[music]
The last thing you want to do is take legal
advice from your friends.
It's a terrible
idea.
I'm Lee Rosen for the Rosen Law
Firm.
Thanks for watching.
Anybody that's ever been through a
divorce has had well-meaning friends
come over to them and offer advice -- lots
of advice.
It sometimes feels like folks
going through a divorce are advice
magnets.
Unfortunately, getting lots of
advice from lots of folks causes confusion
and results in difficulty when it comes to
following your own well-made plans.
Sadly, much of the advice we receive is
misinformed and off-base.
Much of the
time it's just plain wrong.
Why is it wrong?
A bunch of reasons.
First of all, people outside the process
don't know all the fact of your case.
Without knowing everything that's going
on, it's very difficult to give solid advice.
Many of us don't want to tell these
volunteer advisors all the facts of our
lives.
We'd like some privacy.
We don't
feel the need to share everything.
Unfortunately, giving good advice
requires having good information -- all of
it, warts and all.
Second, the advisor is not a lawyer and
probably doesn't have all that much
experience with the process.
Our
volunteer advisors usually have been
divorced or know someone that has been
divorced.
What they know is what
happened to them, not what is going to
happen to you.
Steps they took that might
have been a mistake for them might be
exactly the right thing for you.
It's tough
to know when you've only been through
this a time or two and when it might have
been one of your advisor's friends or
cousins or someone else that actually
went through it.
Third, most of our volunteer advisors
bring to their advice a certain bias or
prejudice.
They probably don't realize that
they lack objectivity, but they do.
They
like you.
They want to help you.
They
probably don't see all the facts and they
probably don't understand why anybody
would agree with your spouse.
Or they
may have other biased ideas.
They might
dislike men or women or in-laws.
It's hard
to know where they're coming from, but
they are almost always coming from
somewhere.
Everybody has a bias in one
direction or another.
Finally, they don't know your priorities
and your objectives.
They don't know
what really matters to you.
I've seen
parents very deliberately make financial
concessions to achieve greater peace with
their former spouse for the benefit of the
children.
I've seen spouses pay way too
much alimony because they felt it was the
right thing to do.
Not everyone sees the
world in the same way.
You have your
own sense of right and wrong; your own
ideas about what is fair.
Your advisors see
things through their own filter, not yours;
and they may not really understand where
you're coming from.
The best thing for you to do is get
professional advice.
Ignore all the well-
meaning volunteers.
When you have
questions, talk to a lawyer or a counselor.
Get your advice from independent,
objective experts.
Ask questions, listen to
the answers, and then do what you think
is right.
After all, you're the one that's
going to have to live with the
arrangements you make long after the
dust settles and the advisors have moved
on to advising someone else.
For more information, visit our website at
Rosen.com.
Thanks for watching.
I'm Lee
Rosen for the Rosen Law Firm.
