda get away from him. And like, it doesn't understand what's going on.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Jesus Christ.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  And I just remember looking at it and thinking like, "I'm gonna torture this fucking guy to death."

• 14:02Speaker 00

  And I called, I called in the next day and I said, "Um, I'll, I'll take your case." And she was like, "Well, I'm worried I can't afford you." I'm like, "I'll cut my hourly rate in half." I was like, "I just want a piece of this fucking guy."

• 14:14Speaker 02

  No probono.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  He ain't killed the dog.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Dog's alright.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, dogs forget.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  I gotta eat.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Oh no.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Okay, alright, so how did you torture him?

• 14:32Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, that shook me a little bit.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  He watched a dog.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  It's worse than the memory of the dog.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  For free.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, free, god, live, Jesus, I cut my rate in half.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  That's impressive, that's only like 500 bucks, you know, that's pretty good. So I, I, I took on the case and, um, you know, I, I, it was like a professional hit. Like, I got this guy thrown out of his house. I got, I mean, I, I, it happened to get assigned to a judge who I knew liked dogs, who had a court attorney who I knew liked dogs. So I just made a meal out of this, like you wouldn't believe. And I actually, when I got to the courthouse, I shouldn't say this in public, but I will. I'm close enough to retirement, I can get away with it. I actually went up to the court officers who are, you know, the, the, the security for the building, they're armed, you know. And I said to them, um, uh, by the way, this is, because I had mentioned that there was this case coming in where I had video of this guy beating the dog. And you ever want to see, like, people's vindictive side come out? Tell them, somebody beat up a puppy.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  Like, I have to tell you, people, like, a little old lady would be like, "Kill the motherfucker." So I, I said to the court officer, I said, um, "Listen," I said, "this case is in today." They said, "Oh, that guy's today?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "And by the way," I said, "if he and I ended up in the restroom at the same time together, he started whatever fight happened." And they were like, "Absolutely."

• 15:52Speaker 00

  In fact, we heard him shouting at him. And I was like, "Thanks, man," you know, and... But sure enough, like, that was a case where that single piece of evidence was able to just neutralize his ability to go in and be a charming person.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Because you saw the real side of him that she talked about.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Exactly, and the more he went in trying to be charming, as opposed to saying, like...

• 16:16Speaker 02

  The more psycho he looks.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Sometimes you see a person, and that's, you can see in smaller examples, but that's such a crystal clear example of like, "Oh, everything you say is bullshit. This is you. This is you, and everything she says, I'm gonna believe."

• 16:31Speaker 00

  That's exactly what you say to the judge, because I say to the judge, I'm like, now judge, you know, for every cockroach you see, there's 50 in the walls. Like, we caught this on video. Like, how many other times did this happen? How many other times? Like, when was the camera not rolling in the last?

• 16:46Speaker 04

  And the next time I'm in court, it'll be another cockroach, so just remember that, for my case in specific.

• 16:50Mark Gagnon?

  That's like when Diddy did the apology video, but then the hotel video came out and was like, we looked at that apology video as such bullshit.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're a psycho.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  And this is in the lobby of the hotel, that's in the entrance of the house. We're not seeing what's actually happening behind closed doors, you know what I mean?

• 17:05Speaker 00

  So perpetrators of domestic violence are, in my experience, like, they're charming. Like, how else would they get victims? Like, the way you, you know, there are people that are great at love bombing, they're great at, like, convincing a person that, oh my god, I would never hurt you, I care so much about you. And then, when something happens, doing the whole, like, I'm so sorry that that happens, you know, I love you so much, it'll never happen again.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  It's really interesting, because a lot of times when they're portrayed in, like, TV or film, they're these, like, drunken asshole scumbags.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  No way.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  But there was that show, I don't know if it was Pretty Little Liars or something, not Pretty Little Liars, uh, the one that takes place in Silicon Valley, Nicole Kidman.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, uh, I know what you're talking about.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Big Little Lies. The, the, the, the husband of Nicole Kidman was an abuser.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  That was a great portrayal of what they're like.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  What they actually are like.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, good-looking, charming, successful.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Great with the kids, like, all these things.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Well, because a lot of that, like, adjustment personality disorder, that, like, sociopath behavior, that ability to sort of blend into your circumstances, A, it makes people very effective in their professional lives, because they can just go into whatever setting and be whoever they need to be in that setting.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  But in their home life, it turns into something that, you know, that's, that's chaos, when you have to deal with those DV cases.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna say who, because it's not worth it, but we all know that at my wedding, the guy gave a speech, leveled the room, so funny, so charming, and then behind closed doors, it's just like, this is a monster, it's a whole different human being.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  You thought my speech was funny?

• 18:34Speaker 01

  That's funny you think we're that close.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Alright guys, you also gotta buy tickets first of all. Columbus, Ohio, two shows have already sold out. The only two shows that have some tickets left are March 28th. Hurry up and buy those. Then I'm in Tampa from April 10th through the 13th. We got eight shows, but most of the tickets are already gone. I think there's like five left at every show except April 13th, so buy tickets to that. April 17th through 20th, it's my favorite weekend of the year. No disrespect to any other city, but Comedy Works Denver is probably the best comedy club in the country. Shouts to Wendy. But I'm gonna be there 17th, 18th, and 19th, and then on 4/20. As always, we're doing a high show. Gummies, maybe shrooms, who knows? All those dates and more at akashsingh.com.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Also, man, there's some fucked up things going on with stand-up in India, so just if you are, if you look like me, make some noise about it. If you don't live in India, because they'll actually listen to us. If you're white, make some noise about it, because India's dying for white people's approval. So just see what's going on, and shouts to the Habitat Comedy Club. Love you guys. Love you, Boraj. Let's get back to the show.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  What's up, guys? World's fastest ad read, don't skip, okay? I want everyone to come out to my shows on the road platonically and don't do anything weird. I'm gonna be in Bangor, Maine. I'm gonna be in Portland, Maine.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Hey Maine, suck his dick, man!

• 19:52Speaker 04

  I'm going to Charleston, South Carolina, Atlanta, Stroudsburg, PA, Hoboken, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Raleigh, Portland, Fort Worth, Austin, Stanford, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Levittown, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego, Montreal, Toronto, and Poughkeepsie, all on my website, themarkyagon.com.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  South Carolina goes south on his dick!

• 20:10Speaker 04

  Check it out. I think everything's on sale Friday or something, but I'll see you guys on the road. Love you, thanks, bye. You had mentioned to me that you kind of enjoy representing, uh, bad people.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Oh my god, I got pilloried for that, by the way.

• 20:21Speaker 04

  Did you really?

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Well, you put that clip up, and all the comments were like, "Look at this scumbag", you know, like, "How dare you!"

• 20:26Speaker 04

  Great job, Mark.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  I was like, "Great, yeah, thanks a lot."

• 20:28Speaker 04

  You're a weapon.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Weapon.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  You're a-

• 20:29Speaker 00

  But I was like, you know, like, I'm sorry you live in a democracy. Like, we have a system. Everyone's entitled to have counsel. And by the way, it's not like fucked up. People come in and at the consult go, listen, I'm a straight piece of shit. I've been dating this woman for years and I just need you to help me get out of it. It's not how it works.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  They come in like a victim.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  They come in and they're like, listen, she's crazy. She attacks me. And once I had like pushed her off me and yeah, she hit against the wall, but now she's gonna falsely accuse me of domestic violence. And you sit there and you're kind of, and sometimes I'm in court.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  When I'm, you know, sitting, my client's next to me and I realize like, oh shit, I've got the villain. Okay. All right. Like that was not great, you know, because it's not surprising. Like when people tell you the story of their life, they're usually the fucking hero of the story. Like rarely do they come in and go, listen, I'm all fucked up. It's one of the few things that like stand ups, I think, do very well.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Is they come in and just go, I'm so fucked up. Most people come in and just go like, oh, listen, I'm wonderful. I'm great. And then you sort of learn progressively and you start to look at their text messages. And also dude, there's like human growth too. Like who you were 10 years ago and who you are now. I had a client once who was a custody case about like a 10 year old.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  And when, when the woman was pregnant, when the mother was pregnant, so 11 years earlier, he had sent her all these text messages saying, cause they'd been dating for like two months. Like you need to get an abortion. I don't want this baby. If you have this baby, I want nothing to do with it, you know? And of course he'd been for 10 years a phenomenal father, loves us. And the other side, in our exchange of discovery, you have to like, you know, share all your ammunition in advance. Cause it's not supposed to be trial by surprise. They, they sent me these text messages.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Real quick, so everybody understands that is that like all the information that both lawyers are gonna use in court has to be shared with both lawyers.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Exactly right.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  So no lawyer is going, ah, but you didn't see this.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  Exactly right. So anything you're gonna put in like photographs, audio recordings, video, you have to exchange it in advance.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  That's called discovery?

• 22:34Speaker 00

  It's called discovery. Yeah. And it's a process where it's, it's meant so that everyone has the opportunity to. Like review something, make sure it's authentic.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  Have it reviewed by experts if they need to.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Have a rebuttal.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  Right, prepare their cases best they can. You're not allowed to like trial by surprise. Did you order the code red?

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  It doesn't really work that way.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Like what you have to do is you have to exchange the stuff.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  So they'd sent these text messages and my attitude was, okay, we gotta get in front of this. Like we gotta like Eminem eight mile final rap battle. Like I gotta go in and like cover this and be like, now tell these people something they don't know about him. You know, like I gotta do something with it.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  So that's exactly what I did. I put him on the stand and I said, you know, you see these text messages? You know, did you send these texts? He said, yeah. And I said, is that how you felt at the time? He's like, yeah. And I was like, how do you feel when you read those text messages now? And this guy legitimately started crying on the witness stand. And he was like, I'm so, he's like, I'm so mad at myself.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  He's like, and I'm so horrified and I'm so, like, if she'd listened to me.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  I wouldn't have my son like, and he's like, I, I, but I, but I know I was like just stupid and scared.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  And I'm watching opposing counsel just crossing out whole pages.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Because we got in front of it, you know? But that is like what happens.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  And that's also like a more human relatable moment. Like it is terrifying. I imagine when somebody gets somebody pregnant and they're not aware of it, they don't know what to do. And that's this knee jerk reaction and you sound horrible. And then you have 10 years with the most amazing thing you've ever created.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  And you were just so embarrassed that that, you're like, you could have made one flippant decision.

• 24:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  That eliminated those 10 years.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Well, and that's what, that's why, you know, when people say like representing good people and bad people, like if only we could just put people in boxes of good people and bad people and just separate them. But like, you know, the line of good and evil runs right through the human heart. So I, I think at the end of the day, what you have to say, like, if I judge your husband, being a husband, your ability to be a husband by your best moment as a husband. You're a phenomenal husband. If I look at the worst moment you've ever had as a husband, and that's the totality of you.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  I'm bottom five.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  But that's not how it works. You kind of have to average. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  So that's an interesting thing too, because I imagine in divorce, or in an argument, or in anything, the only thing that we're focusing on are the worst moments of that person's life. So I'm sure the husband and the wife in that, in those circumstances are just judging them by the most horrible things that they've done, when in reality, there's probably amazing memories. I'm not talking about divesting violence, people. I'm talking about people that had a marriage and then it became loveless and they're like, let's separate. And now it gets contentious over kids or assets. But again, you're just focusing on these horrible things. Not a beautiful vacation you guys went to, not a great time you guys cooked dinner together, the laughs. Like, and again, maybe this doesn't make you enough money, but is there ever, not enough money, but is there ever a moment like in divorce where both lawyers are going, hey,

• 25:23Speaker 02

  should we try, these people don't hate each other, nobody did something heinous. How can we not prolong this?

• 25:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Do you guys do that at all or not?

• 25:32Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. The best of us absolutely do that. Like this is a, like you live and die by a reputation in this business. And if you're the kind of person that just exacerbates conflict, you don't last long in this business.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Because why, it looks like you're just trying to milk it and then the lawyers get rich and everybody else suffers.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you, your client leaves with a really bad taste in their mouth because they start, they see that you're just amplifying. Like my job very often is to protect people from the part of themselves that's feeling brokenhearted and vindictive.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Oh, so.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Like people come in and they're like, I caught him fucking his secretary, I want to rip his nuts off. I hate, like, I want to kill him. And my job is to go, look, you have every right to feel the way that you feel. But let's, let's focus on the issues right now. Like you're gonna have grandkids with this person someday. You're stuck with him.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  You're gonna see him for the rest of your life, no matter what.

• 26:18Speaker 00

  Like I have an ex-wife, trust me, I gotta sit next to her, graduations, I gotta sit next to her. Like it's what you do. So you have to learn how to interact with this person. And you try to say to them, look, most people, the good news is most people love their kids more than they hate their ex. Like, most people's love for their children is the most powerful thing they have. I mean, I know we've got, you know, we've got two relatively new fathers here, you know? So, I mean, the truth is that that is a powerful emotion that very often will make you put down a lot of other stuff. And so, it really turns into something where my, our job is to try to bring out the angels of people's better nature. So, I always tell clients, like, in a negotiating table in a courtroom, I'm a weapon. My job is to just go at a person and attack and do that.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  But before you get there...

• 27:01Speaker 00

  When the door is closed, it's me and my, my whole thing is, look, I'd rather you pay her than pay me. Like, stand down, like, let's not do this. Put your kids through college, not mine. Like, let's figure out how to do this the right way. If I get a sense, when I do a consult with somebody, that they have any chance that they could go to a mediator instead of using lawyers and they could sit, I'll send them right to a mediator. I'd probably send two, three cases a week to mediator.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Is that the, what is like the, the process?

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, there's a lot of paths up the mountain, but the ideal process is two people sit down and they map out, what do you want to do with the kids? What's going to make sense? Like, well, you work this night, I work this night, so you'll have the kids this night or that. I mean, ideally, people could sit down at the kitchen table with a piece of paper and just map it out. But, but second best is you go to a mediator. That's a person who's usually an attorney or an accountant, who's trained, who knows what issues to talk about. And they walk through it with you and they'll say, alright, here's the things we have to decide. And they don't represent either person, they represent both people in a sense. The next step from that is you get two attorneys that work collaboratively, that just don't come at each other, don't try to vilify either side and just try to work, you know, come

• 28:13Speaker 00

  up with identifying assets, valuing them and how to divide them, figuring out what's going on and just doing it that way. The, the thing I've got very good at over the course of 25 years is the warfare part of it. Like, the courtroom, so the people that come to me now tend to be people that have that kind of a complex case. And they need someone who knows how to do that particular set of skills, which is why I have all of these amusing anecdotes of like chaos. But, the truth is, like, the majority of divorce lawyers... It's really just about a negotiation. It's about trying to sort of, you know, work with people in a way that doesn't amp up the conflict.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, fifty-six percent of people get divorced. It can't be fifty-six percent warfare.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  No, it's actually thankfully a really small percent.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I figured.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  But, but you know, the, the outliers, like, very few people can just like hold hands, sing kumbaya and like write it down and solve it. Very few people go to war.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  But you hear about the war, because A, it's way more fucking interesting.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Like if I'm, if I, I don't get invited to a lot of parties, but if I'm at a cocktail party and somebody says, what do you do? I say, I'm a divorce lawyer, and they're gonna go, oh my god, you must have stories.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  And if I said, I do. There was this couple and they were married and then they slowly grew apart from each other. So they decided how they would like amicably resolve their differences financially and they shared their time with the children. They'd be like, that's the worst fucking story. Like, if they want to hear the like, no, and then he took a chainsaw and he cut the car in half.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  And then he said, pick which half you want, bitch, you know, like, that, that story, by the way.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a story, yeah.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  What is your cra- yeah, let's go there. What is your craziest divorce thing?

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, the guy ran the lady over and stabbed her sixteen times.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, fun crazy.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  Fun crazy?

• 29:46Speaker 02

  No, it doesn't have to be fun.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Just absolute insanity. You're involved in this case, you're like, what the fuck is happening?

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I, well, I've had ones where like there's a lot of cash involved. So I had one where they, they, over the years, guy was a dentist and he took a lot of cash. And what he used to do is he used to wad it up in like these round things and then fill tennis ball cans with cash. And then they had a jacuzzi in the backyard and he lined the jacuzzi thing with these tennis ball cans.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  So there was like eight hundred thousand dollars of cash in the lining of the jacuzzi. And I actually had to bring in an expert to testify to the, the size of the jacuzzi and the size of how much could be held in the tennis cans to ascertain what the value of the money that he had then removed from the jacuzzi was.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Took it out.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Took it all out. And he was like, what money? I don't know what you're talking about. Wow. So that kind of stuff is like always an interesting bizarre puzzle. But yeah, I mean, people are constantly cutting shit in half. I mean, the ones that, the ones that shock me are the people who come in and they've, and by the way, like, Apple, like, Apple technology is responsible for more divorces than they. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  That's real discovery, right?

• 31:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Sorry, shots fired to the jobs. I'm sorry, Tim Cook's gonna like, my iPhone's gonna stop working now. Love your products, don't do that to me, man. But the truth is, like, there's, there, there, the, the whole integration of the different devices. Yeah. Like, a lot of people don't realize, like, your fucking text messages are coming up on the iPad that your kid's playing with. Oh, wow. And then your wife, like, you're upstairs texting with the girlfriend about, like, it was so great last night, you know, and then the kid is like, bing, bing, bing, and mom comes over like, what's going on? And they're like, I don't know, the cartoon stopped. And mom's like, what is this? And all of a sudden, there's naked pictures of the girlfriend, and she's reading in real time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this happens, like, once a week, I get one of those.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Yes. Okay, question about that. Do you think those people are just at the point where they're okay getting caught? Because that seems so foolish.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I ask myself that question a lot because sometimes people are so brazen.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  That it's just like, you're kind of.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  You kind of go, yeah, like. On some level, subconsciously, you're like. I mean, you know, subconsciously, I think so.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  They're just cowards, they can't, and they're like, I just need, if something does happen where it doesn't, I'm okay with it, but I don't.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Quiet quitting. Yeah. I love the feel, you know, Patrice O'Neal had a thing he used to say about.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Want me over, right?

• 32:17Speaker 00

  How, he had a great thing about how, he said, you know, cheating, if you think about it, is a man. Yeah. He said, I, a man is leaving his home to get some happiness without hurting your feelings.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Go to fuck a girl behind a dumpster.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Right, right, like.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Get a little bit of happiness.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  So I think a lot of these guys.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  Without hurting your feelings.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  Cheating is for you. Yes, for you, yeah. And I remember, like, hearing that and going like, but you know, when you spend enough time with people who've cheated.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  That's legit how they they're like, look, I love her. Yeah. I love her, but we don't have that anymore. Yeah. Like, we have this, like, we're running a daycare center together. Yeah. And like, I love her, I like coming home to her, I like her mom, I like her brother, like, we all get along, I like, I like all the stuff we do, I like our home, I like our life, but like, I wanna fuck sometimes. Yeah. Like, and I don't need, like, I had a friend who once said to me, like,

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Prostration, dude.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  That the moment you know you're in a relationship is when you're in the middle of sex and you think, one of these days I've gotta get laid.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  You know, and I think that most married men do not acknowledge that this is correct. No, it's a bit. Most married men, it's a bit. Yeah. Most married men will go, oh, yeah, okay, like, I kinda get that, like, the difference, because again, I, I think there is something really true about, you can't, some of the freaky shit you wanna do in your head, blame Pornhub, you know, it's, it's, it's on all everybody's heads. Yeah. You're not gonna do that with the person, but then you'll be like, okay, so which of us is gonna bathe the kids now? Like, that's, you're not gonna do that. So I think men sometimes move away from, from that kind of a connection with their spouse, and then they say, look, I don't wanna hurt her, I don't wanna lose my family. I wanna chase this shiny object, and by the way, like, I mean, how, look at how many

• 34:02Speaker 00

  half naked women we are exposed to on a daily basis, thanks to Instagram and TikTok and everything else. So it's our fault, really, we have to keep degrading the women we love. I mean, I don't think that's bad, but, I mean, so insofar as they at some point enjoyed that, yes. Like, if they were, if you started out that way and then you said, she might secretly be like, why don't you have a child? Like, I'm like a filthy slut anymore, like, I'm also a mom, but I'm also a filthy slut. Yeah, I'm both, we can be both. You can't be both, I think you probably.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  So Mark, that's why our parents are still married.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  That's what it is, bro. Like the gimp costume in the basement, you know?

• 34:41Speaker 04

  There's no Madonna whore complex. You gotta just put them together, okay?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Your parents got eight kids. I could have told you they were doing some wild.

• 34:46Speaker 04

  My dad always makes this comment. We'll be at dinner. He's like, you know, man, you still got that nurse outfit? Everyone's like, Dad, what the?

• 34:52Speaker 02

  No way.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  He's like, I'm joking, but.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, yeah, that's interesting.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, cheating is one of those things. I mean, I, I joke that I've got a PhD in cheating because you, you listen to people who've been cheated on. You listen to people who've done the cheating. But the people that I, I'm shocked by are the people that like, they know their spouse is cheating. Like they had one of those iMessage moments where they, like, the cameras catch stuff, all the little Nest cams, security cams, the baby cams, nanny cams, catch stuff. And they don't let the spouse know that they know it. And they're like, three, four months in to like, I, I've watched this person having sex with their mistress on the nanny cam.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Oh, Jesus.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  And I'm still sitting across the table from them. And I find myself thinking like, how the fuck do you keep that?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're the sociopath, actually.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it feels a little like that. Like you kind of go, how are you not like, just losing your shit on this person at all, you know? But people can do it.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  Then why do you think that?

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Kids usually are?

• 35:54Speaker 00

  I think it's, um, I don't know. I think it's a combination of like, if they say it out loud, it's real.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  They're in denial.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, sometimes people come into my office and like, they have a very hard time. There's tissues on like every desk. Cause people are just, they, having to say it out loud, you know, having to like, say out loud, like, yeah, this thing's broken, you know?

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, you also see why like, sometimes it's forgivable for people. Like, I think sometimes, when you're like, young and in a relationship and you don't have like, children or anything like that. And there's like, a cheating thing. It's like, the one thing you can't do. It's like.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Well, I gotta tell you, we're in modern society, like, what I will tell you is, a lot more people come back from cheating than you'll ever know.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  So, so, yeah, I'm interested to talk about that. Not for personal reasons at all. No, no, no, nothing to do with that. But, but, uh, but yeah, I feel like when you have X amount of kids, you have homes, you have a life that you guys all enjoy.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  And then the husband does some crap. When the wife does it, I bet the dads are like, fuck this, it's fucking over. But when the husband does some shit, I wonder if some of the wives are like, ugh, does he not have a relationship with her? Is it a one-time fucking?

• 37:00Speaker 04

  Well, it depends what the shit is.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:02Speaker 04

  It depends what you do.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Well, and the question.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  What do you mean by that?

• 37:05Speaker 04

  Well, it depends on the nature of the infidelity.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you get your dick sucked while you're in a, on a trip with the boys or something like that, that's different than if you're fucking like her friend in the community. Cause now you're embarrassing her and there's this whole.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  Well, what I'll tell you is the difference, you know, the, the difference between men and women is when a, a woman gets caught cheating, the man's first question is, did you fuck him?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  And the woman's first question is, do you love her?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Do you love her?

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Hmm. Because that's the, that's the distinction. And, and I will tell you in my experience, and again, don't fucking pillory me for this one, guys. I didn't make up gender roles. I'm just observing what's sitting on the other side of the fucking desk.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  But what, I, I'm not talking about you guys, I mean the comments. What, which, the, the reality is that women are much more forgiving of those things. Cause I think there is a part of them that goes, yeah, you're a fucking idiot.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  You're a guy.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Like you're an idiot, you're a guy. Like this had nothing to do with me.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  And there's so much to lose.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  That, you losing so much.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Whereas a man allowing his wife to cheat.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  He's lost his entire identity as a man.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  But what's hard.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  I don't think a woman loses anything as a woman when we cheat because the expectation of us is we're a bunch of fucking idiots.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Can't stop putting our dick and stuff.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  They spend the majority of their lives telling guys that they don't want to fuck them.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  So when they do, you must've wanted that shit.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  The problem I have too is.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Real quick, Bill Maher, when I was doing this pod with Bill Maher, he had a, he had a funny idea and he was like, I often times hear female rappers say this thing like, I'm gonna steal your man, like, I'm gonna steal your man. And it's like, oh no.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  It's like, that's the hardest.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  They're fired.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  How the hell, you stole me? Like, it's the easiest thing in the world. That's like hard tasks to do.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  No, it's the easiest thing in the world.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Stealing somebody's girl is tough because you're taking away from a life that really works.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  Right, that's why I've always. Said the whole thing of a hall pass.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:50Speaker 00

  Is the fucking dumbest deal in the world for men.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Because like, like, think about it. If I say, you know, all right, with my girl, if I say to her, like, all right, we each have a hall pass. And she goes, okay, mine's Bradley Cooper.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  And I say, okay, mine is, I don't know, Angelina Jolie.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  She could fuck him.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  The chances of me, if I meet her in the first class lounge and I go, listen, just so you know, I have permission if you want to go have a little something. But the chances of like a guy being like, you know, she went, listen, I'm allowed to suck your dick right now. You'd be like, I got 10 minutes.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  It's never a good deal for the men.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Well, because we take the wrong people.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  I'm being ambitious, you know.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Fucking JetBlue flight attendant.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Some gay guy with tits. And you're just like, that's, that's the one who I'm gonna cheat on.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's all.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Something attainable.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. But it really is one of those things that I think with, with women, what I do feel bad for women about is the women who have been cheated on. They've said, okay, you know what? I'm gonna look past this. We have kids and stuff like that. No. What I actually feel bad is that how other women, they have to suffer in silence. Because if they told any of the women in their life, I'm taking him back, they would be fucking exonerated. They would be destroyed. Like, you ever want to read vitriolic comments?

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 00

  Any woman like who takes back a man who cheated on her, like Beyonce got way more shit than Jay-Z.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  She had to put out a whole album.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Because it had, right, she had to like beat him up somehow to have some redemption. And again, from other women. Because women were like, how dare you take him? Because it has to, she left him.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  That's social.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  She'd have been the girl boss. She'd have been the, yeah, you, he has no right to do that.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Wouldn't that be the same for men, though? If a girl cheats and a guy takes her back, wouldn't guys fucking?

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, same thing. You'd get pilloried for it. Yeah.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  I, I, I mean, I.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  So you have to suffer in silence. You have to not tell people that this happened. By the way, it is a hard thing for people to come back from, rebuild trust from. People do it all the time. People do it all the time. And usually what it is, they come into my office, they're like, I want to kill him. I want him out. I want to file tomorrow. And I have done this long enough that I go, okay, listen, if we want to do it, well, then on Monday, we'll still do it. But let's this just happen. Let's take a breath. Let's get our ducks in order. Let's, you know. And usually a couple of days later, they'll call me and they'll say, you know what, we, we talked and then we're going to go talk to someone. We're going to go to counselor and very often I never hear from that person again. And I think that they figure out a way to navigate.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Do kids make a difference?

• 41:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, kids make huge.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Massive.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. You have, I mean, look, you have a tremendous reason to keep it together if you have children. I mean, you're fully going in best case scenario, you're going to lose a huge chunk of time with your children. You're going to lose the support of a co-parent. I mean, it's difficult to raise a child with two people. It's difficult with one person. It's incredible.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  It's almost impossible. It's like, unless you have help, I can't believe it.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's very challenging. So I think that people have, the more skin you have in the game, you know? Like, that's why I always, I always say, like, the ultra, people say, like, oh, it must be really hard representing, like, super wealthy people. I'm like, no, they have enough money to buy another fucking house and another apartment and another place in the Hampton. So they each have one and they have nannies that travel between both places. So there's stability for the kids.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Sometimes they keep the kid in the same house and the parents.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  Nesting. Yeah, nesting. The parents, the kids have the nest.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  So the kids never have to leave, which is really awesome.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  The parents each get an apartment and they kind of come back and forth with the kids. And you know, look, we don't know.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Like a huge privilege. How many people can own a free home? Like it's, but that is probably the best for the children. Cause now they're not packing a bag literally every single week.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  You know what I'll tell you is, we don't know who discovered water, but it probably wasn't a fish. Like when a kid grows up in an environment where mom was here, dad was here and I spent time with each other. That's just all they know. Like, okay, that's how it was. Like when a kid's 10, 11, 12, and suddenly mom and dad, who were living together, are living in different places. That's traumatic. That's challenging. But if you're a little, you're a two-year-old. And now it's like, okay, dad lives here, mom lives here and I spent, when you ask that person when they're in high school, like, what was your childhood like? They'll say like, well, I don't know. Like it was, yeah, I lived with mom sometimes, dad sometimes. I spent time with both of them. It's kind of what it was.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  If you grew up in like New York City where, you know, divorce is pretty popular, it's, it's probably easier. Free to do, but I agree with you like the kids can be absolutely destroyed if it happens when they're a little bit older, a little bit smarter and aware of what's going on. I see a lot of divorce where the kids are kind of being used as like a leverage tool. That's really fucked up. Is there, is there ever time where you like step in, you go, why are we?

• 43:24Speaker 00

  I try to do that a lot. I mean, what I always say is that the person who cares less about the children has tactical advantage in a custody proceeding. In the same way that a bank robber has tactical advantage over the cops because they can shoot innocent bystanders. Like the cops can't just spray with a machine gun and hope they'll hit one of the robbers. But robbers can just spray and hope they hit the cops. Like they can run over the sidewalk.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  How would that work in a court proceeding, for example?

• 43:52Speaker 00

  You know, by, by insidiously alienating a child from their co-parent, you know, by, by, by injecting into the child like a dislike or a fear of your co-parent. So that you get custody. I mean, by the way, most of the time this isn't just done as a, as a vindictive thing. It's also done for financial reasons. Cause if you have the children more than 50% of the time, you get child support. And that's a big chunk of money. New York state, one kid's 17% of your gross income less FICA, two kids is 25%, three kids 29%, four kids 31%. So like the, your gross income.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Think about that. So if you're spending 50% of taxes, like say you're some rich person, 31% is going to your wife and the children.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  If you have four kids.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  If you have four kids and only if she gets them 51% of the time.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  You still gotta provide for your life.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  It'd be a lot cheaper to just hire a nanny and fight for custody. And that's what ends up happening.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  And there's alimony that goes along with that.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  There can be spousal support.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  But think about, so if it goes to 50% and you hire the nanny.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  At 51% to 50%, there's no real difference in the amount that you're going to see your children. But the difference in the amount that you're giving to that woman.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Massive.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  Who now you hate and hates you. Wow.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And by the way, there's no one like doing an accounting to make sure it's spent on the kids.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  That's the other thing.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Sometimes it's like that was meant to be for the kids and it was used for the tit job. Or it was used for like sex toys with a new boyfriend.

• 45:17Mark Gagnon?

  And how is that decided who gets custody?

• 45:20Speaker 00

  In New York, we have what's called the best interest standard, but most states have some variation of that. And it's as subjective and crazy as you'd think it is. Like, it's, it really is full contact storytelling. Like, you go in as a lawyer and you just have to try to tell the story of why your client is stable, consistent, reliable, and a good parent, and why the other side is less than.

• 45:39Mark Gagnon?

  This may be a New York thing, but I always hear that the mother always gets the custody.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty common misconception, and I understand why people say that. Because I, I, I think women fight much harder for custody than men do. And I'll tell you why. Like, and I probably don't even need to, but I'll point out why. If you and I, all right, if, if we meet in real life, we're just out in a bar, and you say to me, so Jim, tell me about yourself. And I say, well, you know, I'm a lawyer, I'm divorced, I have my kids, they live with their mom. Every other weekend, I have them. Uh, you'd go, oh, divorced dad, nice guy, probably, you know. I'm a woman.

• 46:15Mark Gagnon?

  You don't have those kids?

• 46:16Speaker 00

  I have two kids, they live with their dad, I see them every...

• 46:19Mark Gagnon?

  What the fuck is wrong with her?

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Drugs, mental health. And by the way, like, I mean, go on Instagram, hashtag mom life, like, believe me. Like, I've represented some, some co-parents of celebrities that, like, these people are opiated out of their minds. But when it's time to take that kid out like a Birkin bag, you know, they bring them out and they're like, ah, I'm a mom! And then they're like back to, all right, take this fucking kid away, you know? And they couldn't care less. But it's optics, you know? Whereas for a man, if you go, yeah, the kids live with their mom, people go, oh, yeah, well, of course, the kids live with their mom. So that's where I think that comes from. But the truth is, like, men get custody all the time, the maternal presumption was eradicated years ago. There used to be something called, what was called the tender years doctrine, which was if a child was under the age of seven...

• 47:03Mark Gagnon?

  You let the mom pay.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Mom automatically got custody unless you could show she was an unfit mother. That was eradicated in the 1980s. But, you know, some of the judges, like, have been around since then, so they remember that. And judges, remember, judges are human. Like, judges are people, so they have the same biases anybody else has. So sometimes he's, uh, the judge is a divorced dad, who's like, dads are just as good as moms, what the fuck? Sometimes they're a pissed off ex-wife of somebody, and they're like, fuck that guy! Because they're taking out, you know, these are humans.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Have you ever suggested that a client change their gender to have some sort of advantage?

• 47:38Speaker 00

  No, you know, I represented, actually, I was one of the first people to represent a trans woman in a custody proceeding about 20 years ago.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Were they divorcing themselves?

• 47:50Speaker 00

  No, they weren't, they were, they were, this was actually a really amazing story. I, I, I, this was like the most manly man I'd ever known. Like, he was like the most, he was jacked, he was like a big dude.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  And, uh, he, he, I knew him because he'd actually done work on my house. And I remember thinking, because I was married at the time, I remember thinking my ex-wife secretly wanted to fuck him. Because he was like this big dude, work boots, the whole thing.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  So one day he calls me up and he's

• 48:18Speaker 02

  He loves renovations.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  He calls me up.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  He's an interior decorator, but it doesn't matter.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  He's a fixer-upper. He made some significant changes. He, he calls me up one day, he says, can I come in and talk to you? And I said, yeah, sure. And I knew he was married and he had two very young kids. So he comes in, I'm like, oh shit, he's probably had marital problems. Comes into my office, I said, what's going on? He says, look, I think we're splitting up. And then I said, oh man, I'm sorry to hear it. I said, what, what's going on? And he goes, well, I've, I've decided I want to live my life as a woman. I was like, I'm, wait, excuse me? This is 20 years ago. Like, this is not part of like the cadence, you know? This wasn't a thing. And this was not the dude you would think, like, this was, there was nothing feminine about this guy. Like, I was way more feminine than this guy. And he was like, like, yeah, you know, I've always felt this way and I, you know? And, uh, he did, sure enough, he, he transitioned pretty quickly.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  And like many people who transition, initially, he looked like a guy wearing a wig. Like, he looked like a dude, who was, you know, he'd started hormones. And when we went to court, the judge actually issued a temporary decision saying that, that he was allowed to see his kids as long as he dressed like a man when he saw his kids. Now, if the judge did that, now they'd be thrown off the bench.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  And possibly jailed for a hate crime. But back then, that was considered a perfectly acceptable resolution. Funny PS to that story, by the way.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  10 years later, I'm walking into the courthouse. And I'm standing there talking to one of my colleagues and I look off to the far left and I see a very attractive woman staring at me. And I'm thinking like, you still got it sexy with this, you know, it's the tie. And she's just smiling at me. So I'm like, do I know her? This is weird. So I finished this conversation. I kind of do the peacocking thing where I'm like, all right, man, catch you later. And I'm like, I'm gonna walk past her. So I walk up, very cute. I said, uh, hey, how you doing? And she goes, good. How you doing? I go, good. She goes, you don't remember me? And I said, I'm sorry, I don't. I would think I would. And she goes, it's me. Amy. And I was like, Amy? And she goes, Andy?

• 50:19Speaker 00

  And I went, holy shit. It was, it was, it was that person. It was that person with ten years of hormones and a bunch of other things.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Being hot as both genders seems unfair.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  It really does. It really, and by the way, like, could do great home renovations. Like, what's fucked up?

• 50:35Speaker 04

  If you transition, you should introduce yourself again. Right? I mean, you should lead with that. Be like, hey, by the way, I've done some updates.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've done a little work.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Pure restriction for constantly.

• 50:45Mark Gagnon?

  If you didn't recognize her.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  She's fully a woman at this point.

• 50:47Mark Gagnon?

  If you didn't recognize her, you did a bad job.

• 50:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess so. But it just felt like, you know, I did feel a little deflated. Cause I was like, oh, I got this hot chick checking me out. And then I'm like, oh no, okay, it's not for the reasons I thought.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, former, former client, you can't.

• 51:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, no, but then after we slept together, it was fine. No.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  What's the weirdest way you've gotten paid?

• 51:08Speaker 00

  A motorcycle.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  So, yeah.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  I was given a motorcycle once. I had a client who said, you know, he, he used to like fix up bikes. And I, I used to ride at the time. And he said, um, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay you. I just gotta sell this bike that I just fixed up. I was like, oh, what bike is it? And he showed me. And I was like, I'll just take the bike.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  What about cash? Like, just straight?

• 51:25Speaker 00

  People try to pay me in cash all the time.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  And you say no?

• 51:28Speaker 00

  I, no, I'll accept cash, but I do tell them, like, there's rules about how we take cash. And then we have to report it if it's over $10,000. But, oh, I've had people who come in with like $300,000 in cash. And they're like, can I just pay my bill with this? And when you say to them, yes, but I have to then report to the bank where I got it. And suddenly they're like, no problem. I'll bring you a check, you know, and instead.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Okay, so you're by the book when it comes to payment?

• 51:49Speaker 00

  You have to be as a lawyer. I mean.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  A lot of lawyers are Wild West with that shit.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  You know, not who's not, not.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  He's almost retired, he said. Let it go.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Not lawyers.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  He's banging trees outside of town.

• 52:02Mark Gagnon?

  To a hotel.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  Last here on a cheap date. No, I, I, I feel like a lot of lawyers. What's interesting is if you read the disciplinary opinions for lawyers. It's really funny because they, they fuck up lawyers and disbar lawyers for financial stuff really fast. Almost like you read that they publish these decisions. It runs chills through all of us. But you'll read it and they're like, this lawyer had sex with three of his clients. Uh, he, you know, had a serious cocaine problem and he told three of his clients the cases were resolved when in fact they weren't. Uh, you know, suspended for two weeks from the practice of law. And they were like, this guy did not report $23 uh, that he received in cash disbarred.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  And you're like, fuck, like the money thing is the biggest thing. So lawyers who play it fast and loose with that stuff, like you're not going to be around.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  Have you ever uh, hooked up with any clients?

• 52:55Speaker 00

  No, no. And I have to tell you.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Have they thrown it at you?

• 52:58Speaker 00

  No, for real.

• 53:00Mark Gagnon?

  You never circled back after you got the good divorce, got the pain and it's like.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  No, and I'll tell you why. I will tell you why. Because.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  I'm trying to figure out how to say this without offending any of my existing clients. The truth is that if you represent a woman in her divorce, you will never fucking want to date her. Like you see the worst of this person. Like, like, you know, there's a rule.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  That's a good line.

• 53:28Mark Gagnon?

  I almost believed that.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  There's a rule in New York. There's a rule in New York. Matrimonial lawyers are not, we're the only lawyers that are not allowed to have sex with our clients. It's a rule. Like if I, you do a real estate closer for someone, you can fuck them. But if you're a divorce lawyer, domestic relations lawyer, you cannot have sex with your client for six months after the representation is concluded. You should have said that. You should have said it's illegal.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  No, we're saying do, do circle the block, seven months.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  But I'm telling you something.

• 53:56Speaker 00

  Whoever, whoever wrote that rule, whoever wrote that rule. Yeah. Was not a divorce lawyer because you don't even want to fucking talk to these people, much less fuck them.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  Some of these women, some of these women too, they have a hero thing they've put on you.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  That is so unhealthy. It's first time you start to sweat all.

• 54:21Mark Gagnon?

  You take a break. I'm gonna call my lawyer.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Okay, so we know you've never fucked a client, but hypothetically speaking, like if you ever were to circle the block seven months later, eight months later, and like now that girl has tons of money that you won for her, and she's like really grateful, what is, what would that be like hypothetically? What is that head like? Hypothetically speaking, like when you just gave her a hundred million dollars.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  I mean, look, it'd probably be fantastic. Yeah, that'd be a lot of money. Yeah.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  It's not, you know, I'm not, uh, she's got enough money to do better than me at that point.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  No, but she's really grateful.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, look, they do, what I'll tell you is your female clients fall in love with you.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  They do.

• 54:59Speaker 00

  But it's not you that they're in love with. You're their hero in this situation.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  And, and so you, you have to have the presence of mind, like, it's like when you're a college professor, like, yeah, of course, you got twenty something year old girls who are like coming to your office hours, like, and they're into you. Of course, there's a part of your brain that goes, oh my God, are you kidding me? This is fucking, but the truth is, they, they think you know shit you don't know. They think that you're this genius person. You're just a fucking person. Like, so I, I really don't, like, that's not, they're not in love with you.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  I think like twenty of them you fucked.

• 55:33Mark Gagnon?

  Is that a fair one?

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Fair middle.

• 55:36Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah, what?

• 55:36Speaker 02

  In two decades, in two decades.

• 55:38Mark Gagnon?

  You're at a bar, you're drinking.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Jitsu tatted up.

• 55:41Mark Gagnon?

  I know, bro, like, come on.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  You're a husband's worst nightmare.

• 55:45Mark Gagnon?

  I know some things, I know some things.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Well, here's what I'll tell you.

• 55:48Mark Gagnon?

  I know a court clerk in Manhattan Family Court. She knows some stories about you.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  We do research on this topic.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  That's really, wow, now he launched that one.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  Yo, look. That's how you get fifty percent off. It's never pro bono.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  I'm gonna give you my car.

• 56:12Mark Gagnon?

  You haven't eaten anything.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  But they should.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Come over, it's lovely.

• 56:17Speaker 02

  But they should if it's like a horrible divorce and you free this woman from this oppressive man and then you take the majority of money, give it to him and the house and all this other stuff and she can't just, you know.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  But you got it in your head too. I mean, see like in your head, there's like these super hot young women I'm representing who like now have hundred million dollars and wanna fuck me.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  It's really like.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  You're not thinking about the money.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  It's mostly like women in like their 50s with like they all got that New York, you know, like surprise cosmetic surgery look.

• 56:48Mark Gagnon?

  The old, the old.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  And like this is not, like I could do better than that.

• 56:51Speaker 02

  What about somebody's second wife?

• 56:52Speaker 00

  You know?

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Like one of these.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Oh, second wife.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  If there's a prenup, if there's a prenup.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Oh, they lock them in.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're smart enough to lock them in and say to the three fucking guys who are married and don't have prenups.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, none of us. Well, he's not married yet.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, still hope for you.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Should he get a prenup?

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Of course he should have a, all fucking three, all of you should have a prenup.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  Why? It's no fun.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  Why? It's no fun. Don't you like the risk of it? Like every argument that you get in with your wife, you're like, man, half my shit at the end of this argument.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Isn't it exciting?

• 57:24Speaker 02

  Don't you wanna live on the edge? I'm Alex Hoddle, I'm climbing the side of the cliff. No rope.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  It's like, okay.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  No ropes.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  I honestly do feel like if we get divorced, you take half the shit, do I think I can't make more money? Like, go away. I'm paying you to go away.

• 57:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Here's half my shit, shut up.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go make more money and then we're done.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  Wouldn't it be even cooler though?

• 57:44Speaker 02

  He has to justify it.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  And her whole goal is to have her make more money than me anyway. Who cares?

• 57:50Speaker 00

  I mean, look, what I'll tell you is, I mean, first of all, I don't think anybody wants their marriage to continue with their spouse to stay in the marriage because they don't wanna give up half their shit. That's like a bad incentive, right? Like you want someone to stay married to you because they wanna be married to you. Because they think you add value to their life, that they enjoy your company, that more often than not, they're glad they're with you, whatever, any number of justifications.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  But to say, well, I'm with him because I don't wanna have to give away half my shit.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  He's got broke boy mentality.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  That's terrible, right?

• 58:20Speaker 01

  He's got broke boy mentality. He's like a child.

• 58:22Speaker 00

  We gotta, we gotta.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  He's like a big child.

• 58:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, we gotta get this out.

• 58:25Mark Gagnon?

  So if I were to get a prenup, what should I include in it?

• 58:27Speaker 00

  I think the easiest prenup is the one that I would encourage most people to have, which is I call it the yours, mine and ours. If it's in your name, asset or liability, you keep it. If it's in her name, asset or liability, she keeps it. If it's in joint names, you split it 50/50. That's it, clean. Here's what I'll tell you. Everybody, you have, all three of you have a prenup. The government wrote it. The state legislature wrote your fucking prenup. And by the way, like, you think that's a good idea? Like, you think, you ever been to the DMV? You ever walk into the DMV and go, these people should be in charge of everything? Like, they're great at it. This is really good. No, the reality is, is like, the government is the worst fucking people to write your prenup.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  To whom, though? To whom? Worst to whom? To my wife or to me?

• 59:08Speaker 00

  Both of you. Both of you. The process, you've signed up, you've signed up for a rule set that you don't even know.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  But you bought, you bought a house, right? You bought a house, you had to sign a HUD one, a lead paint disclosure, you got all this fucking information about the loan. You got married, you didn't get a fucking pamphlet. You just did the most legally significant thing you're gonna do in your whole life, other than die? And you have no fucking clue what happened. You know, the first time, the first time you weren't.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Fucking dumb. Big dick, and that's what's called, that's what's called, big dick.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  I don't know, pussy ass shit, oh, look at the documents. I don't even, I don't even know what the hell.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  No, I'm just talking about.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  More lead, more lead paint.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  Translate that to go into business and being like, I'm betting it all on black, how much? I don't know, all of it, go.

• 59:50Speaker 00

  I would do that.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Fucking crazy.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  I have, and I've lost quite a few bitcoins, so.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  It is crazy.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  It is what it is.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  No, no, it is crazy. It is crazy. A hundred percent.

• 59:58Speaker 00

  Cause my attitude is, look, all kidding aside, every marriage has a prenup. It's either one that's written by the government, or it's written by the two people that like each other theoretically more than the other eight billion other options, right?

• 1:00:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:10Speaker 00

  So who is better to come up with a rule set than those two people? And that's all the prenup is. A prenup is just saying, look, there's gonna come a time, like, if you're getting married, it's smart to say to your spouse, when you're getting along still.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  That, we're gonna get in a fight at some point. I promise. It's probably gonna be my fault. I'm gonna say some dumb shit. I say dumb shit, it happens.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  When we get in that fight, what should that look like? Do you need a minute? Should I give you some space? Like, if I force you to talk about it, is it gonna turn into a whole thing? Or do we need to take care of this now, cause you don't wanna go to bed angry? Like, I wanna know, cause the worst time to learn how to fight is when you're in a fucking fight. Like, that's the worst time to learn how to do a fight. So, that's all the prenup is. Prenup is saying, look, we're getting along right now, we have an abundance of goodwill between the two of us. If, God forbid, in the highly unlikely 56 fucking percent, the highly unlikely chance that we would get divorced, what would that look like? And by the way, there's a way to say it that I think has a tremendous amount of big dick energy, which is to say, you know what? You're my woman. I want you to feel safe.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  You can't feel loved unless you feel safe. And the way I want you to feel safe, the way I want you to feel safe is I want you to feel safe from everyone, including me. So what is dumb?

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Do you think our lives are?

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, to marry you.

• 1:01:38Mark Gagnon?

  She's like, I got this, Sim.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Yo, actual question, yours, mine, and ours. How does that go once you're married? Everything is just gonna go ours, right? You're gonna buy the house, it's gonna be our name. You're gonna buy the cars, it's gonna be our name.

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  Conversation you gotta have. Like, look, you know this as a married man. If you can't have difficult conversations with your spouse, don't get fucking married. Like, part of being married is having hard conversations, talking about tough stuff.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  Personally. Let's say you and your wife are both working. Wife decides to not work to raise the child.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  Sure, common.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  And maybe I'm telling you how I feel without asking you how you feel. But like, there's a part of me that goes, okay, well, anything, first of all, anything, I don't have a preempt, obviously. So anything that we own is both of ours. But like, I think that if she's gonna make that sacrifice and that decision, I think she's entitled to half of everything.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  Who would disagree with that?

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  Okay, good, because I think there's sometimes people-

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  Totally fair.

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  Okay, and I think sometimes people are like, well, if you're making the money, that's all you. It's like, yeah, yeah, but you're able to do that because somebody's looking after the child. Now, there are circumstances, like, your guy's circumstances, they don't have a kid yet, right? So like, he's making money and, you know, she, your wife, could be making money. So he might have an argument to go, well, I'm gonna keep all of this because you could be working.

• 1:02:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  But I do think, once you add children into the mix, there's a very different, different-

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  But I totally agree, and I think any reasonable person would. But just to push back on that thought a little bit.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  Yep, yep.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  What I would say to you is, okay, but there's gotta be a stop loss somewhere in there, right? Like, there's gotta be, there's gotta be some sense of like, what is that obligation? Because, look, at the end of the day, we all owe each other things when we make decisions like this, right?

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Oh, you're saying, add a certain number?

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  Like, in some ways, in some ways- You wouldn't have the success you have if it wasn't for your wife.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  She's supported you, she's helped you. Okay, absolutely. Your wife wouldn't be the person she is if it wasn't for her mother.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:03:28Speaker 00

  So what do you owe her mother? How much?

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  I think at least half.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Okay. Her mother wouldn't be the person she was if it wasn't for her mother.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  She needs half.

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  So how much do we owe grandma?

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  She needs half.

• 1:03:37Speaker 00

  Okay, so the math on this gets a little fuzzy.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  They all need half.

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  So the reality is...

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  Everybody.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Look, I think fundamentally... Yeah, they need half of her half. Value is an important thing. You know, I just watched your special, you know, and I got a huge kick out of especially as a divorce lawyer, the shit we laugh at. But when you said the thing about, you know, like...

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  We made a baby.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  We made a baby, and you're like, "Oh, just like we made this money." Like, "It's our money." Like, "Okay, look, at the end of the day, we know you earn more than her, right?" Okay, so why do we have to be afraid to say that out loud? Like, marriage is an economy.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  That's not a dirty word. An economy is, we're exchanging value.

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  We're giving and receiving. And an economy does not require that everyone gives and receives the exact same fucking thing. You can say, like, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak. You know, without Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs would have a lot of cool ideas he couldn't do shit with.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  And if it wasn't for Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak should see a dude in his garage making shit but have no vision. So together, they brought something to fruition. Same thing with the marriage.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  There's no question...

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Does she get half? Does that really make sense? Half of everything?

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  So there's no question of whether what you're saying makes sense. I think the difficult emotional battle, which you've probably done thousands of times, is putting a dollar value on what somebody brings to the table in a marriage. Like, what is the dollar value you're worth for raising our kid?

• 1:04:57Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  That's a really difficult thing to do.

• 1:04:59Speaker 00

  It feels icky to say it.

• 1:05:00Speaker 02

  It feels icky.

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  But it only feels icky for reasons that I think we could fix as a culture. And that is that why can't we be hon... Like, I'm a fan of honesty. I'm a fan of just being... Just say a quiet part out loud.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Speaker 00

  Like, you give me... Like, because here's the problem. Here's the problem with modern marriage from a man's perspective, as far as I'm concerned. Most of the marriages I know, okay, the man provides financially. He protects, right? He, you know, he's also there to be part of the family dynamic, taking care of kids, doing the things that he can do. What does the woman bring? She brings love, affection, a little bit of sweetness at the end of the day, you know, sex. She brings, you know, taking care of kids. Okay. If you get divorced, every single thing on that side of the man equation, he can be compelled to do by the power of the state and if he fails to do it, they can put him in jail. Nothing on that other side, the female side, is enforceable at law.

• 1:05:57Speaker 00

  The court cannot order her to be nice to you, to fuck you, to be a wonderful mother to your children. She can't. They can't force that. So, when you have a contract where only one side of it is enforceable with the power of the state and the other side is not, my attitude is, why don't we then just have an honest conversation about what we could both be afraid of and what value we want to attribute to somebody?

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  But the court can't force you to protect your wife and the court can't force you to make money for your family.

• 1:06:22Speaker 00

  Well economically, they can force you to. They can force you to protect somebody. You can, like, I've had, I've had, you know, cases where the court says, okay, um, this person needs a security detail. If it's a celebrity, they say these kids are gonna need security for when they go to school, things like that.

• 1:06:34Speaker 02

  But the average person, like, can the court say you have to work to a dad?

• 1:06:38Speaker 00

  Well, what the courts say is, Lincoln freed the slaves. Like, if you're a, you know, if you're a, uh, uh, if you're any-

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  You notice I didn't look old?

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  Like, I like being a fucking dad.

• 1:06:53Speaker 04

  Not to Lincoln, by the way. It's one of the big ups. What does that mean?

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  What does that mean? What I'm saying, what I, what I-

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  The dude in court.

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  Take off my hat, race the slaves.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  You said her pussy was like a bolo.

• 1:07:10Speaker 02

  Stick it in the- You're gonna take it in a bolo.

• 1:07:13Speaker 00

  So, so, if, if you, if your financial status at the moment you were getting divorced determined what your obligations were, everybody quit their fucking job the minute they were getting divorced.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:23Speaker 00

  So what the courts say is, like, if you're a brain surgeon, who now I'm getting divorced, I decided I wanna be a fucking yoga teacher.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:29Speaker 00

  The court goes, look, Lincoln freed the slaves. We can't make you be a brain surgeon. You're just gonna be a brain, you're gonna be a yoga teacher who has the financial obligations of a brain surgeon. So they impute an income to you.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 1:07:39Speaker 00

  And they'll say, whatever you do for a living, it's fine. We can't force you to work, but we can give you financial obligations commensurate with your earning capacity, even if you're not earning at that capacity.

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  Which is actually really fucked up. Yeah, like I had a client once who was an air traffic controller. And if you know anything about air traffic controllers, like you can have a high school education, be an air traffic controller. Make like three, four hundred grand a year.

• 1:08:01Mark Gagnon?

  Wow.

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  You can do really, really well. Well, this guy, his mother passed away. He was very close with her. He had a lot of anxiety and a lot of depression from it, and he had to go on, on medication, psychiatric medication to like sort of deal with it. You're not allowed to be on benzodiazepines or certain psychiatric medications while you're in air traffic control, so he was terminated from his position. The next best job this guy could get, he made about fifty grand a year, but the court was like, no.

• 1:08:28Mark Gagnon?

  You still got.

• 1:08:28Speaker 00

  Your earning capacity is three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. That's what you made. And we, we were like, Judge, what job can this guy get where he's going to make that amount of money? So it can sometimes, this is how guys end up in jail for not paying support. It's not their fault.

• 1:08:42Mark Gagnon?

  So what'd he do?

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  The, they, he, he suffered, basically, yeah. I mean, he, he had a very unfair child support award placed against him. He ended up in jail a couple of times. It was a really.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Cause he was like selling drugs or something to make the money?

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  No, he just was not, he didn't pay his support. It's illegal to not pay child support. You can be put in jail.

• 1:08:59Mark Gagnon?

  But you can't go back for a readjustment if you have.

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  We did after a certain amount of time and then it was granted. Yeah. Like it was, the, the judge sort of didn't buy that this was not done intentionally. Like, we joke in our industry that, you know, we call it sudden income deficiency syndrome, that it hits like nine out of ten divorcing men, like guys are doing really great and then all of a sudden they're getting divorced and they're like, but this year's gonna be bad. I'm not gonna do well this year. Like you work for Goldman Sachs. They're like, yeah, but we're having a bad year, you know? So it happens a lot. The judges tend to look at people and go, you know, something tells me that if you're saying you're suddenly not doing well financially and it happens to be when you're getting divorced, there, there might be, you know, it's not a coincidence.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  So I hear about these guys who don't pay child support. You see that anecdotally, whatever, but then he, the saying I always hear is, well, courts are not in the collections business. So out of some guys seemingly not really pay, kind of be unfair, and then some guys, well intentioned, end up in jail.

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  Courts, it depends on how bold the judge is. I mean, what I'll tell you is a big, I'll, I'll, I'll give you some free legal advice. If you ever. Have a child support obligation against you, which I hope you never do. And you have to pay it, and you don't have the money to pay it. Like, if you're supposed to give her $2,000 a month, and you don't have $2,000. Don't give her $1,000. Give her $1,226.37. Because then, when we get in front of the judge, we can say, "Judge, I had $1,000. I borrowed $200 from my cousin. I found $32 under the mats of my car. It's everything I have." Because what people do is, if you gave $1,000, why didn't you give $1,001?

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  If you gave 1,500, like, of a round number, it just looks like you're full of shit. You know, so, but, yeah, I mean, look, we, we, courts don't always... You know, again, because judges are human. There are some judges, they will put you right the fuck in jail. I've had clients let off in orange, you know, where the judge says, "Look, you got a week to pay this child support, and if you don't, bring a toothbrush when you come back to court, because I'm putting you away." And they'll put some, they'll lock guys up. They have what's called weekend jail. Where on Friday after work, you check in, and you stay in jail until Monday morning.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  And then you get to work during...

• 1:11:07Speaker 00

  So you can work and pay your child support. Yeah.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  Why, uh, why does alimony exist?

• 1:11:13Speaker 00

  That's a great question.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  This... I get child support. I get...

• 1:11:18Mark Gagnon?

  Splitting of assets.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  I get that.

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  You ever want to, you ever want to...

• 1:11:22Speaker 02

  Real quick, real quick.

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  You ever want to take a feminism out of a woman?

• 1:11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Speaker 00

  Make her pay alimony?

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  Uh, dude, I think one of the coolest things in the White Lotus episode, they have these, these three different girls that make up this girl group. It, it's phenomenal, and each is an archetype of alimony at that age. But one of them is paying child support or alimony. But it is really interesting to see her reaction to it, and how her friends react.

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  They hate it.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  Yes. Okay, so can you explain, one, what is alimony? And two, what is, like, the steel man argument for it? Like, give me the, not like, "Oh, this sucks."

• 1:11:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  But what is the best-case scenario?

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so, alimony, or spousal support, or spousal maintenance, every state calls it something different, um, is a payment that's made from one former spouse to another, and it's intended to either rehabilitate their earning capacity, so that they can kind of get on their feet, or it's to roughly approximate... The marital lifestyle for a certain period of time. So it's very rarely what we call non-durational, meaning like you broke it, you bought it forever, you owe her the marital lifestyle. There was a time where that was the way it was done, but it hasn't been that way for many, many years now.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  So just so I can clarify, anybody's listening, essentially this is, there's this idea where if you're married and you have a certain lifestyle.

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  Right, and there's a wide disparity in your incomes.

• 1:12:32Speaker 02

  And there's a wide disparity in your, in your potential income because the wife might not even be working.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  It is up to the husband or the wife, whoever is the breadwinner, to maintain that lifestyle outside of the marriage.

• 1:12:41Speaker 00

  Or some approximation of it for some period of time.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 1:12:45Speaker 00

  So the steel man argument for it is the following. There are economic decisions you make during your marriage and you make them as a couple, right? So, so it is very difficult for everybody to be Beyonce. Somebody's got to be Destiny's Child, you know, you can't all be the, you know, Lionel Richie, somebody's got to be the Commodores.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  Sure, sure.

• 1:13:04Speaker 00

  So what you do is you say, okay, look, you're the star right now. I'm going to stand by, I'm going to take care of home, I'm going to do my thing. You, in the law, we call it diminished lifetime earning capacity. Which, which basically means if a woman takes her late twenties or her thirties off from the workforce. Cause that's when you have kids, you have kids in your thirties, kids in your forties.

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  Very hard for her to get back into the workforce.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  And when she gets back into the workforce, she's behind in the race. So now she's still. Like if you join the New York City marathon halfway through, you're not going to finish with everybody else, no matter how fucking fast.

• 1:13:39Speaker 02

  And just clarifying, behind in the race means like when she was twenty, she would be in this beginner position. I forget what that's called, like early entry position. At forty, she should be like a VP or something. Because she hasn't worked for two decades, she has to go back at that beginning.

• 1:13:52Speaker 00

  So in the law, we call that diminished lifetime earning.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  And because it's a beginning position, the earning potential is very small.

• 1:13:58Speaker 00

  Is lower and it'll never catch up because by the time she reaches the age she would have been at forty. She's sixty, so she's closer to retirement, so it's lost. So what you're doing is you're sort of saying, okay, we're going to compensate for that. That's the argument for it.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Now, I, I actually think that there's a, a lot of compassion, empathy in that idea. I, I, I, like, that's the best steel man I've heard for it, it makes a lot of sense. Here's the.

• 1:14:21Speaker 00

  I don't think most people would disagree with.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no, here's the other question I have. There are certain circumstances where there is a divorce, there's a payment and splitting of assets to the tune of like tens of millions of dollars. And on top of that, an alimony payment. Isn't there a way where where where it could be calculated that the assets themselves would assume that alimony?

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  So what's really interesting is without realizing it, you've actually just joined the Legislative Committee of the New York State Bar Association because a few years ago, the the domestic relations law was actually modified to reflect exactly that. Where they said what they call it is the the the income creating capacity of assets received inequitable distribution. And now it is one of the factors. When I started my career 25 years ago, that wasn't a factor. And then a lot of lawyers, myself included, were like, wait, she's getting $20 million. Put it in treasuries at 5%. She's got an income stream. So the courts and the legislature caught up. And now they say, yeah, if you're getting like, I just did a divorce where there was an $800 million marital estate.

• 1:15:29Speaker 00

  She actually had the audacity to ask for alimony. And the judge looked at it and went, listen, you're getting $400 million worth of assets. You're going to be all right. You know, we're not that can kick off income if you want it.

• 1:15:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, OK, I'm glad that they are making these adjustments. And I think a lot of times you have to put in this legislation because you have to protect women, especially at a time where like, they weren't able to work. Like, a lot of these laws, I imagine, are put in times where, like, women aren't even part of the workforce.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  That's where a lot of them came about. And then the law is very slow to change because the way that our law works is it's sort of a living thing that modifies as times and and standards change.

• 1:16:02Speaker 02

  As it should, but there is bureaucracy you have to go through, and that's always going to be.

• 1:16:06Speaker 00

  And by the way, to bring it back to where we started here, that's why I'm a fan of prenups.

• 1:16:11Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  Because if you're a fair person and your soon to be spouse is a fair person, couldn't you have this conversation?

• 1:16:19Speaker 02

  So, so this is this is really interesting. And and just before, just to caveat it, like, we all understand the emotional reaction to a prenup and this idea of like, the impending doom of your marriage before it even starts. So we we get that. But it is interesting to attack the prenup, maybe attack is the wrong word, but approach the prenup with this idea that current legislation might not reflect what both parties feel is fair in a relationship, no matter how it goes. And you can, if you love some of the current legislation, put that into the prenup. If you don't, you can remove it. So I think that's an interesting argument for it.

• 1:16:53Speaker 00

  That that's, to me, the best argument for it. Because here's the other problem. Is there another contract that you've ever heard of? That they can change the terms of the contract without even fucking telling you? That's interesting. Like, imagine if you bought or leased a car.

• 1:17:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is really interesting.

• 1:17:11Speaker 00

  And they said, "Oh, by the way, the state just decided we're gonna change how the interest rate works and when you have to make the payments." And you're not allowed to go, "Oh, well, then I'd like to opt out and return the car." And they go, "Oh, no, no, no, you can't do that, sorry." Like, so there's rules. There's a prenup that was written for all three of your marriages.

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  By the government.

• 1:17:30Speaker 00

  That can be changed unilaterally by people other than you and your wife.

• 1:17:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  And affect you forever. So to me, my attitude is, listen, you could do a prenup one way, and then three years later, do an addendum and modify it. Like, you can make it a living document, just like you make your will. You make your will at one point, you make it again five years later. You change it, you change it frequently.

• 1:17:50Speaker 02

  I think the perception of it is a person with a lot of assets.

• 1:17:55Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  Trying to make sure that the person that they're gonna spend the rest of their life with never gets those assets in the event that the marriage doesn't work out, which is the goal of a lot of prenups.

• 1:18:03Speaker 00

  And by the way, not an unfair concept. Like, let's, let's, let's...

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  You're bringing a hundred million?

• 1:18:07Speaker 00

  Let's go to an alternate reality.

• 1:18:09Speaker 02

  Wait, man, I gotta peel a cookie, because the next thing I do wanna talk to you about is like, uh, I think we're getting there. Like, what happens with these, like, huge estates? These people that have, like, generational wealth? Anyway, can we take, like, a two-minute break? Uh, listen, very important that we discuss March Madness. There's nothing, there's more important to the people in this podcast than amateur sports. Yes. I love amateur sports, we love amateur, uh, football, we love amateur basketball. Right now... They're paying crazy money now, so is he even amateur? Are they even amateur? Yeah. So they're just shittier pros.

• 1:18:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  We love shittier pros.

• 1:18:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  Like, I don't have enough time to watch every NBA game that I wanna watch, but I make sure I make time to watch shittier pros.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Most of whom, yeah, will watch guys who will probably never make it to the NBA.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Never make it to that. And if they do, there'll be huge disappointments.

• 1:18:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  There's maybe one or two guys that will have a career.

• 1:18:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  In this entire draft. So, um, so, yeah, but, but, you know, it's March Madness. Doesn't feel very mad. Frank, does it feel like so mad?

• 1:19:06Speaker 04

  Have there been crazy upsets yet?

• 1:19:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  St. John's is the only one.

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  That team lost to that team, or whatever.

• 1:19:11Speaker 04

  Oh, I heard about that.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I didn't hear about that. And then everybody, and then all the adults pretended like they cared. Do you remember that, "Oh my, my bracket is busted." "My bracket is so busted."

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  No sport has had as much done for it by March Madness with brackets. Like, it's saved, this is the only reason anybody gives a fuck, because their office is gonna give you free lunch if you win. And that's why you care.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're all working at Lumen.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  I think this was fantasy sports before fantasy. In that, like, remember, I don't know, because obviously everybody gambled on whatever the fuck they wanted to gamble on back in the day, but like, you rooted for your team. When we were growing up, I rooted for the Knicks. I rooted for the Giants, or the Jets, whoever was fucking worse. I rooted for the Yankees. And then fantasy comes around, you start rooting for like, individual players, because it reflects on your team. And I think that the bracket was the closest that we came to that. Most of us did not go to the colleges that are playing in the tournament. My school, I think we made it the year before I went there, I don't even know if we've made it since. So, you end up having this like, almost fantasy-esque relationship with the bracket.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:16Speaker 02

  So we pretend that we care about amateur athletics, which we do not.

• 1:20:19Speaker 04

  New York people also have a weird relationship with college sports. In general. Which I don't get, because so many New Yorkers will go to state schools, and then they'll, should have some patriotism.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Because there's no good state school like, at athletics in New York.

• 1:20:30Speaker 04

  But if you go to Ole Miss from New York, you should still like Ole Miss.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  A lot of New Yorkers end up going to Michigan or Wisconsin if they can't get into any leagues.

• 1:20:36Speaker 04

  And they'll still be like, eh.

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. So like, if you, there's a New Yorker that's at Michigan or Wisconsin, I just want you all to know that that was his last choice.

• 1:20:46Speaker 02

  They thought they were better than that, they applied to Cornell, they applied to Brown, they probably didn't think they were smart enough to get into like Harvard or Princeton, but they applied to the lower Ivies, they didn't get in, and they're like, "My safety school will be, I will make the pilgrimage with the rest of the New York Jews to Wisconsin."

• 1:21:03Speaker 04

  They have a good business school.

• 1:21:04Speaker 02

  They have a good, yeah, that's what it is. So, anyway, and then they pretend to like the college, you know, amateur athletics.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  And ironically, NYU's a bunch of kids who wanted to get an Ivy's and couldn't, so they're...

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  NYU.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:21:16Speaker 02

  But it's actually a good school.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  That's the difference. Whereas Michigan, Wisconsin.

• 1:21:20Mark Gagnon?

  They just hated.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Michigan's good, Wisconsin's no.

• 1:21:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  Say again?

• 1:21:23Mark Gagnon?

  I said they hated their parents. They just wanted to get away.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Why go to an even colder place? You did it well. Go to Santa Barbara. The polar opposite weather wise. Michigan, let's go to a shittier weather state.

• 1:21:33Speaker 04

  No winter, no classes. Like, perfect. You know what I mean? That's, that's what you want in a college experience.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  I mean, it was such a good show.

• 1:21:41Speaker 02

  Do you guys remember a single thing you learned in college?

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe one or two.

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  I don't remember one. I thought about this the other day.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  I don't remember one thing I learned in college.

• 1:21:53Speaker 04

  No, come on.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  I don't remember one. Like, I, I, I can't remember a single thing.

• 1:21:57Speaker 04

  You know all of gente Fernandez because of college.

• 1:22:01Speaker 02

  Not in college.

• 1:22:02Speaker 04

  Extraviricular.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would have learned that shit here, too.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

  Didn't think I would have met a Mexican kid here that was gonna go and watch some fucking Montez.

• 1:22:11Speaker 04

  That's a good point. If they had that class, though.

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  I'm trying to think. I think I learned some like evolutionary biology stuff.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  That's all I remember.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe some Psych 101, but like, I don't think, you don't learn anything.

• 1:22:22Mark Gagnon?

  Statistics right now? I can't remember a single thing.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  Mean, median mode, I got you.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  Sin, cosine, tangent.

• 1:22:27Speaker 04

  That might have been high school. That might have been high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:30Speaker 02

  I don't remember none of that shit. Anyway, the point is, if you want to bet on a good, useless sports, you can bet on college sports. And you can do that with steak. Steak is the leader in global betting in US social casinos. Bet on top sports and also college. And political events, and they use the promo code flagrant for your welcome bonus. Now, let me just caveat this, I'm saying, listen. I'm right.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, college sports, there's only one way to make it fun, and that's gambling.

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  If you're not gambling, it sucks.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Can we just acknowledge that?

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. College basketball, they're dribbling off their foot.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  Oh, but it's, the, the defense is better. It's more fundamentals. No, no, no. You're gambling on it. That's what makes it exciting.

• 1:23:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the only way it's exciting.

• 1:23:13Speaker 02

  You don't have to gamble on every single NBA game. If you did, you'd obviously do a steak, but you don't have to because it's the best of the best. But if I'm gonna watch Liberty.

• 1:23:22Speaker 02

  Take on Drake. I need some fucking scratch on it.

• 1:23:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, a nineteen year old athlete putting everything down, trying to get his mom out the hood. I'm putting money on it.

• 1:23:31Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Shout out to Cooper Flagman.

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  Anyway, let's get back to the show.

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  There are certain people that are targeted. Meaning they come from very wealthy families.

• 1:23:44Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:23:44Speaker 02

  Their families might have billions of dollars. And like, marriage has been almost like a tool to protect those assets for hundreds of years, maybe, in some of these families.

• 1:23:55Speaker 00

  I mean, well, that's what marriage originally was designed culturally for the purposes of maintaining land ownership and merging clans.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  Like, I, I, actually, after we get into this discussion, I'd really like to know some of the history of marriage. Like, why, one, why it's continued to be around? Like, if this is something that didn't have societal utility, I think that we would have.

• 1:24:15Speaker 00

  Who were the first people that were like, this is going so great, we should get the government involved?

• 1:24:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:18Speaker 00

  You know, like, that's fucking weird.

• 1:24:20Speaker 02

  It does seem weird that, that, that's an interesting thing. Even when my wife and I were gonna get married, I was like, I really don't care that the government knows about this. It's important to me that you and I know about this, and we are committing to one another. And I think for them, I think that the idea that the government knows about it makes it feel more real because of like societal expectations or whatever.

• 1:24:40Speaker 00

  But you know, what's an interesting thing I've, I've always found fascinating is,

• 1:24:46Speaker 00

  if you said to me, you know, Jim, I'm thinking about buying an airplane. If I said, oh, really? Why? That's not a rude question.

• 1:24:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:55Speaker 00

  You would say, oh, you know, I, I fly a lot, and it'd be nice, I wanted to learn how to do it, okay. If you're dating a girl for a certain period of time, you say to me, you know, Jim, I'm thinking about getting married. And I go, why?

• 1:25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:07Speaker 00

  That's rude. Why is that rude? Like, this is a technology that fails 56% of the fucking time.

• 1:25:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Speaker 00

  And let's say there's another 10, 20% that stay together for the kids because they don't want to give away half their shit. Why is it rude to say to someone, you guys are getting along, you're in love, you're having fun? Why do you want to get the government involved?

• 1:25:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:30Speaker 00

  Like, why, what, my, my whole thing is, what is the problem?

• 1:25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:35Speaker 00

  To which marriage is a solution? Like, what is the problem to which marriage is like, like, anything else in your life? You could answer that. What is the problem to which this is a solution? It's hard to hold water in my hands, so we need a container for it. What is the problem to which this is a solution? It's nice to be able to talk to people when they're not in the room. Okay, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? I'm lonely?

• 1:25:56Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:25:56Speaker 00

  Marriage doesn't solve that problem.

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  To answer, to answer, to answer your question. I thought you brought up a really great point when it came to like allocating time with the kids in a divorce, which was like, if a dad has every other weekend, it's kind of looked at like, oh yeah, okay, he's got a job. He's a divorced dad. If a mom has every other weekend, she's looking at like a psychopath, right? So I do think that women that are in long-term relationships but aren't married feel a societal scrutiny.

• 1:26:23Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:26:23Speaker 02

  Will he not commit to me? Does he not really love you? Is he trying to protect his money or his assets or something like that? And I think a lot of times that informs their decision to quote-unquote, get the government involved. It's less about the government, it's more about like, how will society view me as this person's partner? Like, and is it a lack of commitment? Which, obviously now, like, if we remove the emotion from it, we can unpack and go, yeah, it doesn't change anything in that relationship. And you can, you can literally not get married, but you can sign a contract with some lawyers about how assets can be distributed. Like, you can have the government play no part.

• 1:26:58Speaker 00

  And if you, by the way, don't even know what role the government plays in that, it's kind of a fiction. And by the way, like, you trust that Mark is married.

• 1:27:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:06Speaker 00

  Have you checked the fucking paperwork ever?

• 1:27:08Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 00

  Like, honestly, like, if, if, if, have you ever gone to a wedding?

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:12Speaker 00

  And after, at the end, gone, lovely ceremony, great pigs in the blanket at the cocktail hour. See the paperwork?

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:19Speaker 00

  They go, I'm sorry, well, never the marriage license, I just want to make sure. Like, your parents might not be fucking married. But you know what, did you check the paperwork?

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  I've never looked.

• 1:27:25Speaker 00

  We know about the nurse outfit.

• 1:27:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Speaker 00

  We don't know about the paperwork.

• 1:27:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're so low.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  So you, by the way, have as many fucking weddings as you want, guys.

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:33Speaker 00

  Like, getting married's lots of fun, it's a great party, I'm all for it. I fucking love weddings, so I like pigs in blankets.

• 1:27:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:39Speaker 00

  But the truth is, like, does that mean you actually have to go sign a marriage license? Get the government involved? Not necessarily.

• 1:27:44Speaker 02

  But let's, let's, real quick, let's, let's just divide this up. What you're not saying, you're not saying that having a partner that you guys dedicate your lives to each other and grow a family with is bad.

• 1:27:55Speaker 00

  Not only is it not bad, I think it's the best thing in the world.

• 1:27:58Speaker 02

  It's incredibly important.

• 1:27:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's the best pair of bonds, like relationships, love, like what is better than love?

• 1:28:05Speaker 02

  Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I guess what happens is I think when people hear the word like, why would you get married? They often assume that you're like, have a few girlfriends, or don't commit to one person, or it's not gonna work out. You're pro-relationship, you're pro like-

• 1:28:18Speaker 00

  I'm pro-monogamy.

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  You're pro-monogamy, you're pro-family.

• 1:28:21Speaker 00

  I'm pro-people building families together. Look, there's, there's a reason why throughout the history of humankind, pair bonds, monogamy, like this exists for biological reasons, it exists for social reasons. But to, like, I, if I saw a correlation between love and marriage, and love being sustained by the fact that you've married, I would be the biggest fan of marriage in the world. What I see is the opposite. What I see is people dating and in love, who then sign on for a contract that they do not understand at all. And then, I think it becomes almost antagonistic to it, because our society is so, considers

• 1:29:06Speaker 00

  it so acceptable, come on, listen, look at every group of women you've ever seen out, who are married, okay? And one of them is not married. And the one who's not married is talking about a guy who she just started dating, and they all are, oh my god, he sounds so great, he's so wonderful, it's so great, oh my god, what did he, oh, he did that, he's so lovely. And then when they talk about their husbands, oh, he's such a, I mean, you know, and then he comes home and is that, all that is, is the guy that she's talking about a couple of years down the road. Like, marriage becomes very antagonistic to this situation, says the guy who's been married how many years now?

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:29:48Speaker 00

  Like, so, okay, the reality is, like, listen, I'm telling you, I, every, the previews is always the best part of the movie.

• 1:29:54Speaker 02

  No, no, no, what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to say is- Specifically, one, like, when everybody knows that you're married, it's no like, you'd have to be a psychopath to walk into a room of your friends and be like, "My wife and I did the most amazing thing, and she's the kindest person." That's not what we want to hear about. We want to hear, like you said, like, when you, as a divorce attorney, and you walk into a party, you're like, "Tell me the drama, tell me the craziest thing." So I'm coming in with the funny shit, which is the drama. When you're dating a new person, there's no drama yet. It's like, "We went on one date, he beat me." That never happens. So it's just like, "Oh, what's the sex? What's it like? Is he good?"

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  And we miss that euphoria. Not that the love fades, but it shifts from euphoria to a different love.

• 1:30:34Speaker 00

  And by the way, what it shifts to can also be way better than that euphoria.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  I think my relationship with my wife's gotten better since.

• 1:30:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think most, there are a lot of people that will tell you that, and by the way, at its best, that's what happens in a relationship, is you give up novelty in exchange for a depth of connection, a person who understands you, a person who, "Look, this all makes sense to me." Again, the question I have is, how does the government get involved in that? And does the institution of marriage add value to it? Like, I genuinely believe what you are saying about how you feel about your wife. If you had not married her, and you hadn't signed that contract, you would still feel that way.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  I think what I could say in your favor is that maybe society, law hasn't caught up to society. Society has gotten more egalitarian, gender roles-wise, equality-wise, for men and women. But especially thirty, forty, fifty years ago, there wasn't that. So women needed that security, and I think that's still left over. Not, I don't think marriage has no place, but I definitely understand women's need for it more than men, because they're still coming from, this equality thing is relatively recent.

• 1:31:40Speaker 00

  My attitude about tradition, because really, marriage is a tradition, it's a societal tradition. And there's really two ways to look at tradition, and I think they're both valid, okay? One is, a tradition is something that worked in the past because there's reasons for it, and maybe the people before us knew some things that we haven't figured out yet, because we're younger than them in the scheme of things. The other way you can look at tradition is peer pressure exerted by dead people. That's really what tradition very often is, is it's pure pressure from dead people. Why are we doing it this way? Because my great grandmother did it that way. Your great grandmother didn't have a smartphone. Your great grandmother did a whole bunch of things differently. Some of which, by the way, make as much if not more sense now.

• 1:32:25Speaker 00

  But some of which make no sense anymore. And how have we evolved as a culture to the point where if you said, "My wife is my property." She was her father's property and then he handed her to me in exchange for me giving something to her. And now I, I own her.

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  Sounds pretty fired, to be honest.

• 1:32:43Speaker 00

  Sounds fired, but some people, some people would have an issue with it, okay? Yet, what is, what is a wedding ceremony? Most wedding ceremonies is the, gives away the bride. It's, it's symbolic of things that most women would find terribly offensive. But because we put all these cultural things around it, it's like, oh yes. Buying a woman an engagement ring. Like, how many women have you met that are so feminist that they go, "I'm not accepting you giving me some expensive thing as a way of purchasing." Is it there? Fuck that! There, you could be a Bella Absun feminist and you would still be like, "Oh yeah, no, I want a big fucking rocket. It better not be lab-made." You know, like, that's how it works.

• 1:33:21Speaker 02

  I mean, I like Christmas presents.

• 1:33:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  It's the same shit. It doesn't make any sense.

• 1:33:26Speaker 00

  Exact same.

• 1:33:27Speaker 02

  But we like nice things, right?

• 1:33:28Speaker 00

  And there's no problem with that.

• 1:33:29Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:33:30Speaker 00

  But I don't then create a whole fiction as to why this is good for society.

• 1:33:35Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. I think, I think what we agree on is two people coming together to share love and then potentially raising a family together. And not leaving each other to go fuck other people and create other families at the same time.

• 1:33:49Speaker 04

  Kids is the biggest thing.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  Exactly. It, it is really good and beneficial for society.

• 1:33:54Speaker 00

  I think we can all agree on that.

• 1:33:55Speaker 02

  And let's, let's just use the term marriage for that.

• 1:33:58Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:34:00Speaker 02

  If, for example, every marriage required a prenup. Meaning, you couldn't get married unless you had agreed on the terms of that marriage. Now, we've removed the government doing the prenup, which it seems to me is your biggest concern.

• 1:34:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:34:18Speaker 02

  You love love, you love people coming together, you love them creating families, and it's really important for society. What you don't love are these rules imposed on us that might be antiquated or not favorable for either party.

• 1:34:28Speaker 00

  Well said. You're a marriage libertarian.

• 1:34:30Speaker 02

  Exactly correct. So what you want to do is, so I think what you're telling me, just because I don't want it to seem like you're anti-marriage. You're anti, no, sorry, you're pro what we assume marriages, which is this union, without this antiquated gunk that is then imposed on us if it doesn't go well.

• 1:34:48Speaker 00

  If it doesn't go well. Well, my attitude is, by the way, and if you want to buy into any of the antiquated gunk, you have every right to.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  And you put it in your prenup.

• 1:34:56Speaker 00

  And this person who you've picked out of eight billion other options.

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:35:01Speaker 00

  You're saying, "This is my person."

• 1:35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:03Speaker 00

  And who is more qualified than the two of you to agree on the rules?

• 1:35:07Speaker 02

  I think reframing things, and I'm sure you've done this in every single meeting, I'm more talking to the audience, but like, I think us reframing marriage in that way, and having like a real cool, understanding, and fair conversation about what would make us both comfortable in this. And then you learn a lot about each other.

• 1:35:26Speaker 00

  By the way, and that's the point. And to me, that is the point. Because that's a conversation worth having. Even if you don't end up doing a prenup. Having a conversation about, "Hey, what do we owe each other?"

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:39Speaker 00

  "What does this mean to you?"

• 1:35:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:41Speaker 00

  Like, "What do you expect of me? Because I want to meet your expectations."

• 1:35:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:45Speaker 00

  "What do you want from me?"

• 1:35:46Speaker 02

  And then you learn a lot about each other through that process, because if some guy is marrying a girl, then they have to do this prenup process, because that's part of the marriage. The government basically says this, "Hey, our rules are kind of fucked up. We're going to give you a baseline. Use some, don't use some, but we recommend you go get an attorney." And maybe there's even like a public office where they can do it, I don't know.

• 1:36:06Speaker 00

  It doesn't even have to be that complex.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  But yeah, so basically, so you go do it. And then you could learn a lot. If the guy goes, by the way, in this prenup, I want to make sure that you don't deviate within 10 pounds of your weight right now. You'll learn what's really important to that guy.

• 1:36:19Speaker 00

  I mean, don't you want to know that before you marry this fucking guy?

• 1:36:23Speaker 02

  And then you might go, I don't want to get married to this guy.

• 1:36:25Speaker 00

  Or even worse, she says to you, well, you know, if you earn less than X number of dollars.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  I don't want to be with you.

• 1:36:31Speaker 00

  Well, I'd like to have that conversation before we've signed up for that contract.

• 1:36:34Speaker 02

  I think, I think that's like a very fair way of approaching it, but I like this idea that you're not against the union. And I think a lot of times when there's criticism of marriage, people think it's criticism of two people starting a family and loving each other. That's not it. We need that for society. That's a good tradition.

• 1:36:50Speaker 00

  Saying I do, isn't saying I can. It's saying I'll try.

• 1:36:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:36:57Speaker 00

  At best.

• 1:36:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:36:58Speaker 00

  At best.

• 1:36:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:59Speaker 00

  You know, like at best, what you say, when you say I do, is you're saying, I'm making you a promise.

• 1:37:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:05Speaker 00

  And if you're not fucking three, you know people break promises, right?

• 1:37:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:09Speaker 00

  So really what you're saying when you make a promise is, I'm gonna really try.

• 1:37:12Speaker 02

  I'm gonna try my best.

• 1:37:13Speaker 00

  I'm gonna try my best. I'm gonna try my best to love you. I'm gonna try my best to, to take everything that you bring to this relationship and see it in good faith.

• 1:37:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:23Speaker 00

  And I'm not gonna attribute negative intentions. I'm gonna cheer for you.

• 1:37:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:27Speaker 00

  And you're gonna cheer for me. And I'm gonna see your blind spots. And when I have to call you out, I'm gonna do it with love. And I'm gonna try to say to you, babe, I think this is gonna hurt you long-term, what you're doing right now.

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:36Speaker 00

  Like, what is more beautiful than that?

• 1:37:38Speaker 02

  No, it's awesome.

• 1:37:38Speaker 00

  Who would disagree with that?

• 1:37:39Speaker 02

  It's awesome.

• 1:37:39Speaker 00

  But again, like, why not call those terms out in advance and have that conversation?

• 1:37:44Speaker 02

  I think this is a super healthy way of looking at marriage. And if you're telling me right now that the legislation has already changed to adjust some of the antiquated ideas that were there to obviously protect women, but now are no longer needed. What you're basically saying is the government is going, hey, we gotta update the prenup. If the government has a prenup, they're basically going, marriages deserve prenups.

• 1:38:05Speaker 00

  And the government, by the way, is changing it. They're changing it the way the government changes things, which is way late in the game.

• 1:38:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:11Speaker 00

  So it's like, they don't catch up.

• 1:38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:13Speaker 00

  Like, there's a reason why the IRS's lawyers and the tax- Lawyers that get paid millions of dollars, the tax lawyers that get paid millions of dollars are always four steps ahead of these fucking guys. Like, the top of the class goes to work for these firms. Why? Because they have every incentive to do that. So for me, saying, you know what, I trust the government so much that I know they'll change the law to protect me. That's the most naive thing I've ever heard a human being say.

• 1:38:39Speaker 02

  And even if you want to look at the government acting in good faith, they're like, hey, there are these people go, hey, we got a problem. There are these divorced women, they're fucking homeless right now, or they're going back to living with their parents, like, they're struggling to eat, they can't even take care of their kids, now they're not around their kids. We gotta do something to protect that. They overcorrect.

• 1:38:57Speaker 00

  And this is the mistake, like, people come into this and they think prenups were designed for wealthy people only, right? And, and by the way, there's a reason why, because look, there's times where a person comes to the marriage, they have a tremendous amount of assets.

• 1:39:09Speaker 02

  I want to talk about that.

• 1:39:10Speaker 00

  And they say, look, I've got a ton of money, you know, if in an alternate universe, you are you now at your level of success.

• 1:39:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:39:18Speaker 00

  And you meet a lovely young woman and you say, you know what, let's get it, let's do this thing.

• 1:39:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:22Speaker 00

  Do you meet, if you get divorced in three months, she should get half of everything? That's fucking crazy. That's crazy.

• 1:39:27Speaker 02

  And I think even the government would say that that's not how it goes.

• 1:39:30Speaker 00

  That isn't how it works.

• 1:39:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and but maybe there was a time where it was.

• 1:39:33Speaker 00

  Well, and there's still very complicated things, which is how guys like me make a lot of money. Because what happens is we have what's called transmutation, which is if you had a separate property asset, meaning something you owned before the marriage, and then you get married and you mix an asset that you earned during the marriage or income earned during the marriage with your premarital money.

• 1:39:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:39:52Speaker 00

  You turn that thing separate into marital. So we have what's called the marital presumption, which is basically, so like, think of, I always tell clients, think about it like, you know, a, your separate property premarital money is like a bowl of water. And marital money is like a drop of red dye. You drop that in, you can't take it back out, the whole thing's pink.

• 1:40:13Speaker 02

  You're, so if you're doing renovations on it with your marital money, now all of a sudden you're saying the property becomes.

• 1:40:20Speaker 00

  It's all marital, transmuted.

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  So, but you could make the argument that by doing those renovations, it increased the value of that. Property, five million.

• 1:40:29Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. And you know, I get paid a lot of money per hour to make that argument. And then the other lawyer gets paid a bunch of money by the hour to say, no, no, no, there was no donut of intent. There was no consideration. So the reality is, is why are we making money on this? Why couldn't the two of you in advance just sit down and say, you know what? Let's put aside some, like, let's decide the rule set. If we put it in your name, it's this. If we put it in joint sets, we'll split fifty fifty. If we use premarital money, we'll do it this way. Have that fucking conversation.

• 1:40:58Speaker 02

  This is great. I love how like, you obviously are amazing communicator and you're very spirited about this, but like, the spirit to me seems to come from this place of, guys, this could be so much easier.

• 1:41:10Speaker 02

  But there is this negative stigma about a prenup because we only think about these people with tons of assets that are doing it to protect it from a gold digger. We don't think about people who are building a life, like in a lot of our circumstances, we don't really have that. I mean, we're doing okay, but we don't have like tons of money. And then once we get married, we start building this amazing life.

• 1:41:30Speaker 02

  And that's probably the majority of people that are getting married. The majority of people aren't coming from three hundred million dollars.

• 1:41:37Speaker 00

  And by the way, like people that don't have as much are the ones who really have to worry about how do we divide it and protect it? Because if you got hundreds of millions of dollars.

• 1:41:46Speaker 00

  Like, but if you're, if you're in a situation where like most people, you're kind of basically getting by, well, now you're gonna have two electric bills and two cable bills and two everything. So, so to me, like, you know, what's so funny is when early in my career.

• 1:41:58Speaker 02

  I, I'm sorry to cut you here, but it is really interesting to like, understand your perspective on this. You're not against the institution. You're like, it could be so much more. And you've gone through so many where you're like, we're still bickering over this because you guys didn't make this very easy decision early on.

• 1:42:15Speaker 00

  I just don't think it makes it unromantic. Like, we all know.

• 1:42:22Speaker 00

  Does that mean life's not, like, did you ever go like, well, I'm gonna die someday, so I might as well just die now? Like, no, like, the beauty is going through the press. Like, you're watching a movie and someone says, oh, the movie's gonna end. You don't go, well, fuck it, I'm not even gonna watch it. Like, no, the beauty is to watch the movie and know that this is a temporary thing. Look, look, every marriage ends. It ends in death or in divorce. Every, your marriage will end, I promise. That's a weird thing to say to a person. I hope your marriage ends in death. But I do. I hope that's how your marriage ends. Because the only two options is just gonna end in death or divorce. Right, right. So, you have life insurance. No one ever would look at you and go, "You're so morbid with that life insurance." Like, why would you think you have to do that?

• 1:43:06Speaker 00

  I'm protecting these people that I love. Like, I know something's gonna... Okay, so what's wrong with two people? When I was early in my career, I decided, I thought, "You know what?" They have these wedding fairs. Have you ever seen... I don't know if any of you were forced to do... You chose well if you didn't have to do this. This is good. You did well with the women in your lives. Where you go see a bunch of vendors or something? Yes! My wife did that. Okay, so she didn't make you go? No. That's fantastic! Yeah, this is like a whole Indian thing. You ever wanna see sad men? Not that thing. Like, they're just like, hold, you know, it's like if you took her to the car show. Like, she's just like, "What the fuck are we doing here?" So, you... But these things, they have photographers, the cake people, the invitations, the little sweats. All of the... The whole wedding industrial complex.

• 1:43:51Speaker 00

  They're all more purpose than you. The whole crew. They are. Please, I'm not the scavenger in this, buddy. I don't make it rain. I sell the umbrella.

• 1:43:59Speaker 00

  These fucking people, they're making... They're monsters. They're full-on monsters. Alright, because they convince her. It's like, "You're actually gonna have a wedding and not give away scented candles?" I don't know, we had to do that. You're like, "Well, I mean, you don't care about..." "You don't care about your family, I guess you don't have to have the scented candles." She's like, "Baby, we need scented candles," you know? But I went and I said, "Hey, listen, can I get a table? Can I have a table?" Like, you pay like 10 grand. Just for prenups. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, "And I promise I'll do it very respectfully and say, 'Hey, congratulations on your engagement. Let's talk about prenups.'" They wouldn't take my fucking money. Wow. They wouldn't let me in the door. Because... And why?

• 1:44:40Speaker 00

  Because there's a fucking fantasy they're selling people. And don't let reality get into the fantasy. And see, for me, I think I'm actually a true romantic, because I like reality. Like, and my attitude is, I like somebody who looks at the situation and goes, "You know what? Whether we win, whether we lose, let's play this fucking game." Like, let's do this thing. Let's try. Like, let's shoot for it. Like, I like, this is a game we can't win. We're either gonna die and lose each other, or we're gonna divorce and lose each other, but fuck it, I wanna take this ride.

• 1:45:10Speaker 02

  Could you make the argument that, that going through that prenup process could, uh, lengthen the marriage?

• 1:45:16Speaker 00

  I think, well, here's what I'll tell you. I've been doing prenups for 25 years, okay? 25 years I've been doing prenups, and I always end up having a good relationship with the person at the end of the transaction. Because unlike a divorce, it's not protracted, it's relatively inexpensive. I've probably only had to do three divorces, four divorces of people I did prenups.

• 1:45:35Speaker 02

  This is, this is interesting to talk about.

• 1:45:36Speaker 00

  I think it's a self-selecting group.

• 1:45:38Speaker 02

  What are the percentages? Okay, so we know what the, the percentage of divorce is for marriage. What is the percentage of divorce for prenup?

• 1:45:46Speaker 00

  You'll never know. And here's why. A prenup's not filed anywhere. Like, I have celebrity clients who I did their prenup.

• 1:45:53Speaker 02

  That'd be really important.

• 1:45:54Speaker 00

  And they are doing interviews, saying, "Oh, we don't have a prenup." And I'm like, "Yeah, you fucking do. It's in my safe. I wrote it." But they tell people, because why? It's one of those things. Everything on it, "Here's the cake. Oh, here's this ticket out flower." No one's ever like, "Here's this signing the prenup." Because everybody goes, "They got a prenup. All set, all right," you know? And again, it's all social stigma. And there's no reason we have to normalize prenups. We have to democratize prenups. We have to, by the way, prenups are the, they're, they are, they are so unbelievably easy for attorneys to draft. No one is making a bunch of money on prenups. Like, we make our money on litigation. We make money on the way out, not on the way in.

• 1:46:38Speaker 00

  So the truth is, like, there is no reason why it has to be reserved for the wealthy. This is something that can be democratized. There can be an access to justice. People could go, even with AI technology that's out there now. Listen, I, I've been involved in a, in a, a startup called Trusted Prenup. And our thing is gonna be, we are gonna democratize prenups. It's coming soon. Because AI has made it possible now for there to be, like, a tree menu. Where people go in and go, "Okay, what do we wanna do with Alamo? Okay, what do we wanna do when it comes to our estates? What do we wanna do?" And you can just pick and put it together, spit that document out. And by the way, it's not filed anywhere. You don't have to tell anybody that you did it. It can just be a discussion between you and this partner, that you tell the most intimate things to,

• 1:47:21Speaker 00

  you have the most intimate experiences with. Why can't you have honest conversations about that?

• 1:47:25Mark Gagnon?

  So hearing that, are the three of you guys gonna get postnaps?

• 1:47:28Speaker 02

  No, for sure not. It's gonna be really bad for our wife.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  I'm gonna have her watch this episode.

• 1:47:35Speaker 05

  And he's gonna show it to every girl.

• 1:47:38Speaker 00

  My baby, what's last week? Is that last week? Our wives are different haircuts. You're like, no, that was a rerun, but it was a good one.

• 1:47:47Speaker 02

  Our wives are gonna watch this episode.

• 1:47:49Speaker 00

  He said something about Abraham Lincoln, very racist. You know, it was a whole issue. He had the cuss, as I put it, he got his two hands.

• 1:47:58Speaker 02

  No, I think our wives are gonna watch this episode for sure. I'm curious their perspective on it, but I guarantee.

• 1:48:02Speaker 00

  I texted Mark this morning, and I said, I was like, you gotta tell your wife that you're spending the day with a divorce lawyer. Like, you'll definitely get something.

• 1:48:08Speaker 02

  I brought that up three days ago.

• 1:48:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48:11Speaker 02

  I was like, by the way, you know, we're gonna have this divorce attorney with us.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, my wife was definitely like, why are you having him on?

• 1:48:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your wives have never met me and all hate me, but hopefully by the end of this episode, they're like, you know, he's kind of a romantic, doesn't sound so bad.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  You are pro-marriage, you're just anti-marriage without a prenup?

• 1:48:27Speaker 00

  Well, what I'll say is, I think it's irresponsible to marry without a prenup. I'm not gonna get, listen, if you, people wanna do dumb shit, like, just jump out of planes, like, I don't fucking care. You wanna do some dumb shit, do some dumb shit. Just admit you're doing some dumb shit. Like, I'm just a fan of reality, like, just be honest.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  I'm an Indian kid who's a stand-up comic.

• 1:48:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, there you go.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  I'm new to dumb shit.

• 1:48:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. That might be your brand, is dumb shit. But that, all I'm saying is, at least own it.

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, believe me.

• 1:48:54Speaker 00

  Saying like, yeah, let's do weird. Fuck, cuz marriage is like the lottery, you're probably not gonna win.

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:59Speaker 00

  But if you win, it's so fucking good, buy a second, whatever, man, do it. But I'm just the kinda guy who likes to, I don't go in. I don't go into the casino and go, yeah, I'll bet money, how much? I don't know, whatever you guys decide, like, that's fucking crazy.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  No, it is high risk, high reward, and I think anybody who believes differently is, it's crazy. It is high risk, high reward, I just think if you play and you do, and one thing, you brought up a car analogy, one thing I laugh at is people who are like, you know, you get a car, you get an oil change every 3,000 miles, each of transmission, you get all the constant maintenance. Marriage, people are like, no, you don't need to go to counseling, you do it one time, maybe you're done.

• 1:49:35Speaker 00

  More amazing about marriage, if you want to take the car analogy a little bit further, like, all right, so you get married in your twenties or your thirties, right? All right, when you're 20 years old, if I said to you, you can have any car in the world, what car do you want? You'd be like Ferrari, Lamborghini, whatever, Aston Martin, anything. It might be a muscle car, okay? You're, and then after you bought it, I saw, by the way, it's the only car you're ever gonna have your whole fucking life. You'd be like, wait, what? Like, because I don't want to be 80 getting out of a Ferrari. Like, I'm gonna, if I have kids, where am I gonna put the car seat? Marriage is, you are choosing this person, and theoretically, you are saying, in your twenties or thirties, you are saying, this person for the rest of my life. Now, again, at best, it's like those trees that grow next to each other and then become entwined,

• 1:50:17Speaker 00

  and it's like they grow together, and they, they become something different, but they become something different together. So like, that's amazing when it's done the right way. But, but to suggest that like, oh, it'll never change, we're always gonna be like we were when we fell in love, that's foolish!

• 1:50:33Speaker 02

  Jim, Jim, you need to, you need to switch the name.

• 1:50:38Speaker 02

  So, it's called, I don't know why Al's been laughing at me. I literally, I, I got lost when Akash was like, I'm, I don't know, he was saying something, I was like, what's going on? He's a car. Yeah, yeah, but, but, uh, but Al's been laughing at me, and then I started going like, am I making a weird face? Does it look like I'm regretting my marriage? Like, I got really like, I got really self-conscious right there.

• 1:51:00Speaker 00

  I know regretting the marriage face, and you don't have.

• 1:51:03Speaker 02

  Okay, good, good. But, but, but I think that prenup is already so stained, like, it's just so stained. I think that if you called it like, estate planning. Like, for example, like, my wife and I did like, estate planning, and you're just playing for the worst case scenario. What if I die, what if she die, what if everybody die?

• 1:51:18Speaker 00

  How fucked up was that?

• 1:51:19Speaker 02

  Oh, it's awful!

• 1:51:20Speaker 00

  When you're like, what if we both die?

• 1:51:22Speaker 02

  And you're like, oh my god!

• 1:51:23Speaker 00

  What if we both die and your sister dies? And then you're like, oh shit!

• 1:51:26Speaker 02

  It's, it's horrifying, it's really fucked up, but-

• 1:51:29Speaker 00

  But really important.

• 1:51:30Speaker 02

  But it is important, and at no point, uh, during it, was it this like contentious thing, you, because you're all looking out for the best case scenario of everything. And I think prenup is already so radioactive, it's like, what is another thing you could do? But I really like that idea of like, because you said-

• 1:51:45Speaker 00

  Call it a marital contract.

• 1:51:46Speaker 02

  Whatever it is, the government has a prenup for you whether you like it or not. And most people don't even know what that means. And it changes depending on what state you're in.

• 1:51:53Speaker 00

  That's the part scares me the most. Which is the government can change anytime they want.

• 1:51:57Speaker 02

  And you could move to a different state and live there long enough. And now I think that state takes the.

• 1:52:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, they take precedent, six months. You've been there six months, they have jurisdiction.

• 1:52:05Speaker 02

  So, so the reality is, there is nobody that doesn't have a prenup.

• 1:52:08Speaker 00

  Everyone has a prenup.

• 1:52:09Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:52:10Speaker 00

  And, and, and.

• 1:52:11Speaker 02

  You could look into what it is.

• 1:52:13Speaker 00

  The thought that someone can change the terms and conditions and you can't opt out.

• 1:52:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, this is the education.

• 1:52:20Speaker 00

  It's crazy. Well, and that's the funny thing, cause like, you know, a lot of like, you know, I did an interview with Matt Walsh a bunch of months ago on the Daily Wire. And he was all about like, no fault divorce, no fault divorce is the worst, it's the worst. It's no, so New York is a no fault state. Most states are now no fault states. Which means you don't have to prove why you're getting divorced. You don't have to have fault. It used to be, you had to show adultery, you had to show incurable mental illness, you had to call abandonment. So it was great for lawyers because we had the like, before we even got into the real fight, we had to get into a fight of are you allowed to get divorced, okay? So the states eventually said, look, this is stupid. If one person in the marriage has decided the marriage is over, guess what? The marriage is over. So now we're no fault.

• 1:52:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:59Speaker 00

  Well, a lot of people on the far right, Matt Walsh, you know, Ben Shapiro, it was like their big flavor of the moment for a little while was they were saying no fault divorce is the worst thing in the whole wide world.

• 1:53:10Speaker 02

  Cause it incentivizes divorce in a way?

• 1:53:12Speaker 00

  Well, like, it's kinda like saying, you know, we gotta get rid of all these emergency rooms. Because like, everybody who's in there has broken bones. So people must be breaking bones so they can go to the emergency. Like, that's fucking ridiculous. Like, no, they didn't break it. Like, this is just there to solve the problem. So what I, what I said to Matt, what I said to Matt is, look, why wouldn't we have? Why would you have barriers to exit? Why don't you have barriers to entry? Like, why don't you have, you have to take a class? Or you have to sit down with a person who went through an ugly divorce? Or like Catholics, they have the pre-Kena where you gotta sit down and you talk to couples who've been married for thirty, forty years. And the guy says, look, you're gonna have to say I'm sorry for some shit you're not sorry for. That's part of being married. And you go, alright, cool, I can live with that. Like, have, have.

• 1:53:55Speaker 00

  Some barriers to entry like you, you, if you, I adopted a dog from ACC in New York City. You know how much fucking paperwork I had to fill out? They wanted to know my third grade English teacher's name. Like they wanted to know, like, did Mrs. Soible, does she think you'd be good? I mean, she hasn't seen me in 40 years. You need to have a, you want a piss test? Like, I'm adopting a dog you were gonna kill in two days. Like, just give me the fucking dog. Get married, 50 bucks, you can pay all this in Vegas and you're married.

• 1:54:19Speaker 02

  All right, guys, let's take a break for a second. I genuinely want to tell you.

• 1:54:22Speaker 01

  Let's get back to the show.

• 1:54:23Speaker 02

  You know, it's interesting, back in the day, I had a different business manager. And this is when we were about to get married. The business manager hit me up on the side. He's like, by the way, I think that, you know, we should get this prenup settled or whatever like that. And I was operating with good faith, right? So I was like, well, why don't you just get a lawyer? And then like, my wife and I will talk to the lawyer and then we'll see what the things are, right? Well, you're already smiling because you know where this is going.

• 1:54:44Speaker 00

  I know where it's going.

• 1:54:45Speaker 02

  Because I'm like, let's just figure out what these things are. Like, she's not against it, like, just, and we talk to the lawyer and the lawyer goes, "Well, I don't know if I should be having this call with you and your wife." And I'm like, "Well, I'm not trying to fuck over my wife."

• 1:54:58Speaker 00

  It's called potentially adverse interests.

• 1:55:01Speaker 02

  But there's the perfect example of, of how could you then go forward with this agreement? If, obviously, it's rational, but how can you go forward with this agreement? If the first time you're talking to a lawyer, he basically says, "Hey, she shouldn't be on because we're gonna try to fuck her."

• 1:55:16Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:55:17Speaker 02

  Like, to me, I, I literally was going, "Just give me a lawyer so they can explain what's going on." And then if this is something that we even feel like we should do.

• 1:55:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, and I can't say, well, because here's the thing. What the lawyer is saying, and they, they don't say it in artful ways. Well, lawyers are saying in that situation is you have potentially adverse interests. More for you is less for her, less for you is more for her, right? So, so what, what, what, but see, again, this is all stuff that technology has made easier. So people come to me and they go, "Look, I want, my fiance and I want to talk to you about a prenup." I go, "Look, I'm not allowed to counsel you both, but here's what we can do. Let's do it via Zoom, record the entire thing. She will hear everything. You can play it for whoever you want, including your fiance. I can't give her legal advice, but I can give you legal advice and you can play for her every word I say to you." So that she doesn't feel intimidated.

• 1:56:07Speaker 00

  But see, this is the reality is we can do it, solve for the actual problem. So what you're saying is, you're absolutely right. We're taking an adversarial system and you're hiring lawyers whose job theoretically is to protect their individual client at the expense of the other, which by the way, one of the things I'm least proud of my colleagues for is we're so used to dealing with warring tribes in a divorce. That then when we're doing a prenup, we approach it the same way.

• 1:56:34Speaker 02

  And it does leave a bad taste.

• 1:56:36Speaker 00

  And these fucking people are getting in a car and driving home together. Like, this is not the same thing as a divorce. So there should be a different approach and there can be. We just have to rethink the way we do it.

• 1:56:47Speaker 02

  Even the language, it was like, we just want to protect you. And I go, well, my wife's not trying to kill me. Like, why are you using this language as if she's trying to do something nefarious? Protect me from what? Protect me from what? Like, why aren't we protecting ourselves? Why are, that's why I'm saying like, the way that we approach this, and as you've talked about on the pod, I think has been really healthy. Which is like, hey, just come together on an agreement that you think is superior than the agreement that the government is going to impose on you. Who wouldn't agree to that?

• 1:57:16Speaker 00

  Totally useful, it makes total sense, it's much easier sell. And by the way, I think what you said earlier is absolutely correct.

• 1:57:22Speaker 02

  Why isn't there a neutral party?

• 1:57:23Speaker 00

  It's an opportunity for people to have a really important discussion.

• 1:57:26Speaker 02

  But why isn't there like a lawyer that wouldn't represent each party? But just someone you could go to for information?

• 1:57:32Speaker 00

  There are ways to do it, there are people that do it that way.

• 1:57:34Speaker 02

  There should be more of that.

• 1:57:34Speaker 00

  There are lawyers who work collaboratively, who'll say, let's all meet together. We each have a lawyer, there's people that work in mediation to mediate a prenup. There's a lot of ways, there's more than one path up the mountain.

• 1:57:43Speaker 02

  Like, you don't even have to do the prenup, but just inform us, maybe we work it all out with you and then we get it.

• 1:57:48Speaker 00

  There's so many ways to do it, but again, we're just used to doing it one way. We handed it off to an adversarial system. And so do a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Like, to a person who argues for a living, everything looks like an invitation to have a fucking argument. You know, I get paid to be paranoid. Like, my mother tells me she loves me, I ask for references. Like, that's my job. Like, that's my job, because I see the worst in people all day long.

• 1:58:10Speaker 02

  That's heavy.

• 1:58:10Speaker 00

  You know, so what you have to do is you have to get to a place where you go, okay, look, this is This is a conversation like I guarantee when you and your wife did that estate planning, you probably had to have some conversations about like, hey, something happens like who, who watches the kids like and what do we do about this?

• 1:58:27Speaker 02

  Do we trust that family member? Are they responsible?

• 1:58:29Speaker 00

  But I tell you, I bet that that deepens the level of connection intimacy the two of you have. And by the way, you go, doing that estate planning, like we are never more alive than when we're in the presence of death. Like when you stop and think about, holy shit, if I lost this person, like what would that feel like? You want to hug that person 50 times more.

• 1:58:50Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:58:51Speaker 00

  So to me, like early on in a relationship, when you're still madly in love with each other and you're about to sign up for this, you know, I'm marrying you, it's going to be you, you and only you. That's the time to say, you know what? If we ever hurt each other, if we ever, what do we owe each other? How do we handle that? Like, how do I love you? How do I make you feel safe? That's a great time to have that conversation.

• 1:59:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, this is, um, this is really healthy. I really think there should be a neutral party that you could go to for information about like the laws in the state you are.

• 1:59:20Speaker 00

  There are, there's mediators, you can go to a mediator. You can go to an attorney and say to the attorney, look, I just want to have an educational conversation about this. I don't want you to draft the prenup necessarily. Again, I, I think you're going to see in the coming years, I intend to be part of it. You're going to see more of the democratization of prenups. Because I think that the younger generation, like I'm older than all of you. And there, and there, I have to tell you, one of the things like I look at my 20 something year old sons and I have a lot of hope for the future because I think that you're looking at a situation and going, okay, but why do we do it that way? Like, why do we do it? That we don't have to do it that way. And it's okay for people to say, hey, you know what? We can do it however we want to do it.

• 2:00:00Speaker 02

  That's, it just left a bad taste in both of our mouths. Like I understood like where the business manager was coming from because he probably has these clients that got a bunch of gold diggers trying to go after him. But it's like, I don't have that relationship with my wife. Like we didn't have, I mean, I had a couple bucks, but like it's not what it was now. And we were operating in good faith. It wasn't even like, how do we keep this from you? And then these lawyers on the side are trying to talk to me going, hey, well, you know, they should have somebody else do it. Then we don't talk and I'm like, guys, this feels like I'm trying to screw over the person that I'm about to spend the rest of my life with. And I don't, I don't feel comfortable with that.

• 2:00:34Speaker 00

  But, but I'd say something, look, your, your, your career has been characterized by being somewhat iconoclastic. Like I've been a fan since the four, four, one days. Like I, I, and, and I'm sure when you said, I'm going to put this out myself.

• 2:00:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:49Speaker 00

  Some people who genuinely care about you.

• 2:00:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:52Speaker 00

  And genuinely wanted to see you succeed.

• 2:00:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:55Speaker 00

  Said, dude, don't do it that way.

• 2:00:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:00:58Speaker 00

  You'll never make a dime.

• 2:00:59Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:00:59Speaker 00

  And by the way, they were not trying to mislead you. They weren't trying to hurt you. It's not that they didn't trust you.

• 2:01:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:04Speaker 00

  They were looking at it and going, dude, I don't want to see it go wrong for you.

• 2:01:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:08Speaker 00

  Okay, so, so people can in very good faith, give very fucking bad advice, right? Because if, if, because if that's the right way to do it.

• 2:01:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:18Speaker 00

  They did it fucking wrong.

• 2:01:19Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:01:21Speaker 00

  They did it wrong, right? Cause if you go, no, no, I'm going to do it this way and you knock it out in the park like you did.

• 2:01:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:27Speaker 00

  They go, well, what the fuck was I, why did I do it this other way? And the answer is because it was peer pressure from dead people.

• 2:01:33Speaker 02

  No, that's, I, you're right. We get caught up in these antiquated systems and they either work for us or we believe that we're invested in them and then we don't want to break.

• 2:01:40Speaker 00

  And yet, and I don't mean to use you as an example, I'm not picking on you.

• 2:01:44Speaker 02

  Please.

• 2:01:44Speaker 00

  You had the, the, the, the intelligence to think of this.

• 2:01:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:49Speaker 00

  And the balls to try it.

• 2:01:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:51Speaker 00

  Okay?

• 2:01:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:52Speaker 00

  And yet, when it comes to getting married.

• 2:01:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:56Speaker 00

  There was never the thought of like, oh, you know, why am I going to let the government impose a rule set? Why wouldn't we figure out a way to do it? Now, why? I don't blame you for that. I think it's, it's just never been a conversation we have as a society.

• 2:02:07Speaker 02

  Parents also had a really good marriage and like, I don't, I think when you come from broken marriages, it's a lot easier to look at how badly it could go like. And I think that I'm very lucky to come from a very healthy marriage. And so in my mind, I'm like, oh yeah, it's just going to go like that.

• 2:02:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:02:23Speaker 02

  So maybe there's a little naivete.

• 2:02:25Speaker 00

  Right. And listen, I think there's a beauty to that. Like I, I, I wish I knew no astronomy when the stars appear.

• 2:02:32Speaker 00

  I liked it when I was like, look at the pretty lights in the sky. Oh, actually, that's something that flamed out a million years ago and the light's just reaching. I'm like, oh, fuck. I wish I didn't know that.

• 2:02:41Speaker 02

  Ignorance is bliss.

• 2:02:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, so I think there's something very beautiful about not knowing this stuff. But again, I am a fan. Like, I think the truth is actually even more beautiful.

• 2:02:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:02:52Speaker 00

  Like, I think when two people say, "I'm gonna give you the ability to hurt me." Like, "I love you enough." Because I have to tell you something. I think it's fucking insane to love anything. I really do. Like, a dog, a kid, like, you're gonna lose it.

• 2:03:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:07Speaker 00

  Everything you love, you're gonna lose someday.

• 2:03:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:03:10Speaker 00

  So, so to love something is to accept the inevitability

• 2:03:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:15Speaker 00

  that it's gonna break your fucking heart someday. And yet, we do it anyway because it's the best thing, right?

• 2:03:21Speaker 02

  Because life is better with it.

• 2:03:22Speaker 00

  Right. So to me, like, that makes it more beautiful to say, "You know what? If you break my fucking heart,

• 2:03:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:29Speaker 00

  it will have been worth it.

• 2:03:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:31Speaker 00

  It will have been worth it because we got to do this.

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  Sold. Sold. Akash is getting a Prina.

• 2:03:39Speaker 02

  Can we ask the cultural question? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Who's the worst in divorce? Culturally, ethnically, racially.

• 2:03:46Speaker 00

  Wow, wow, wow.

• 2:03:48Speaker 02

  Like, who's the most ruthless? Who, like, treats the...

• 2:03:51Speaker 00

  Those are a bunch of different questions you just threw off the table. Yeah. I mean, what I'll say is, like, Russians, Russians, there's, you know, Chekhov's plays are dark for a fucking reason. Like, the winters are long. Like, Russians come in sometimes a professional hit. Like, they get cold.

• 2:04:07Speaker 02

  Really? The husband to the wife, you're saying?

• 2:04:08Speaker 00

  The wife, the wife more so even. Russian women are, we used to call them the red menace sometimes in the courthouse.

• 2:04:16Speaker 00

  Because, like, they're, they're, I mean, God, it's really hard to say. I mean, you know, like, the stereotypes, like, sometimes stereotypes are a real time saver. Let's just call that out. Like, let's just, let's just call that out. And sometimes they're wildly inaccurate, I get it. But sometimes they're a real time saver.

• 2:04:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:36Speaker 00

  And anyone who's ever dated a Latina woman.

• 2:04:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:41Speaker 00

  They will burn your fucking house down. And then ask who Maria was who called. And you're like, that's from work. She's like, well, you should have told me that shit. And you're like, before you burned the fucking house down? Like, so, so that can be bad.

• 2:04:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:04:56Speaker 00

  Russian women, in my experience professionally, not personally, professionally.

• 2:05:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05:01Speaker 00

  They, they will, when you are now the enemy, when you have crossed that line, they get fucking ice cold. And there, there is nothing, when you're married to a Russian woman, there is nothing she won't do for you. And when you're divorcing a Russian woman, there is nothing she won't do to you. Like, she will fuck your shit right up.

• 2:05:19Speaker 02

  Give me an example of like, you don't have to give, obviously, a person, but something that they might have asked you to do or told you about.

• 2:05:25Speaker 00

  Oh, I mean, they'll surveil the guy, like, they'll have people follow him. They'll, they'll blow him up to the IRS. I've had a couple of them go to the IRS. Yeah, and they'll, they'll shoot first and ask questions later. Like, they'll, they'll, you know, they'll, they'll call the IRS and go, by the way, I called the IRS. Not, I'm thinking about, so I can go, that's a terrible fucking idea. Like, nope, they're like, oh, I did it already. And you're like, okay, then I guess let's figure out what we're gonna do with that, you know? So that's, that's a big one. Terms of who, I mean, I will say, again, I'm being very stereotypical. Italian women, a lot of Italian women, in my experience, they're, they're the most willing to put up with infidelity.

• 2:06:12Speaker 02

  No, they're, they're okay with the guma's?

• 2:06:15Speaker 00

  No, it's just kinda like.

• 2:06:16Speaker 02

  What is it, Friday's for the guma's?

• 2:06:18Speaker 00

  It's like, yeah, he ran up, like, it's like he's making a fool of himself. But it's like, did you, well, don't bring him to restaurants we go to.

• 2:06:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:06:25Speaker 00

  You know, like, don't bring your fucking whore around where people. So like, like, if you, no, but it really is, like, it's like, I don't wanna, don't ask, don't tell. But if, like, somebody sees you out with the girlfriend, you're making a fool of me.

• 2:06:37Speaker 02

  You're embarrassing me, yeah.

• 2:06:38Speaker 00

  You're making a fool of me now. Like, you're running around with some girl, you're making a fool of yourself, and you go ahead and make a fucking fool of yourself. But you run around with some girl and our friends see you, you're making a fool of me. That's a different vibe.

• 2:06:48Speaker 02

  Why do you think that is culturally?

• 2:06:50Speaker 00

  I don't know, I'm not Italian, so, you know, I'm German, we're all about the blitzkrieg.

• 2:06:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I think, I think it's all cultural, I think it's the way people, like what you said, you observe your parents' marriage, you observe-

• 2:07:04Speaker 02

  That becomes normalized.

• 2:07:05Speaker 00

  -your family, and you just sort of go, okay, this is how marriage is.

• 2:07:08Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 2:07:08Speaker 00

  So, there are a lot culturally, the idea of a guman, like, the idea of, like, you know, men are fucking idiots, they run around, whatever, who does he come home to, who does he take care of, who does he love, who does he have kids with, that's what matters.

• 2:07:20Speaker 02

  Maybe it's like, certain cultures place, uh, more value on different things, so if he's like, a dedicated husband, he's a provider, protector, there's a lot of emphasis on those things, and if he's killing it in those three things, and then he does this little shit on

• 2:07:34Speaker 00

  the side- He does his dumb shit.

• 2:07:35Speaker 02

  Whereas, there might be other cultures, I think, American culture puts like, a lot of emphasis on fidelity.

• 2:07:40Speaker 00

  Tremendous.

• 2:07:41Speaker 02

  And maybe more so than European cultures.

• 2:07:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, uh, America has, I mean, the French, like, I think, find, like, infidelity charming.

• 2:07:52Speaker 00

  It's sort of like, well, you know-

• 2:07:54Speaker 02

  I've been taking my wife to Paris for years, bro.

• 2:07:57Speaker 00

  Not rubbing off.

• 2:07:57Speaker 02

  Well, don't leave her alone.

• 2:07:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, uh, but it is, there's sort of like, a sense of, you know, it's where existentialism came from, they invented, you know, existentialism, democracy, and the menagee tois.

• 2:08:08Speaker 02

  We like indulgence.

• 2:08:10Speaker 00

  They came up with a lot, and, and one of the things, they look at it like, yeah, you know, people have dalliance, because there's a difference between an affair and a dalliance. Like, a dalliance is, like you said earlier, like, you know, you do some dumb shit, you hook up with this person, it doesn't really mean anything to you, you told him you're a race car driver named Steve, like, who the fuck cares?

• 2:08:27Speaker 02

  I'm not making that personal.

• 2:08:30Speaker 02

  I was a race car driver, no.

• 2:08:31Speaker 00

  So, the truth is, like, I, I think there's a difference between that and an ongoing affair.

• 2:08:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:08:36Speaker 00

  You know, like, I found my soulmate, and it's this other person, that's a whole different level of stupid.

• 2:08:41Speaker 01

  I didn't understand the difference until, like, getting married, now I'm like, oh, I see, that's a whole different fucking thing.

• 2:08:46Speaker 00

  It's a whole different fucking thing. Well, and that's where I, like, people put in prenups sometimes, people put, people put in infidelity clauses sometimes.

• 2:08:54Speaker 02

  In the prenups, interesting.

• 2:08:56Speaker 00

  And I discourage people from doing that because, in order to make something legally enforceable, you have to define it. And so how do you define infidelity? Because if you define infidelity as like genital contact, that's one thing. But like, which would be more upsetting? Like that your ex got drunk and kissed some dude? Or that she was texting this guy every single day? And confiding her most personal secrets in with him? And like, that to me, that's much more of a betrayal. It depends on how much less work I have to do, honestly. If you're not really annoying me, then it's... Like, you're like delegating that. Exactly, that's exactly the word I use. Yeah, 1000%. Yeah, that's better. But again, personal decisions, right? Like, this is a personal choice. Everybody's gonna have a different definition of what it is. It's offensive, a conversation worth having.

• 2:09:41Speaker 00

  What is cheating to you? You know, what constitutes cheating? This is gonna become a more and more relevant question.

• 2:09:47Speaker 02

  What's the weirdest thing that you've constituted as cheating in a prenup?

• 2:09:50Speaker 00

  I discourage those clauses, so usually I don't put them in there. And I get people, I talk people out of them, because I'm good at persuading people. But, uh, the weirdest infidelity clause I ever put in is that they wanted to very strictly define what constituted infidelity. So like oral genital contact, and genital to genital contact. And then there was a whole... Oral genital? No, that was great. Somebody's gotta do it. You know what I mean? What's going on? What I thought was so funny is, is they wanted to talk about digital to genital contact. Meaning, digital to genital. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I mean, first of all, I thought it was kind of... Get out, grow up, grow up. Because I was like, like, like hand jobs? Like, that's a thing?

• 2:10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:30Speaker 00

  Like, I thought it was like a Betamax. It's like, now it's acknowledging you, like... Like, how do you give a handjob? Like, you can be a fucking grown up, use your mouth. Like, that's insane. Hand job? You know what that is?

• 2:10:39Speaker 02

  That woman is smart, because that's the massage policy.

• 2:10:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:42Speaker 02

  She's finding a way around it.

• 2:10:43Speaker 00

  So that, that girl is on it.

• 2:10:45Speaker 04

  Anal is open still, though.

• 2:10:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it seems like...

• 2:10:47Speaker 00

  Anal's theoretically open.

• 2:10:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, actually, that would, there'd be an anal loophole.

• 2:10:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:51Speaker 00

  You know, not say, did, like, anal to genital contact.

• 2:10:55Speaker 04

  As an attorney, that's what we do.

• 2:10:56Speaker 00

  Shit, I looked at Mark's head went there first. Mark found a loophole. You're always like that. Yeah, you're hired. You're hired. This comedy thing doesn't work out. You're hired.

• 2:11:05Speaker 02

  Okay, before we get out of here, you were gonna mention the super high net worth estates, and just the history of marriage in general.

• 2:11:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:11:14Speaker 02

  Well, how does marriage start?

• 2:11:15Speaker 00

  Well, marriage, I mean, you know, marriage as a legal definition, not the idea of a pair bond and two people, that started in a cave somewhere. But marriage, legal marriage, started essentially during feudalism. It was essentially, we were joining clans, we were bringing, annexing lands, bringing together armies, like it was some Game of Thrones shit. Like, it was basically people saying, "We're joining our families together, we're having children together, and merging these clans, merging these lands, merging these armies." It was essentially a land and wealth preservation technique.

• 2:11:47Speaker 02

  So it was a financial agreement more so than an emotional one?

• 2:11:50Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and then the idea of people marrying for love

• 2:11:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:54Speaker 00

  was a very different thing.

• 2:11:56Speaker 02

  How old is that concept?

• 2:11:58Speaker 00

  That concept goes back to like, I mean, it depends on how... Yeah, I mean, look, I think there was always a romantic element to things, there was always a connection, but the idea that like, arranged marriage was not the right move, and that you should choose who it is that you wanna marry, and that it should be based on the criteria of who you find sexually attractive and compelling as a human being.

• 2:12:19Speaker 02

  It was a gay thing.

• 2:12:20Speaker 00

  That's like, the 40s and the 50s is when, like, Hallmark cards started that shit. You know, like, what most people call love today, was something that was invented in the 50s to sell shampoo.

• 2:12:33Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:12:34Speaker 00

  Like, the idea that like, you know, "I just have this feeling in the pit of my stomach, and that means we should sign up for a governmental contract, and fuck." Like, that is not, like, that's, you had to sell that to people, and you sold it kind of insidiously without telling them the whole thing. Nobody read the terms and conditions on that.

• 2:12:55Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 2:12:56Speaker 00

  So, I really think the idea of like, modern marriage, is very, very different than what our grandparents signed up for.

• 2:13:05Speaker 02

  And it needs different requirements.

• 2:13:07Speaker 00

  I think it needs, I mean, there is no scenario where, I forget who it was who said it, but you know, we are...

• 2:13:15Speaker 00

  Primitive biological creatures.

• 2:13:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13:18Speaker 00

  Living in medieval institutions. Holding godlike technology in our hands. How do you think that ends? Like, you think it ends well?

• 2:13:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13:30Speaker 00

  Or do you think it ends with some really uncomfortable shit? That we've gotta get our hands in and figure out?

• 2:13:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:13:36Speaker 00

  And all I'm suggesting, like, all of my public work.

• 2:13:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13:41Speaker 00

  Is about saying, cause I, it's just to say to people, "Look, guys, like, I love love."

• 2:13:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13:47Speaker 00

  But I don't believe in fucking fairy tales.

• 2:13:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:13:50Speaker 00

  So why can't we have an honest conversation? Cause I don't think that understanding the realities of marriage and the legalities of marriage takes away from the beauty of deep connection with a romantic partner and building a life together. Period.

• 2:14:05Speaker 02

  Hmm. Yeah, beautifully said. Any other questions, boys? Yeah.

• 2:14:09Mark Gagnon?

  Who has the most volatile divorces? Heteros, gays, or lesbians?

• 2:14:14Speaker 00

  That's a great question. Lesbians, lesbian couples have the highest rate of domestic violence. I remember saying to a colleague of mine, a gay man, an attorney. The first time I did a lesbian divorce, I said to him, "Wow, man, this is fucking ugly." And he looked at me and he went, "It's two women."

• 2:14:38Speaker 00

  And I went, "Okay."

• 2:14:41Speaker 00

  So, so that's, I mean, yeah.

• 2:14:42Speaker 01

  Sometimes Al asks a question he knows the answer to.

• 2:14:45Speaker 00

  Lesbian drama can be a big thing. Gay men, you know, gay men, um, it's changed a lot. Because there was a time where gay men very often didn't have kids. Um, and, and there were even like countries that refused to let gay men adopt. And there was not surrogacy law and reproductive rights hadn't gone where it is now. And there wasn't marriage equality. So like, gay men had a lot of assets. Cause if you don't have fucking kids, you got a lot of extra money. Like, for real, if you didn't have kids, you're like, "Yeah, that's a Ferrari, this kid." And this kid's like a fucking house in the Hamptons. Like, you, you got, kids are expensive. So, gay men just, they didn't have kids, so they just had tons of fucking assets. And they would argue over them, you know? Um.

• 2:15:28Speaker 00

  In terms of like vitriol, I don't think there's a pattern to it. I think the reality is like everybody brings a different kind of crazy to it. You know, and divorce doesn't make people crazy. It just takes the crazy they had and turns the volume way up on it. So if someone was already anxious, now they're gonna have like a full-on panic disorder. You know, if someone was, because that's the part that's funny to me. Like, what's really funny to me is people come in and they'll say to me with a straight face like, "I can't believe my husband's being such a vindictive, cheap asshole." And I go, "Really? Like during the marriage was, like, what was he like?" And she's like, "Oh, he was a vindictive shitass." Well, you're divorcing the fucking person you were married to. Like, if this person was petty as fuck and nasty and selfish and, okay, then that's who

• 2:16:12Speaker 00

  they're gonna be when they get divorced. Like, if you're married to a, like, a realistic person who's prone to compromise and concedes the possibility of their own error, when you get divorced? They'll do that. That's really gonna, like, "My ex-wife's a lovely fucking person. Like, I love her. She's great. There's a lot of people I love that wouldn't want to be fucking..."

• 2:16:28Speaker 01

  How was your divorce with her?

• 2:16:29Speaker 00

  Super friendly. We went to a mediator. We figured out what it was.

• 2:16:32Speaker 01

  Because I've been wondering.

• 2:16:32Speaker 00

  Kids were five and seven. We've had 20 years since then. She's remarried, couldn't be happier to a great guy who's fucking nothing like me. Like, patient, quiet, sensitive. She was married to me for, you know, a number of years and, like, you know, I'd come home and she'd start telling me about her day and I'd be like, "All right, come on, skip to the end. Let's go. Like, you gotta just fucking move. I got to be stand-up fucking comics here and I'm running the conversation."

• 2:16:57Speaker 00

  She's got a chance. Like, and the guy she's married to now, like, she just, you know, she'll, she'll sit there and he'll tell, she'll tell. And then my cousin said this and he's like, "And he's genuinely interested." Like, he's genuinely interested. And I look at it, I'm like, "We are made different. We're just made different." And he's perfect for her. I love her enough to be like, he's perfect for her. Like, and I look at that. But, but, you know, that's what, but she's the, when I married her, that's who she was. When I had kids with her, that's who she was. And that's why, like, we've had a really six, and by the way, I do not believe that that marriage was unsuccessful because it ended in divorce. It produced two amazing kids who loved their mother, loved their father. Like get along with all of us like they're healthy, well-adjusted young men.

• 2:17:42Speaker 00

  So to me, like, just because something ends doesn't mean it wasn't successful.

• 2:17:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:17:46Speaker 00

  And I think we have to approach relationships that way. That's why, again, having the conversation early on, when you're still madly in love and in that romantic, well, that's the time to talk about, like, like, look at, if a person says to you, if every ex-boyfriend they have, they're like, "That guy was a piece of shit, da-da-da," or every ex-girlfriend you have, you're like, "She was such a piece of shit." That tells you something about this fucking person. Either that they have abysmally bad judgment, or maybe you're the fucking problem.

• 2:18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:18:16Speaker 00

  And so I think it's worthwhile to have conversations when things start about how they end.

• 2:18:22Speaker 04

  Hmm, hmm. What's the dumbest reason you've ever seen for a divorce? Just on a personal basis, if you're like, "Oh, this is stupid."

• 2:18:28Speaker 00

  People, we had a lot of, like, weird political divorces since 2016.

• 2:18:32Speaker 01

  No way.

• 2:18:33Speaker 00

  Wow. Oh, yeah. People that were like, "Hey, watch his Fox News, I'm out." Like, "He watches Newsmax, I'm gone." Like, a lot of, like, "He voted for Trump."

• 2:18:42Speaker 01

  Just because he has good taste, no?

• 2:18:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, but for real, like, political shit, I had, um,

• 2:18:47Speaker 04

  I bet she wanted that.

• 2:18:48Speaker 00

  I've always said the saddest one, the saddest one I ever had was this guy was in his, like, late 80s, and he left his wife of, like, 50 or 60 years for a 50-something-year-old woman. That he was having an affair with.

• 2:19:03Speaker 04

  Robbing the cradle.

• 2:19:03Speaker 00

  And what was saddest about it to me was not that this, like, 60-year marriage was ending, it was that, holy shit, I'm still gonna be led around by my dick when I'm in my 80s. Like, I legit thought, like, I'm not gonna be chained to an idiot forever. Like, I thought in my 80s, like, a beautiful woman would walk by and I would be like, "Oh, a human being." Like, I would just, and instead, I'm like, "Oh, my God, I'm gonna be 86 and still wanna fucking chase skirt?" Like, that's fucked. Like, we're never gonna be free. So that, to me, was, like, yeah, people get, I mean, people get divorced for some crazy shit.

• 2:19:39Speaker 04

  What's the most petty thing you saw in a divorce?

• 2:19:42Speaker 00

  I once had a divorce that was, there was a $25 million marital estate. We, they'd burned several hundred thousand dollars each in council fees. We'd gone through a bunch of litigation. We managed to settle the case, and the only thing we were down to was the division of personal property. And we couldn't agree on who got a $45 toaster oven, and the settlement blew up. Wow. Settlement blew up. Wow. Forty-five fucking dollar. Did you not just go, "I'll buy one"? I just went, I actually did that. I actually said, "I'm on Amazon right now. Prime delivery. I will buy everyone in this room this toaster." If we could just sign the fucking deal. Cause it's never about the toaster. It wasn't about the fucking toaster.

• 2:20:23Speaker 00

  My, but, I will tell you, I'll tell you, I mean, I have a lot of stories, but I will tell you, this is one you'll appreciate. So, I had a client who was a devout fundamentalist Christian. And, um, he was later convicted, actually, of molesting kids and went to jail. But, that's a side note. See, it's not just Catholics. It's not just Catholics. Yeah, it's not just Catholics. Yeah, it's all of you. But, it's not, yeah, it's all of you, no. It was a great, he was, you know, he was, he was a client that was, he had a lot of money. And, uh, we had worked very hard to negotiate a settlement of his case. And, the day comes to sign the settlement and to do what's called a voire dire, which is where the judge says to each party, "Do you understand the settlement? Did you agree to it? Or are you under duress?" You know, so, these are the stuff, but, but like,

• 2:21:06Speaker 00

  it was great. I got him a great deal. Like, a great deal. Like, this was way better than it would have been at trial, and he didn't have to go through the trial, and this was great for him. And he meets me at the courthouse, the morning of it, and he says, "Jim, I need to talk to you.

• 2:21:21Speaker 00

  I spoke to God last night. I prayed on it. Oh, boy. And God said to me that I should not, that I should take it to trial. And I said, "That is a terrible idea." And I explained to him again, "Here's all the ways that we're getting value here, here's all the things, this is what it should be." And he said, "No, I'm sorry, I prayed on it, and the Lord has said to me, you know." So, of course, it fucking blew up. The whole thing went haywire. We start the trial. The lunch break, I go back and my partner, Colin, he's been my law partner for many years, I go back to him and I tell him what happened. And he looks at me, goes, "You know, you played that all wrong, Jim." I said, "What?" He goes, "What you should have said is..." "What time did you talk to God?"

• 2:22:05Speaker 00

  "Ten thirty?" Okay. At 11, I talked to him.

• 2:22:11Speaker 00

  And he said, Jim, my son in whom I am well pleased.

• 2:22:16Speaker 00

  How, my blessings upon you. By the way, are you gonna see Steve later? When you do, tell him, forget that shit I said earlier, you should take the deal. He's like, it's unfalsifiable. I tried to hit him back with the voicemail. Yeah, just say it right back. Just say it. He's like, if you can't disprove what God said to him, he can't disprove what God said to you. You could've just said, I talked to God a half hour later and he said, take the fucking deal. So if that ever happens to me again.

• 2:22:43Speaker 01

  Were you kind of satisfied when you saw it go against him in court? And does that happen where like, you're in court, you realize this person sucks and it's...

• 2:22:49Speaker 00

  Under the doctrine of fuck around and find out. He fucked around and he found out. I mean, you know, and there's, listen, man, I, I give people advice. And I tell clients all the time, like, look, 850 bucks an hour, I'll mow your fucking lawn. I don't care. Like, I was a waiter. I've done worse shit for less money.

• 2:23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:23:05Speaker 00

  But like, you're paying me for advice. So if you want to pay me for advice and ignore it, go ahead. Your shit blows up. It's good for me.

• 2:23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:23:13Speaker 00

  Like, the more protracted your case is, the better it is for me. I'm trying to put myself out of business here. Like, I'm trying to settle your case. But if you want to fuck around and find out, fuck around and find out.

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  So those cases where you're in court and you realize, oh, I'm, I'm representing the villain.

• 2:23:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:23:30Speaker 01

  Does that shift your, like, without you, you can't help it, it just like affects the way you...

• 2:23:35Speaker 00

  Not at all. Not at all.

• 2:23:36Speaker 01

  Cause yeah, I'm wondering.

• 2:23:37Speaker 00

  Cause it's not how it works for me. Like, like, I, I look at it as a, it's a, it's a legal issue. It's a puzzle. It's strategy. Like, just like, I think if a, if a doctor, you know, is operating on a patient and he finds out that patient is a horrible person in real life, it's like, right, but I'm, I'm looking at this as like plumbing. I'm looking at this as like, this is a problem I'm trained to fix. Like, I...

• 2:24:01Speaker 00

  I have a God-given talent. Like, I don't know how it came about, but like, I see seven moves ahead in a courtroom. Like, half the time, I don't even know why I'm making an argument I'm making. And then, when I think about it, I go, "Oh, I did that so they would do this, so that then I could do this, that then would make the judge..." Like, and I, if I consciously, you know, there, there, there've been studies on how by the time there's any micro-movement from a pitcher that could be observed by the batter, it's too late for them to start the swing. But there's still, people hit fastballs. Yeah. So there is some exchange of energy that happens there. There's some micro-something that, that can be sensed by a good hitter in a baseball. It's the same thing.

• 2:24:46Speaker 00

  Like, I, I have a talent for this, that I don't know where it came from. I, I'm, I feel blessed to have it. I love what I do. Like, I, I, I love, to be able to do something that you love and do it at the highest level and do it well is like, the greatest gift in the world. But, I really, when I'm in a courtroom, like, I am way more comfortable in a courtroom than I am in my living room. I have no idea what to do with myself in my living room. I have no idea. I'm one of those people that like, I'm great in war and terrible in peace. I have no idea what to do with myself. But in a courtroom, I know the rules, I know exactly what to do. And I go in and I am so calm and cool. It's like, it's like Neo in The Matrix. Everything slows down and I just know exactly what's expected of me.

• 2:25:29Speaker 00

  And I don't know where that comes from, but that's what happens, is I, I no longer am thinking about this person or that person. I'm thinking about the job that needs to be done and how to do it, and that's it.

• 2:25:42Speaker 04

  I want to ask, lastly, just how religion plays a role. I know you mentioned this guy talked to God, shout out to him. But like, something like an arranged marriage in Hinduism?

• 2:25:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:25:50Speaker 04

  Or like, uh, you know, Christian fundamentalism? Like, Islam has different rules on marriage. How does that play in as, intersects with American culture?

• 2:25:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it comes in a lot. The divorce rate among, um, cultures where there's a lot of arranged marriage is actually quite low. Because the, I, I, and I think that that can be attributed to the fact that people enter into marriage with a different expectation. Like, in a lot of cultures where, um, you know, particularly Muslim cultures, I've had some experience with, where individuals marry and there's an arranged marriage, it's arranged by the parents. It's really done with this sense that marriage is about a family, a partnership, building something together. It's not this overly romanticized, the idea is that we will grow to love each other. And love, you know, love is a feeling, but love is a verb, too. Mm-hmm. Like, to love someone is to act with love towards that person.

• 2:26:40Speaker 00

  So, like, there are plenty of examples of people who were in arranged marriages or marriages that they weren't quite sure, and then they grew to, through shared experience and common, like, loving children together, they grew to say, you know, this is how it is. Like, I, so I think that, that religion and people's religious backgrounds plays a huge role in how they approach the world. And how we approach the world, obviously, informs how we do our marriage. I mean, I will say, as someone who was raised very strict Catholic, you know, my Catholicism and my, like, sort of, understanding of the rigidity of the mass, and when you stand, and when you sit, and how you address, it's very much was good practice for the courtroom. Hmm. Like, because courtroom's very much the same. Like, there's people you treat a different way, there's someone who's in charge, there's,

• 2:27:23Speaker 00

  you know, there's like a hierarchy, and you, you humble yourself before that hierarchy, and you're not, like, bowing and genuflecting is not something that's a source of shame, it's a source of pride. It's like, I'm, I'm strong enough to humble myself in front of someone. So, I think that, that religion, at its best, infuses every aspect of a person's life. And so, I've seen some couples that are very religious. What is, what is hard to watch, and I've done a lot of divorces, where people have the same religious faith, and then one of them loses that faith. Hmm. And it creates a schism in the relationship that is very hard to fix. Because religion has certain first principles from which people are working, you know?

• 2:28:07Speaker 00

  And so, if you lose those foundational first principles, they tether so many other things in the marriage, like, that it gets really, really tricky, you know? Yeah.

• 2:28:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, that's kind of sad to lose your your partner and your faith.

• 2:28:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:28:24Speaker 02

  Fuck.

• 2:28:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, but sometimes, again, to to to throw the counterpoint, I've done a lot of divorces, for example, in the Hasidic community, in the ultra orthodox Jewish community. And that is a community, I don't think I'm giving anything away, when I say that if you could choose between being a man in that community or a woman in that community, you're better off being a man.

• 2:28:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:43Speaker 00

  Like, women aren't allowed to drive, women aren't allowed, there's a lot of rules imposed on women that are challenging. It's a fairly admittedly patriarchal.

• 2:28:51Speaker 02

  Society.

• 2:28:52Speaker 00

  Society, culture, you know, enclave. And so sometimes those women will say like, yeah, I can't do this anymore. Like, I don't want to be in this game anymore. I want to step out of this. And that's very challenging. It's very, very challenging because it is, it is very, very difficult to reconcile an ultra orthodox religious life.

• 2:29:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:15Speaker 00

  And someone who goes fully in the, because people like, moderation doesn't play into it. People treat dandruff with decapitation. Like, there there becomes, like, people go from I'm ultra religious to fuck that.

• 2:29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:30Speaker 00

  I'm as far from religious as you can be. Like, you ever want to meet somebody who's a virulent atheist? Find someone who was raised super religious.

• 2:29:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:38Speaker 00

  You know, it's like people go in that opposite direction.

• 2:29:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:41Speaker 00

  And it's, yeah, it's challenging, but it also sometimes is, is, you know, we all change as time moves on. And that's the challenge, I think, is being honest with yourself about what's changed and then being able to be honest with your partner. I will tell you, doing what I do for a living, one of the things I've learned is the most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves. And most of the time when we lie to our partner, we're lying to ourself and then we're lying to our partner. And so I just, that's why I'm I'm always a fan of the honest conversation. Like, just be honest, be frank, be candid. Just say the quiet part out loud, like, and I think that's why, to some degree, like, and I'm not saying this to be, you know, I'm not trying to, you know, have your wives not be mad at me, although it would be good to have them not be mad at me or you.

• 2:30:25Speaker 00

  I I think one of the things I've found about comics, I've represented a couple of comics. There is something really naked and honest about getting up in front of people and talking about your most vulnerable, embarrassing, dumb shit. It's also the funniest shit. It's the shit people can relate to. But, but you use that muscle all the time. So I imagine in relationship, you do the same thing.

• 2:30:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30:49Speaker 00

  And that's probably why, like, there are, like, I know a lot of comics that are incredibly happily married. I know some that never marry because of the lifestyle and the road and things like that, substance use issues, stuff like that. But I know a lot of comics that are very, very happily married because that same self-effacing insight and, and open, unashamed, like, calling out their own bullshit.

• 2:31:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:13Speaker 00

  Serves people pretty well in a relationship.

• 2:31:15Speaker 02

  Hmm. Okay, before we leave.

• 2:31:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:31:18Speaker 02

  Is there anything that you've learned through all these divorces about what makes marriages successful?

• 2:31:24Speaker 00

  I wrote a whole book on that.

• 2:31:26Speaker 02

  Can you give us like, just so we end on a nice positive note?

• 2:31:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:31:29Speaker 02

  What are some things that you've, you've felt?

• 2:31:32Speaker 00

  I think you can learn a lot about keeping things together by watching how they fall apart. And, and that's why I wrote the book.

• 2:31:38Speaker 02

  What's the name of the book?

• 2:31:39Speaker 00

  Uh, the, the, uh, it's called How to Stay in Love: Practical Wisdom from an Unlikely Source.

• 2:31:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:47Speaker 00

  And you can get it on like Audible if you want to listen to me talk for eight and a half hours. Um, or you can just get it anywhere. It's, it's for sale anywhere. Um, and, you know, I've, I've learned a lot by being a divorce lawyer about what keeps people together. What I, what I've learned, I would say more than anything else is just pay attention.

• 2:32:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:32:03Speaker 00

  Just pay attention. Like, people get divorced the same way they go bankrupt. Very slowly and then all at once.

• 2:32:10Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 2:32:11Speaker 00

  Like, you don't get divorced because your husband's cheating on you, your wife's cheating on you. Your husband's cheating on you, your wife's cheating on you because there was slippage.

• 2:32:20Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 2:32:21Speaker 00

  There were all these little things, like, you know those little things you did when you first were dating your wife? To like, let her know how beautiful she was and how like, you like her better than other options? And all those little things she did for you that like, made you feel like the fucking coolest guy and the best guy? Like, like, you loved who you were when you're with her.

• 2:32:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 2:32:43Speaker 00

  You know, like, like, you stood taller, like, you, you went like, yeah, this like, like this, like, I might be the person this person thinks I am, you know?

• 2:32:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:51Speaker 00

  Like- When we start losing that, like there are these little things, like the, the, the advice I, I give, one of the pieces of advice I give in my book, the one that I get the most feedback on, as I said, leave a note. Just leave your wife a note. Whatever, every day when you leave the house. Just takes 30 seconds. Just like babe, like it was so fun watching that movie with you last night. Like I married the prettiest girl in the world.

• 2:33:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:16Speaker 00

  Can't wait to see you later. Like what does it take? 30 seconds?

• 2:33:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:19Speaker 00

  Like, you know, what is that doing though? It's saying, I still see you. I still think you're beautiful. You're still worth my time. You're still worth my attention. There's all these other things going on in the world. There's the kids, there's a million things, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is there too, right? But you're still, it's still you and me. Still you and me. Like, and, and those little things, just pay attention. Pay attention and don't let slippage happen. Because it is, look, it is so much easier to stay a healthy weight than it is to get super fucking fat and try to lose a hundred pounds.

• 2:33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:54Speaker 00

  So it's the same thing. Once the wheels come off this thing,

• 2:33:57Speaker 02

  It's hard.

• 2:33:57Speaker 00

  it is really hard to get back there. So just if you care about this person

• 2:34:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:02Speaker 00

  and you care about the value of that marriage, just take that little bit of time to just, again, and it can be just a kind word.

• 2:34:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:10Speaker 00

  It can just be building this person up when people are around, instead of taking the piss out of them around people. Like it can be anything. It can be any little gestures, but those are the things that make us fall in love. Those are the make us, things that make us stay in love. And when you let those little things slip, that's when the wheels start coming off. And that's, there's a short road from that to my office. So I always just tell people, pay attention and just make a point of cheering for the person that you're with. That's it.

• 2:34:37Speaker 02

  Amen to that.

• 2:34:38Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 2:34:38Speaker 02

  Awesome.