SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome everybody. Today we are joined by the illustrious, the great, the magnificent. These are all a list that he's given me. So let me go through. The um perfect, the exemplary Keith Jones Esquire. You left out humble. Excuse me, I left out humble. Keith is an attorney who works uh with Linda and with me here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is, oh my gosh, to go through his accolades would take too long and to build up that humbleness that he's got. But what he's gonna talk with us about today is what a guardian at Laddem is. We talk a lot in different avenues in our Coparent Academy, and we've talked a lot in podcasts about what a Guardian at Laddem is. Uh, but today we're gonna really dig in deep. So the thought today is we're gonna introduce what a guardian Laddem is, in case you've never heard of one, talk about how folks uh should work with a guardian if one's been appointed in their case, sometimes what folks do wrong, what they do right, and just wherever else this conversation leads us. So, Keith, welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Tell me, what is a guardian ad lightum? So um the basic is it's a creation of statute that allows a judge to lean on uh other professionals to provide those things a judge can't do on his own. So, for instance, uh by the ethical rules, a judge is not allowed to investigate anything. He can't do independent look into what's going on. He's really stuck with what the parties bring to him or her to make a decision. And by appointing a guardian adlitum, the court is establishing someone to go out and do an investigation to figure out what's in a child's best interest. And that's really the role is to use your experience, your knowledge, your your background to look at this kid and advocate for their best interest to the court.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

That's a great definition. That might be the best definition of a JL I've ever heard, Linda.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

I've I I just learned a lot already, right there, Kate.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

I know we should have had him on earlier. Oh well. Step one, build a time machine. You know you're in trouble when step one of your plan is build a time machine.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

This is something I've been asking for us to do for a while, if you recall, because I really hear a lot of clients tell me that they have had all these different people put into their case and they don't know why they're there, what they're for, except they're gonna have to pay them a lot of money. And so I think this is this is why I've thought for a long time that our podcast listeners needed to know what they were getting for their money, what what it was all about and what it was for. And I I really appreciated already hearing that the judge can't go out and investigate these things. I I think that's important for everybody to know.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Well, and that ethical rule is broader, I think, than even most lawyers appreciate. Not only does it really limit the judge's ability to do his own research, but I really think it's inappropriate for the judge to look on court records to see what other cases these parties are involved in.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

And judges do that.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Yeah, constantly.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Yeah, they do that all the time. The um, so Keith, one thing that I hear parents say all the time when they're when I'm appointed as a JL or when a JL's appointed in one of my cases is oh, this is the this is my child's attorney. Right. Right. Can you explain why that's not quite an accurate statement?

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Sure. Um and actually going back to something Linda said just a minute ago, when I do an intake process with new clients um that are going to be my client, not that I'm a G A L in, um I go through the different roles different people will play in their case because that does get so confusing. And I have a handout that I can provide um for your audience. Oh, that'd be great. Thanks. Okay, but to get to the specific question, a guardian ad lightum and an attorney for the child have very specific and different roles. The attorney for the child represents the child's preference. And so if a child comes in and tells that person that they want to stay with dad full-time because dad lets them eat pizza for dinner and Pop-Tarts for breakfast, the lawyer is required, because that's his job or her job, to go into court and say this child prefers to live with dad.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Now, in my experience, that's usually a public defender for the child.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Right. And the public defender is limited to articulating and advocating the child's preference.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Whether or not we don't let just every child have a public defender, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Right. Um Well, I mean, in Tulsa County, um the public defender's role is as the attorney for the child. Attorneys for the child are only mandated in cases where there is evidence of child abuse.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Now, and I'll I'll pipe in in Virginia where I practiced previously, we didn't have the public defender role when I was in the counties in which I practice. You had a GAL, but you didn't have an attorney for the child. That wasn't an option.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

And and and there is no requirement that the public defender's office fulfill that role. It's just the child is entitled to an attorney of their own if there's abuse. The public defender's office at Tulsa County has taken that role on. So, but to get back to the question, so the attorney for the child represents that child's preference, even when it's unreasonable, even when it's unhealthy. And so what the limit of what the attorney for the child can do is to say, this child wants to live with dad. I really think we need a guardian ad lightum to investigate and advocate what's really in the child's best interest. And so that's the role of the guardian ad lightum. And so I, for instance, would go in and meet with a child, and the child's gonna say, pizza and pop tarts. And I'm gonna go to the court and say, the child wants to live with dad, but it's all about pizza and pop-tarts. And really, the child needs a more rounded uh diet and needs to be around both parents, and pizza and pop-tart dad doesn't win just because it's pizza and pop-tarts. The child has a preference, but it's not really reasonable. That's what a GAL does.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

So is it possible that a child could have both? Oh, yes. A PD and a GAL in their life? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

That's actually pretty frequent. And what's really interesting, I mean, if you get nerded out on this stuff, let's nerd out and let's do. Okay. Yeah. Is so I represent a case with multiple children. Um, and the children had conflicting preferences. So the children, and there was abuse, and so the children were entitled to different attorneys to advocate for their different preferences. But a guardian ad lightum could do a full investigation and articulate the different preferences while advocating of all the children, and then advocate for each child's individual best interests.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Wow. And that theoretically could get really complicated because let's say you have a family with three kids, each of which expresses a different preference. The court, let's just say, appointed three attorneys for the children and a GAL, you would then conceivably have mom's attorney, dad's attorney, three attorneys for the children, and a guardian adlitum, all of whom have the obligation to participate in a hearing.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Absolutely. Beyond that. Wow. When you have child-on-child violence, child-on-child abuse, each one of those children is entitled to their own attorney. And so it's really important to have that guardian adlime in there as well to talk about what's really in the best interest. Because you've had a child that's beaten or perhaps sexually abused a sibling, that gets very complicated and heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

And maybe we don't want to talk about that in a podcast. No, maybe that would be another episode too. Let's keep this one on sort of the role to help explain what the JAL is. And so far, it's been fantastic to differentiate that from the attorney in fact. Or excuse me, from the child's attorney. So as to JAL, Keith, let's say you get your appointment, and what does that look like? How do you know when you're appointed as the guardian headlight? And how could the parent know that you've been appointed?

SPEAKER_02 9:06

So typically, I'll get a text message from a lawyer who knows me and says, Are you available to GAL in this case? Here's opposing counsel, here's the judge, here's what county we're in. And I'll say yes or no. And do you want a copy of the order that I prefer that appoints me? Right. And so it's very rare that I don't get notice of it before there's an order.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Correct. And then once the order is entered, that's when you're appointed. And then there's a retainer that needs to be paid by the parents. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

And I have a very specific order that I've worked out over a long period of time. But that order controls um my duties, how I get paid, what people's expectations are of me. And it's long and I hope people read it carefully.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Right, because there'll be a lot of surprises for folks if they don't.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

For instance, um we talked about payment. When you're dealing with a divorce, um, and it's not yet, there's no decree of divorce yet. So you're dividing up the property and custody and visitation all in one fell swoop. The GAL's fees are a debt of the marriage. And so the GAL gets paid before the parties, before the party's attorneys. The GL should get paid uh very, very first, just like any other uh before before any like any creditor.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Yeah. Yeah, because a lot of times you'll because I do, as our listeners know, uh I do JL work as well. And you it shouldn't be surprising, but it might be surprising to some folks. How many times a parent will say, Oh, I can't pay you GAL, but at the same time they're paying their attorney a ton. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Right. Oh, or or better yet, you hear that, oh, I can't pay you and I'll be gone on for three weeks on a European vacation.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yes. That's or Disney World. Right. Or Disney World.

unknown 11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Or you're looking at their Facebook. Yeah. Or you're looking at their Facebook page and uh and you see that they're there, but also not paying. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

It's very depressing. And actually, there is an organization in Oklahoma County that provides uh guardian light up services at a very low rate and sometimes free. Um and they do that through a bunch of grants and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Yeah, when I was starting in Virginia, you would be appointed by the court and you would be paid uh$55 an hour for your work out of court and$75 an hour for your work in court at the juvenile and domestic relations court level, which was uh a court not of record. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, it means that there is automatic right of appeal, de novo appeal, as if the JDR never happened uh up to the circuit court. And if you got appointed in the circuit court as part of a divorce, then you would actually get your rate uh more like what we see here in Oklahoma. But the judges in Virginia would appoint a guardian enlightenment in almost pretty much every case in which at least one party was unrepresented. But that would be the rate that you would get paid, and it was quite low. But you got a lot of work and you got a lot of experience being a guardian ad lightum that way.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

When I worked in Johnson County, Kansas, we didn't do that with guardian ed lightums, but we did a lot of appointed work uh for the county, and the county flipped the bill and then put a lien on the people's personal and real property in the county. Oh, wow. And so you got whatever it was back then,$50 an hour, but you were guaranteed to be paid. You didn't have to chase it. And um, it worked out fairly well, and then the county collected it on the back end.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yep, that's how Virginia did it as well. And it sounds like we're getting bogged down, so let's not get bogged down in the money stuff. That's probably important to us, probably not so important to the the parents, although, you know, it kind of should be. If you're gonna ask for, yeah, if you're gonna ask for GAL, you need to know what you're gonna be expected to foot.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Like I say, I I'm on the front line with the parents a lot, and they are all talking about how much it's costing.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

And well, let me deal with just one more thing that I put in my orders that I think is a big deal. Go for it. Um in my orders, the debt to the GAL is a joint and several debt of the parties. And what does that mean? Well, I was gonna say, because that's that's that's a term of art. But what that means is if I'm the GAL and Ron's the parent that's paying the bills, and the other parent refuses to pay their share, and Ron's got a job and it's easy for me to get an income assignment against him, I can go in and make Ron pay me. And then it's Ron's job to go get mom to pay him back. It's not my job to go chase mom when Ron's able to pay because I work for Ron and mom. I can go either after either one of them to get me paid.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

Wow. And it is important that guardians get paid because there's already only a subset of attorneys who are willing to do guardian work. And I think most of us uh do so at a discounted rate from what our normal hourly rate is, and we see it as a service to the court. Right. It's a public service. So you're already having trouble getting good attorneys to do JL work and having them not be paid when it's already kind of low bono, if not pro bono, then you know you're gonna wind up drawing out the pool of actual quality people on whom the courts are intending to rely in terms of their expertise and analysis.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Which actually brings up another big topic right now. Um, the role that guardian ad lightems fulfill for our courts right now, often in the past, was fulfilled by mental health professionals who would perform custody evaluations or psyche vows or therapeutic counseling or all those different things that you guys have talked about previously. And the truth in Tulsa is that litigation and hassle have run a lot of people out of that business. And frankly, nobody really goes to school to become a psychologist or a social, you know, or a professional uh uh professional counselor or social worker to get grilled in court by jerk lawyers, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:54

And so that's why a lot of therapists now will say, I don't do court. Like they can actually dodge a subpoena, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Well, and you know, there's a facility here in Tulsa that prides itself on making it as hard as possible to get their mental health professionals into court, right? And you have to pull teeth to get them there. So that resource is largely unavailable to the courts. And guardian ad items have begun to fill that role. And our training isn't as great into mental health issues, right? And so we're still doing the best we can. But that's something you're seeing more guardian ad lightums coming into court in Tulsa County right now because there's fewer mental health professionals that will do the work.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

So do you guys, and I I've tried to ask answer ask questions that I think uh my parents that I've listened to, my client parents over the years have have asked about. So do Guardian Ad Lightams, is it a kind of a oh like a Rolodex of people that the, and I I'm using that word again, Ron, that uh that that you know it's like okay, it's it's Keith's turn or it's Ron's turn or whoever's turn up to bat now because there's this rolling list of the GALs that will do the work.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

There kind of is. There's a group of people who do it, and we all have different strengths and weaknesses, and then your judges have different um preferences and people that they trust more or work with more. And so you'll see a judge say, Oh, I prefer this person or that person. And the judges try not to throw work to a specific person, but over time you kind of learn Judge Gosby likes these people, Judge uh Cybert likes these people.

unknown 17:50

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

And it's and it's fair because you know, those judges are making decisions that are important to all sorts of folks and deeply important to these children. And I would want to be using someone that I'm comfortable with too. And it's not a personality thing so much, typically, as it is quality of work. I know that I'm gonna be able to rely as the fact finder, being the judge, on the work product that this person's gonna give.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

And so getting back, that's how I get in. Um, I get an order entered and it details what my role is, what my responsibilities are, and what the court expects of me. Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

What are some minimum things that a parent would expect that a guardian ad Laddem would do in any case? So if there's a GL in this person's case, these are the minimum things that they should see that Guardian Adlitum do.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

I think the Guardian Adlitum should always meet with each parent individually, should see each parent with the kids, um, and should see the kids without the parents. Yep. I think at a minimum, there's those things. Um there's a lot beyond that. And so if someone's complaining about something that has to be investigated. So I don't think dad keeps a clean house, and I'm gonna show up and look at dad's house. Um, I don't think mom is appropriately feeding the child, and I'm gonna call the doctors. Yeah, um, I think mom is poisoning the child against me. I'm gonna get the child in counseling and then talk to the counselors. I I'm not a mental health professional. Um I'm not a doctor, and so I get people to help me that have that experience, that have that expertise, tell me what is going on. And my role isn't to how do I want to say to figure out whether this child's being alienated on my own, it's to bring the people in who have those that that expertise, and then all that information comes through me, and then I complete a report for the court.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

All right. So, Keith, can you talk to us a little bit about how the investigation process works for you?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

And and I admittedly, I sometimes move a little slowly, um, but I'm trying to get a feel for who the kids are and do it in a way I don't want to be someone these kids remember. I want to be an invisible presence in their life. I'll tell a story because this is a huge impact on the way I practice. Okay. My father was my grandfather was born in 1921. When he was 12 in 1933, his parents divorced. And in the middle of the depression, he was drugged into the Creek County Courthouse to talk to the judge about where he was going to live for the rest of his minority. My grandfather lived into his 80s or 90s, and throughout his life, he could tell you the story of that day in such a way as you could smell the courtroom because it left scars on him for seven plus decades. He remembered the judge, he remembered the room, he remembered all the details of that day where he told the judge that no matter what he did, he would not be living with his mother, he'd be living with his father. So my goal is to never leave an indelible impression like that on a kid. And so I go slower and I try to get information from the schools and the teachers and the counselors and the doctors and mom and dad and grandparents so that the kids don't remember me.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Hmm. So why did your grandfather s tell the judge that no matter what was done, he was going to live with his dad? Oh gosh, are we going to my personal family history?

SPEAKER_02 22:10

I don't know. I mean, it's just it sounded really interesting. I kind of wanted to follow up on that. Um he was a rough and tumble um man at 12. It was the depression. Um my grandfather was a bit of a hothead uh at that point in his life. And um that's that's that's the way Creek County was going at the time. He needed to be with his father in his mind.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

Are you telling me, Keith, that you have a family member, uh, an ancestor who was hard headed? Linda, I cannot imagine Keith having an ancestor who was hard headed. Yeah, my Creek County roots are deep.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I love that. That is really that's a long time ago that they were going through a divorce in the first place. That's that's unusual.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

It's occurred to me several times to go pull the divorce decree out of the Creek County Archives, and I've never had the guts to do it. So, anyway, the point of that was um I take my time and at the end of the process, hopefully, both lawyers I've talked to enough that I've shown my hand, right? They know where I'm going. Inevitably, uh lately, they want a report. And um, so I'll draft a report. And my reports are different than every other Guardian Headlight's reports I've read. And I start with a analysis of what best interests mean in this case. Um, I don't think you look at best case in a vacuum. So if you're at the initial determination of custody, best interest means just best interest. What's best for these kids temporally, morally, emotionally, nutritionally, spiritually, the way they've lived their lives. But if that initial determination's been made, you have different standards that the court's supposed to apply in determining what's in the kids' best interest moving forward. Okay, so explain that. Okay, so if the parties have joint custody, the first test is joint custody working from the perspective of the child? And so mom and dad can be fighting like cats and dogs, but if they're raising a well-adjusted child who's thriving, I don't care that it's miserable for mom and dad. The kid's thriving. We stay in joint custody. Okay. And I've had that case come up many times as a litigator for representing a parent, and more often as a child's attorney, where they come in and say, I'm just sick of them fighting, but it's working. Um and then after that determination is joint custody working, you apply um best interest de novo. I mean, from scratch, right? Okay. If one party has sole custody, let me take a step back. Joint custody with my definition. Okay. And there's literally a myriad of definitions that are defensible with some statute or some case. But the stat the definition I like is that there is a written document detailing how these people will make the important decisions in their children's lives. Okay. So if you have that written document that says joint custody plan, and they're gonna join, they're gonna make these decisions in accord with that document, they have joint custody. Okay. The other flavor is soul custody. And all that means, in my estimation, is that one party has the final say on those important decisions. And when you think about it, there's not that many point uh important decisions really in life. Most of life is everyday decisions. Important decisions are where the child's going to live day to day, but that's determined by the order generally or the agreement. Um, where the child goes to church, where the child goes to school, what doctors the child goes to, um, some grooming issues that are permanent, like tattoos. But outside of that, life's every day. It's not important decisions. So, anyway, so if one party has sole custody, then the standard set out in the law is called the Gibbons test, which is for Oklahoma. For Oklahoma, right, right, for Oklahoma. But actually, the standard's very similar nationwide. Yep. And the standard's basically has there been a permanent, material, and substantial change in circumstances to the detriment of the child, where the child would be substantially better off with a change in who's making those big decisions.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Right. And a change in the custodial parents or the child's, not the non-custodial parent circumstances. I'm sorry? A change in the custodial parent circumstances or the child's and not a change in the non-custodial parent circumstances. The change has to be to the detriment to the child. Right. Right. So it can't be necessarily that the parent, if it's if you're trying to go from soul custody and flip sole custody, it's not the case that, oh, the non-custodial parent got a better job and has a little bit more money now. So now because my circumstances have changed, I'm going to flip custody. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

There has to be some circumstance where the child's worse off because of that circumstance. Right. Exactly. So anyway, my reports begin with an analysis of how we determine joint custody given the facts and history of this case. Um, and then I go through an analysis of what I've learned about each kid in the case and what their preferences are. And that's all facts. And then I do a little section on analysis, which generally, by looking at the way I've uh explained the law and explain the facts, the analysis should be self-evident, but I go through a bit of analysis and then conclusions and recommendations. All right. And it's exhausting. It's it's a huge process, it takes forever to draft one. And um, that's another part of why it takes a long time.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Yeah, and typically the well, let me ask you, in your mind, what is the distinction in circumstance that makes a parent or an attorney want to generate a deport rather than having a conference and talking about it?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Honestly, I think it comes back to uh client control and uh and establishing client expectations.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

I think so too. It does in my case, too.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

One of the things I've learned over the years, I've done this, I've done this almost three decades now. When I was taught my mentor at Camp Francie, client expectations and client control was the cornerstone of our representation. From day one, you're educating the client so that they know what's coming, they can anticipate it and make intelligent decisions given the law and the facts and your analysis of it. And what I've learned over three decades is what the cornerstone of my practice is at best a footnote in the majority of the lawyers out there doing family law.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Right. And client control, as you're using it, is not because I can understand a parent hearing that and being like, well, I don't want to be controlled. It's not you're taking over their life, it's that you're enabling them to actually be a full partner in the representation and to understand what's happening and why and to be able to forecast what could happen in the future so that they have those reasonable expectations. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

In the first meeting where I meet with clients, I do that. These are the people that are likely to be helping you. This is the process of divorce. This is the law on child support. This is law on alimony, this is law on custody. And I'm hitting them with a fire hose of information, but they leave with a book full of diagrams and explanations, and I'm just giving them enough information so that they can come back later and say, wait, tell me about custody again. Right. They know enough to ask the questions. Yeah. And they know enough to anticipate that the questions are going to arise. And my, and we're getting into philosophically discussing what I do for a living, right? But I'm a problem solver. That's my job. There are other lawyers in town that see themselves as litigators whose job it is to vindicate their client's position in court, not solve the problem. And that's really frustrating as a GAL or as an attorney on the other side of that case, because we're not we're not even doing the same job. Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Yeah, that's a really good point. And what happens when a person doesn't have that basic understanding of what the process is or what could come up, or does it? They're living constantly in this fear of the unknown. Right. And when someone is living constantly in fear of the unknown, they're going to make decisions that they wouldn't make if they were being their best selves because they're not in a state of mind where they can sit back and actually contemplate everything well. They're reacting from fear and uncertainty, which is not a helpful place to be making decisions.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

And they are constantly feeling like they should be winning. And everybody in their world, including their attorney, is telling them that, that they will win. And if there's anything less than that, then what went wrong?

SPEAKER_02 32:15

I tell my clients in the first meeting, divorce in and of itself is a destructive process. The only people who come out of it ahead are the lawyers. Um, everybody feels like they lost in every divorce.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

Which is why you hardly ever see divorce attorneys litigate their own divorces. Oh, yeah. I mean, they divorce attorneys are the first ones to reach settlements without having a hearing.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yes, the good ones. Right.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

Yes, exactly. So let's dig back into the Guardian Aladdin. So we've talked about the process, we talked about all the different people that that you go and you talk with. And I know for me, I'll tee it up and get your response to it. For me, I like to have as many opportunities to speak with as many third parties and to get as much objective information as I can because it helps me sort the rest of the subjective information I've gotten. So if I go to the school and I find out what their attendance is, or if I, you know, look at the well baby visits, if I whatever objective piece of data I can find to help give context to the subjective things being told to me, that's what I want to get.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Right. And it's sometimes it's not the information you're getting, it's how it's coming to you. You know, um, I ask every parent who's your kid's physician, who's your kid's counselor, who's your kid's best friend, who's your kid's teacher, who's your kid's principal? Does your kid's principal know you by phase? Will they know you when I go in there? And um it's not required that everybody know every answer to those questions. When my wife and I raised our children, after they were, after our girls were basically potty trained, I didn't go to another doctor's appointment. My wife took care of that. Right. And that's okay. Um, but when you're divorcing, you kind of have to take on those roles a little more. And I'm not suggesting dads go to their daughter's doctor's appointments, but they ought to know who the doctor is.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Right. So although dads certainly can in some of these families, you know, Linda and I are sensitive to this because we get comments that we are pro too pro-dad, too anti-dad, too pro-mom, too anti-mom. So obviously anyone can play any of these roles. Absolutely. But it comes down to when you were together, you essentially made another contract beyond your marriage contract between the two of you as to how you're going to divvy up the work. And you did it according to interest and ability and availability. And when you get divorced, some of those things change, but some of them don't. I mean, you can gain ability, you can change your schedule to have more or less of availability, but you started off that way for a reason. It made sense to you at the time. And for at least some of those reasons, it might make sense to continue that way, or it might make sense to change it up. So you can have a mom who was a stay-at-home mom and she did all of those things, but now she needs to get out and to work for herself to be able to get herself into a better economic position. So dad needs to take more of that load, even though maybe mom has built some fences that she doesn't quite want to tear down yet, or vice versa. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

What I think is the mistake that I was addressing is no one should be forcing their way into uncomfortable roles with their child in an attempt to better their legal position in a divorce case. That's a mistake.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Yeah, completely agree. It's kind of like if anyone has um if anyone has ever used a parachute, you know, you know when you get close to the ground, like 100 or 200 feet off the ground, that's not the time to make adjustments with your parachute, especially with the old military style, because you're just gonna oscillate. And sometimes you just have to hold on to what you got. The landing may not be what you wanted it to be, but if you start trying to make adjustments at the inopportune time, you're gonna wind up hitting the ground a whole lot harder. And so I think sometimes for these folks in divorce, they want to jockey for a different position in the midst of the divorce when actually that's it's an experiment that's unnatural. It's, you know, there's some natural experiments in the litigation process or in a divorce where folks weren't doing things because they wanted to uh look better to other people, which is how it's sorted out. Once you get a Guardian enlightenment in place sometimes, it's almost like that observer effect. You know, the fact that an observer is observing can interfere with the natural state of things. Sure. And so a lot of times that works to the detriment of the children.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Right. And to stick with your analogy, don't work so hard at trying to nail the perfect landing in your parachute that you end up breaking your legs.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

And that happens an awful lot.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

You like that? I did. I did like that. I've actually seen someone using a parachute make a bad adjustment and land in the windshield of an ambulance. There you go. Which is irony. That was ironic.

unknown 37:46

All right.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

So one of the things, one of the things, just to stick with that for just a second, one of the things that I talk about is the litigation process is, and I use a lot of analogy. I use you've set your house on fire, and our job as professionals is to get you, um, your kids, and your stuff in that order out of the house fire that you guys set. Yeah. Um, and if you want to wallow around and argue about stuff while you're in the middle of a house fire, you're going to increase the destruction to you, the damage to your kids, and the loss of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yeah. Okay, so what would you guys recommend then for a parent who has been very hands-off, more often than not, the father, but who's been very hands-off, and mother has done a lot of the taking the kids to school, doctors, you name it. Um now he feels like he's totally disconnected from everything to do with this kid, and mother's no longer letting him know anything about it. I typically will tell the guys she's not your secretary anymore, and you need to go to the source. Right. It's a big part of the correct advice or not. I'm a little confused after what you'd said.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Once the parties separate, they should each build independent relationships with the key players in their children's lives.

unknown 39:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Uh doctor, principal, teacher, um, counselor, those kinds of things. Um it is not either parent's job anymore to make the other parent aware of parent teacher meetings or school plays or soccer games or any of that. Doctor's appointments, they do. If you set a doctor's appointment, you should tell the other side. But beyond that, really. When you have a parent that has been disengaged, the answer is straightforward in organically, naturally re-engaging. And that may mean for you get your kid in counseling and work with the counselor, uh-huh, figure out what your kid's interest is, and invest in those things. Right? If your kid is into dance, dance is your favorite thing. Your kid's a cheerleader, you're cheerleading the cheerleaders. Soccer, you are the biggest soccer fan in the world. And organically invest in your kids. It requires empathy, it requires prioritizing things, but your kids will know whether it's genuine or not and whether it's organic or not. And so one of my favorite cases was I had a completely disengaged dad and a disengaged husband and wife filed for divorce. And he became completely organically a completely engaged father. And um long story short, at the end of the case, um he was introducing me to his wife, and she was aggravated at him for becoming the man she deserved all along, only after she had fallen in love with some someone else. So um, but that's a reality that he took ownership of, and he apologized to her in that moment and said, Yeah, I know, I screwed up.

SPEAKER_03 41:27

Yeah, and sometimes what happens after the disengaged parent becomes more engaged and things settle down and the litigation calms down and you get it behind you, then you both may decide that it is more efficient for one parent to take care of this and one parent to take care of that, and to pull your, you know, to uh sort your resources in that way. And that's okay too. But at this point, you now have a better understanding of what those things are. You each can participate better, and you're both making an informed decision that's better for everybody and for the kids, presumably.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

And it's a bit off topic a bit, but that's why courts and guardian ad items and third-party professionals who've literally watched a thousands of people go through divorces are so quick to suggest people try joint custody because when it works, um it's so much better for everybody. And people don't want to try it. Why would I can continue to want to do something with this party that has just uh betrayed me? I I let them completely in and they've completely betrayed everything I ever believed in them. Why would I continue to believe in them? And the answer is because your kids are worth it, right? And maybe it'll just work out. And my experience is if you'll try it the vast majority of the time, it just works out. The animosity goes away with time. You may not be friends again, but you can trust each other enough to get these kids through to majority.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

And a lot of the things that you're building the trust with are small things that are less have smaller consequences for you emotionally. You know, I can trust, I didn't trust her or him to do X because X was central to who I am as a person and how I perceive myself, but I can trust him or her to go pick up that prescription and share it with me, or I can trust them to go to the parent-teacher conference and let me know what was going on. I can trust little things here and there to rebuild the trust over time. Exactly.

unknown 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

We talked a lot about that in our pod in our uh co-parent academy as well. But it sometimes it's I I just think you've got to be really careful, yes, as you do learn more about what's going on with your child, that you don't infringe on the parents territory that has been doing it so faithfully for so long, and uh that you have your own, you know, login code to the parent port. Or whatever, you know, and that you're that you're doing those kinds of things on your own, that's why I'm always telling them to go to the source, you know, get get on the teacher's email or the coach's email or whatever it takes, you know, to do so that you're not having to constantly be pestering the other parent or you know, showing up on her turf.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

Thank you for joining us this week for part one of our conversation with Keith Jones. This week we learned about what a GAL is, how they conduct their investigation, how they're paid. Next week, we're going to learn more about how the GAL finalizes the representation, including preparation of report, conversation with attorneys, participation in mediation, and participation in trial as an expert witness.