In this episode of the Children First Family Law podcast, Krista welcomes Larry and Joni Jones, the creators of “The Point C Divorce,” a five-minute animated fable designed to help parents, attorneys, and professionals refocus on children’s well-being during divorce. Larry, a retired New Jersey Superior Court judge, and Joni, a board-certified psychiatric and mental health nurse, mediator, and restorative practice facilitator, combined their professional expertise and personal experiences to create a short but powerful video that shines a light on how parental conflict can harm children.
The conversation traces the origins of Point C, which began with Larry sketching ideas on a pizza box after a particularly painful custody case. The video has since been used in courtrooms, mediation, and educational programs across the country, resonating with families and professionals alike. Larry and Joni explain how the fable illustrates the dangers of parents becoming consumed by litigation at the expense of their child’s emotional health.
Joni shares how her own childhood experience with divorce shaped her perspective, emphasizing the importance of skill-building and forgiveness in helping families move forward. Together, she and Larry stress the need for attorneys, mediators, and parents to rethink how conflict is handled and to recognize that litigation often undermines the very “best interests of the child” it claims to protect.
The episode highlights the long-term effects of contentious divorces, from fractured parent-child relationships to mental health struggles for children. Krista, Larry, and Joni discuss practical tools, such as effective listening, expectation-setting, and restorative practices, that can help parents break the cycle of conflict. You will come away with a deeper understanding of how Point C offers a wake-up call to keep children’s voices and well-being at the center of family law.
In this episode, you will hear:
- The inspiration behind “The Point C Divorce” and how it began on a pizza box
- How the five-minute fable helps parents and professionals see the child’s perspective
- Why litigation often contradicts the “best interest of the child”
- Joni’s personal story as a child of divorce and how it influenced her work
- Tools for parents: skill-building, heartfelt forgiveness, and active listening
- The role of attorneys and mediators in shaping respectful, child-centered outcomes
- Why kids often just want the fighting to stop, no matter which parent is “right”
Resources from this Episode
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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The Point C Divorce: A Five-Minute Fable That Puts Kids First, with Larry and Joni Jones Podcast Transcript
Larry Jones 00:00
When you see this every day, which I did, and everyone’s got the same talking lines, it seems, whether they’re represented by a council or whether they’re represented by an attorney, everyone’s always saying this is for the best interest of the child. We have to look out for the best interest of the child. And, litigation itself, contentious litigation, by its very nature can be in the absolute worst interest of a child. The point of Point C was that to kind of be a wake up call to parents, to attorneys, to anyone else who’s in the system who thinks that by fighting with each other non stop, that somehow is justified by being in the child’s best interest.
Intro/Outro 00:40
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host Krista. Nash is an attorney, mediator, parenting coordinator and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice as always. Please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 01:30
Welcome to today’s episode where we’re honored to have two extraordinary guests, Larry and Joni Jones, the brilliant minds behind the unforgettable video, The Point C. Larry is a former New Jersey superior court judge and committed educator in mediation, constitutional law, and alternative dispute resolution. His wife, Joni, is a board certified psychiatric and mental health nurse, mediator, and restorative practice facilitator. Together, they co-created a compelling five minute video fable that illuminates how even the most well intentioned parents can unintentionally harm their children during high conflict divorce through storytelling rather than lectures. Point C invites parents and professionals alike to pause, reflect, and shift from points A and B, the tension filled boxes of adult conflict, toward Point C, where the child’s emotional well being becomes the true north. This modern fable has resonated deeply within family law, mediation and mental health fields. It’s been lauded by professionals for its powerful narrative, catchy tune and impactful animation that hits viewers right in the heart. Today, we’ll explore how Point C came to life, what surprised Larry and Joanie during its creation, how a pizza box became the initial creative vehicle to facilitate the video and how it has shifted the conversation about children’s best interests in the face of parental conflict.
Well, welcome back today to the Children First Family Law Podcast. I’m really excited today to have Larry and Joni Jones with us, and they are coming from New Mexico. Welcome to both of you. I’m glad we were able to work out of time to do this. Well, I’ve already introduced this slightly in my introduction, but if you could introduce yourselves a little bit and sort of give a background of your interest in family law and why you initially were going to be talking mostly about this amazing video that you put out called Point C, which we will put in the show notes. I’m already sending it to lots of parents when I work with them. So it is a really important viewing for parents and attorneys and everybody in the family law system to get the perspective that you all bring. Tell us a little bit about yourselves and then the genesis of the Point C material that you created.
Larry Jones 03:38
So we’ll start with a little bit about ourselves. My name is Lawrence Jones, Larry Jones, I was a family court judge for many years in the Superior Court of the state of New Jersey. I retired from public service in 2017 and do a lot of mediation and restorative practice right now. We now live in the state of New Mexico. I teach various subjects at the University of New Mexico.
Joni Jones 04:00
My name is Joni Jones. I’ve been a registered nurse for over 45 years, and I am board certified in mental health and psychiatric nursing. I’m also a certified anger management specialist. I am a certified mediator, and also I do restorative circles in the state of New Mexico. I have a real impact on Point C, because I was the product of a contentious divorce, and I was left homeless over that, along with my brother, who was a diabetic, I was only 16. He was 17, and he needed insulin, and because I had support along the way, from guidance counselors and everything else, that made all the difference, even to why I’m in the career that I am today.
Krista Nash 04:54
How long have you two been together? I’m just curious, how did you meet?
Larry Jones 04:58
We’ve been married for 30, going on 32 years, I believe. But who’s counting, right?
Krista Nash 05:08
Did you meet in the family law circles?
Larry Jones 05:11
We did not.
Joni Jones 05:13
We knew each other from when we were really young, really we didn’t even know that we were competing in the same Swim Club, and activities in the swim meets, or even that we went to the same orthodontist.
Krista Nash 05:28
Well, that’s exciting. So because you have such a great blend within your units, as a couple between mental health and law and this messy area that’s so sad and tragic in so many ways, and your own personal experience, thanks for sharing that. Joni, I don’t think enough people share their personal experiences with it, and that would really help people who are going through it to do it better for their kids. So what was the genesis of the initial ideas of we should create something that would help, really parents see what we see every day.
Larry Jones 06:05
Well, what happened originally was when I was on the bench in family court in New Jersey, every year, judges are required to do continuing education, continuing judicial education. It says lawyers have to do continuing legal education. Most professionals have to do some element to that, and in New Jersey, the judges, every year during Thanksgiving week, for the Monday through Wednesday before Thanksgiving, they go to what’s called Judicial College. They basically hear all kinds of lectures and seminars and stuff like that. So I was on the faculty of Judicial College back in New Jersey, and I was asked, this was in 2014 I think, and I was asked to do a presentation to all the family court judges in New Jersey. Having sat through a lot of presentations in my life and given presentations, I thought, after three days of judges watching PowerPoints and talking heads and things like that, I thought I have got to come up with something a little bit different, because I’m competing against Thanksgiving Eve here, as a Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. I’m standing between everyone’s Turkey, and they’re gonna get frustrated. So, I gave it some thought, and Joanie and I were talking about it, and the question came up, well, what would I relate to? Ever since I was a kid, I always liked Aesop’s Fables. Everyone’s familiar with those short little stories with illustrations that are kind of written as if they’re for children, but they’re not for children. They have very, very adult messages in them, and they’ve persisted for 5000 years. Whoever Aesop was, he should be getting royalties right now, because everyone’s still reading his stuff, and so I really like that. And then I also thought about a book called The Giving Tree. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that book, but it’s sort of like a modern Aesop’s fable in a way. It’s a book from the 1960s that’s written as a children’s book, but it has an extremely adult message in there, and it’s considered a classic, a modern classic. So I thought I could put those two together. What can I do here that could be not the same as those things, but kind of along the same lines in terms of approach. So we were talking about it, and we said, well, you know, what about putting together kind of a video that really explains in five minutes, not like a textbook or a long winded lecture that has an impact and explains in five minutes what’s wrong with the child custody system and adversarial system and family court at the present time. So we started thinking about that, talking about it, and then it was in the courtroom, and it was in the middle of this very, very hostile, dysfunctional divorce proceeding taking place where two people were fighting over their child for the best interest of the child, but it was very obvious that the child’s best interest was going to be last on the list in this particular dynamic. And it was just, you know, lip service, essentially. So during the lunch break, I went over to the courthouse cafeteria, and I was sitting there and I was thinking about the presentation I had to do that was coming up. And I thought, all right, well, you know, maybe there’s something with this. I was sort of inspired negatively by what I had been witnessing. I was sitting there eating my grilled cheese sandwich, and I didn’t have any paper with me,I just had a pen, and some kids came in from a high school across the street. They always used to come in and they’d order in a pizza, and they’d leave all their stuff around. And they did, they left all their stuff around, and they left the pizza box there, an empty pizza box. I started thinking about this concept of a video story of fable, almost, kind of music and stuff for Point C, called the Point C which just sort of came to me. So I went over and I grabbed this old pizza box, and I started writing what would be the outline for points, the honest pizza box, and I ripped off the top of the lid, and that was my paper. Then I bring it home, and Joni says, Oh, you brought home pizza. I said, no, not really. I brought home a box with all my writing all over it. She goes, “what the hell’s wrong with you?” But that became the basis for Point C, and started developing it into a five minute kind of like a video fable. It took a couple months to work on it, here and there, and then ultimately, that was what we showed at Judicial College to all the family court judges in New Jersey who were there, and I was not in the way of their Thanksgiving turkey. They really liked it. I was amazed at the response it got. I remember a judge came up to me at the end and said, I’m so glad you didn’t make us go through death by PowerPoint. So then it started taking on a life of its own, because all the judges had seen it. Some of them started playing it in their courtroom. I didn’t even know this until after the fact. Then it became an administrative issue because there was a lot of red tape and that you can’t just show things in a court. You have to go through all these hurdles. There was talk of it being used as part of the mandatory parent education program in New Jersey. There were so many hurdles with that. While it was still going through all that, you know, ultimately I retired from public service in 2017. I said, I’m not going to wait on the courts, and then we started making it available to mediators and to schools and to bar associations and things like that. We put it up on YouTube, and that’s kind of where it progressed since then.
Joni Jones 11:15
And Krista, please know I really wanted that pizza.
Larry Jones 11:19
She did want that. I still hear about this. If I actually did bring home a pizza, she goes, let me check if there’s actually pizza in there. That did occur. I am still being penalized for not having a pizza in that box.
Krista Nash 11:35
I love that, and I love the details of that. That’s great. So in the form that it’s in now, which you can find on the internet, and you can find it on YouTube. It’s readily available, so that’s great. We will link to it. Is it now in its form that it was in then? Or has it changed much?
Larry Jones 11:53
Oh, it’s in the same form. It’s a video. If you go to YouTube and search Point C video it will show up.
Krista Nash 12:01
P, O, I, N, T, and the letter C?
Larry Jones 12:03
Right, Point C. On YouTube, just put Point C Divorce. If you want to put my name on it, you can too, but you don’t need that. It’s just going to pop right up. Yeah, that is literally in the exact same form that it was at the time it was played at Judicial College.
Krista Nash 12:18
Now, did you draw it yourself? Because it’s sort of a black and white animation.
Larry Jones 12:24
It was our joint idea to make it black and white. We thought it would have more impact that way, almost like when you look at those old, the original Walt Disney drawings of Mickey Mouse from the 1920s all black and white. I thought it made more of an impact that way. It was also less expensive that way by not making a color. So we hired a very, very talented artist we knew in New Jersey when we lived back in New Jersey, and we commissioned him to do the artwork on it, and his name was on the credits at the end of that particular video, but basically the video is exactly the same as the original. It is, in fact, the original, but what we’ve done since then is, since I retired from the bench, when you’re on the bench, there are a lot of limitations on what you’re kind of allowed to do. In almost every state, they have all these restrictions on it. When I first was appointed to the bench, the presiding judge said, I’m going to give you a list of the things you can do and what you can’t do. He gave me a post it note, but you can’t do anything, really, without getting all these permissions. So what happened is, once I retired from judiciary, I didn’t have those restrictions anymore, so we developed a purely free public information Public Service website, it’s www.pointcdivorce.com and nothing’s being sold on there or anywhere else. It’s purely public educational information with a bunch of additional videos, articles, and things like that, of skill building for parents who are going through a contentious divorce, which is available. The feedback on that has been pretty strong. A lot of mediators in particular, professionals in dispute resolution, and family court have gotten back to us, and they say they’ve been using the stuff in some mediations, and they find it to be very helpful and effective, and they’re thankful for that.
Krista Nash 14:16
So when you two think about when you were first structuring this, what was the need for it? Why create this? I mean, I know, but listeners might not. Why create it? I mean, you left. I can just feel myself to be you coming out of the courtroom, going, this child is the last thing anyone is thinking about, and how in the world do we help parents and attorneys? I’ll stay to the side, right? How do we help everyone in the family law system actually put the child in a place where that child is primary instead of an afterthought? So I imagine that’s where you were going, but maybe expand on that a little, and then I do want to hear from you too, Joni, on the mental health components of that, in your own experience, I’m sure you said you felt like the victim of being in Point C. And maybe just for listeners, let’s talk about A and B are the parents basically, right, and C is the kid. And the kid is like, what about me? The kid is the tenor of the entire thing. You have got to watch the whole fable to the end to see what actually happens to this kid’s relationship with their parents, because they’re ignored and shoved to the side and minimized in the warfare, I think it’s fair to say. And you know, the long term ramifications you can see in a very short few minutes are very, very difficult and tragic, and so tell me why you approached it that way. What message are you trying to get across to parents?
Joni Jones 15:43
Yeah, well, first of all, I’m a firm believer that actions speak louder than words, and when somebody just keeps giving the words of advice, this could become all blended together. And what I like about the video is that it has a very catchy tune, and when you start out with that very catchy tune, it grabs your attention. And then the content that is displayed in that holds a person’s attention to the very end. And then what happens is, when the video ends, it really impacts the viewer in their own unique way. So it could be based on their own experience or frame of references, but it makes the message very powerful, and then it makes people really stop and think, and like Larry said on our website, we just don’t leave you there, because we give some skill building, because, you know, we are all born with the ability to learn, but we don’t have knowledge when we’re born. So if you’ve never been shown something, you will never know how to address it. If you were told the sky was black when it’s blue, you would think that was the color. So, we have those very simple skill building things that gives a person something to hold on if they’re going through a contentious divorce. And I just want to add, I worked 10 years in a mental health unit.
You either had to be suicidal to be on my unit, or you had to be risky with drugs that could take your life. I spoke to so many people over the years. I ran the groups for 10 years, and a lot of people were either the product of a divorce, and they were still going through some of that post trauma from it, or they were going through a divorce themselves, or they were involved in post divorce years after. They were going through it and they were breaking down. These were some of my motivating factors, especially since I was a product myself.
Krista Nash 18:01
So, Larry, what’s your perspective?
Larry Jones 18:14
Well, look, when you see this every day, which I did, and everyone’s got the same talking lines, it seems, whether they’re represented by a counsel or whether they’re represented by an attorney, everyone’s always saying, this is for the best interest of the child. We have to look out for the best interest of the child. And you know, litigation itself, contentious litigation, by its very nature, can be in the absolute worst interest of a child. Now, that doesn’t mean that a divorce shouldn’t take place. There are some times when a divorce really has to take place because the relationship is over. There’s a lot of arguing going on, and sometimes it’s actually better for people in the family, everybody, if there’s a marriage, you know, if it’s not working out, is to just start with a new chapter of some mutual peace. Some people get along much better with their ex spouses than when they were married as spouses. You see that happen, but a lot of gamesmanship takes place in the court, a lot of posturing. A lot of, like Joni says, actions speak louder than words. A lot of words are thrown around in type written insults about each other in certifications or affidavits. And meanwhile, nobody on the outside could look at that situation objectively and say, this is in any way in the best interest of a child. How is this in the best interest of the child? It’s in the worst interest of the child. So if you have to have a divorce, a separation or divorce because the marriage just didn’t work out, there are ways to do it without having a scorched earth policy and taking everyone down with you, including the emotional best interest of the child. So Point C was to kind of be a wake up call to parents, to attorneys, to anyone else in the system who thinks that by fighting with each other nonstop, that somehow is justified by being in the child’s best interest. Most states have joint legal custody, or the option for that, which means that regardless of who the child lives with, both parents have the ability and the right to participate in a child’s life, but what’s expected from joint custodians? And it’ll say this in a lot of statutes, for example, New Jersey’s statute says that in considering joint custody, they have to consider the ability of the parties to work with each other following divorce. Now think about this. You’re getting divorced on, let’s say, no fault, grounds of irreconcilable differences. What does that mean? It means you can’t agree on what that means. But they’re sending you out with that divorce decree saying you can’t be married anymore because you can’t stand each other. You can’t do anything with each other. You’re not functional with each other, but by the way, you’re now going to be joint custodians. That’s your job description, right? Are you going to work with each other without any transition, without any support, and this is somehow in the best interest of the child. Now, theoretically, of course, it’s in the best interest of the child if both parents could, after divorce, get along with each other, or at least respectfully, coexist, which sometimes is the best you’re going to get. But even when you get that could be all right, in certain instances, but you don’t get that. Sometimes you just get a piece of paper that says, This is what you’re supposed to be. But the divorce and all the dirty laundry and bag of rocks left over from your dysfunctional marriage or relationship is being carried forward post judgment, and that’s what’s kind of depicted to some degree in Point C, and the dangers of that happening to the child’s emotional best interest. So people talk a lot about a child’s best interests, but their actions sometimes work directly contrary to that, even if they don’t mean it to be that way, which usually you don’t, and even if they don’t see that for themselves. So a lot of times we heard from mediators and stuff like that. I even heard from one of the judges who was showing the tape in the courtroom that people started crying during it, and people say, you know, sometimes they wanted to rethink whether they’re going to continue the contentious litigation in the same fashion. It’s not some cure all for everybody, but it’s something that could give some food for thought, for people to find themselves in the constant warfare that sometimes, unfortunately and unnecessarily, takes place in family court.
Krista Nash 22:20
Why do you think parents don’t understand that innately coming into court? Why are so many of these so warfare laden?
Larry Jones 22:29
I could turn that out. Joni can talk for an hour on that, but simply that you’re triggered by emotion.
Joni Jones 22:35
Well, the thing is, if you look at the video, it starts out where the child is saying she’s got the world’s greatest mom and dad, and they taught them, they fed them, they protected them, and this was the security but then the parents got caught in their own issues, and that it presents confusion to the child, because now, in a lot of cases, we have parents that think the best interest of the child is to shield them from the other parent. And my favorite part of the video, to tell you the truth is, at the end. The child goes to Point C, and there’s a balloon, and this is what I always say. Think of a balloon and think that you’re going to release that balloon into the sky. Do you know where it lands? Do you know if it pops and what happens is that we don’t know what’s going to happen to the child. So is the child going through this contentious process, where the fear, where the security, is ripped right away from them. Are they going to go to a gang for acceptance? Are they going to start dabbling in drugs? Are they going to go full circle, where, when they get older, they’ve been taught through the whole process, because, remember, they’re learning from their parents, and the parents stop hearing the child. They’re too busy arguing. They don’t even know they’re there, and the communication has failed. Now the child is mimicking all those behaviors. So when you go into litigation, you may not have control over the outcome, right? And the child, they can feel like they’re not being heard, that they’re invisible. So there’s so much you know about the litigation process that when you see this video. It’s always good to do it in the beginning, but if you’re in the middle of it, it’s like, whoa, wait a minute, what’s going on? Because they’re so just caught up that they can’t see the reality of what’s going on or what can happen.
Larry Jones 24:38
Sometimes the litigation is running the parties, rather than the other way around. And that’s not all the time. There are divorces. I presided over them. Before I was a judge, I was an attorney. After I retired from the bench, I would have been a mediator. So I’ve worn all different hats in the family court context. And there are some people who really get it, even though their marriage didn’t work out. They really do place the child at the top of the list, and they are jointly working together to have a functional relationship for their child’s sake, but that’s not everybody, and sometimes there are cheering sections and they’re supporters on each side who have given them sometimes terrible advice, fight for this, fight for that. I know somebody who got this and that, and you know, if you give in here, you’re sending the wrong message. And it’s not a matter of giving in. It’s a matter of, how can you move forward in a way that’s not only, you know, saves the child from a lot of heartache under the circumstances or more heartache, but also, saves the sanity of both of the parties in mediation. When I would have these, we call them Point C divorces, now, these very hostile divorces, or sometimes post judgment divorces, where they come back even after the case is over, because they’re arguing over something else. And I would do something like this after each side would go on and on, usually separately, in separate rooms, telling me what they did agree upon, which was that everything is the other side’s fault. That was what they were very clear on. Each one blamed the other for everything. So I’d hand them a pad and a pen, and sometimes they had their lawyer there. I do the same thing with them, and I’d say, okay, so, so here’s what we’re going to do, write down on this piece of paper. If you could draft your own settlement order, your own court order, what would it say? With one caveat, it has to be fair to both parties, and you have to explain not only what you wrote, but why it’s fair to both parties. And I’m going to tell you that the majority of the time they couldn’t write anything. They didn’t even know what they wanted, much less what was going to be, quote, fair to the other side. Now the other side should be punished for whatever happened, that kind of thing? And so they weren’t even clear in their own minds what they wanted. So they’re just busy caught up in this fight because of hurt feelings from whatever happened, whatever went wrong in the failed marriage. And that becomes a huge ingredient of a lot of the family court issues that are out there. It’s not just about something of substance. See, in a commercial dispute, two people of arms length had a contract dispute. It doesn’t really often get that emotional, and you just get right down to what the issue is with divorce. It’s not always that simple. A lot of the issues get clouded by all this stuff or what, who did what to who, and who disrespected who. And try to tell people to listen if you want to try to get something done for the sake of your child. The number one rule here is, no matter, even if you don’t love your ex anymore, or you don’t even like your ex anymore, you have to treat them and the process with respect to expect it back on the other side, because then you’re setting a foundation for your child’s sake to see that the two people who they probably are supposed to trust and love more than anyone in the world at that age, their two parents, they can be good role models for them. You could show them that even if you don’t like somebody for whatever reason or don’t get along with them anymore, you can still deal with them. That’s an important lesson in life. We all have to deal with people we don’t really like so much, people in the workplace, your neighbor, maybe it could be an ex, it could be family members, blood relatives at Thanksgiving. You can’t wait for them to leave that kind of thing, but you still have to deal with them. In divorce, it’s almost like a free for all. And sometimes the attorneys, some attorneys, are great, and they know how to manage these types of disputes. And some are not so great, and they’re adding fuel to the fire and storming out of a settlement conference that’s not going to help anybody when they take that kind of approach. So there’s all kinds of different things you have to think about. But if you’re really putting the child at the top of the list, the first question is, what can both sides do for the child’s sake to try to get this done without an ongoing, endless battle with the child growing up in a court?
Krista Nash 28:39
Let’s talk for a minute about what you term sort of these attorneys who do it better, since we’re talking about the courtroom and the problem of litigation, when you term it a Point C, divorce. So a really high, highly contentious divorce, high conflict. Sometimes I call them toxic divorces, and I, as a best interest attorney for kids in Colorado, get brought into those types of Point C cases a lot, and some of them really are beyond help, frankly. I’m starting to see that earlier in my practice, instead of getting embroiled in this, for me, I’m only allowed to take on 100 children at a time, and for best practices. Sometimes, I feel like I’m triaging in a way. For example, with military triaging, if you’re on a naval ship, they do drills. It’s hard for people to realize you’re not just going to give blood to every single person, because some of them, you just can’t help, which is terrible. It sounds terrible, but I mean, I’m sorry. I and some people, like psychologists, sometimes are like, I don’t know. I think sometimes that also questions the definition of success, because you talked about adverse childhood experiences, Joni. I do think there are some measures of success that are short of a happy family. Everybody gets along, but they still do help the child. I’ll get to a different place, but let’s go back to the attorney issue. So I’ve had consults where people call me and we’ll say, well, what is it that you’re really, what do you want? What do you think would be something that would be a good outcome here? And they’re just like, I just want to win. You know, it’s like, wow.
Larry Jones 30:15
Okay, and that’s when they don’t even know what they’re looking for, right? Okay, well, I’m warning you of how much I think of how much money and time it’s costing with that lack of clarity in terms of what you’re really going for, it is that what would you like? I want justice. Okay, how about something a little more specific? You know, I want to win. Okay, how about make them write it down on a piece of paper so they have some focus, because you’ll find that half the time they don’t even know what they want,
Krista Nash 30:41
Right because it’s such an emotional area. And I mean, I agree with you. I’ve seen a lot of civil litigation, particularly when I was clerking. I know we can talk a bit about restorative justice, too, and that restorative processes. And I do think that in the mediations that I got to be part of, even with my magistrate judge in federal court, we did a lot of that, and it’s amazing. As an aside, I will say how much that is necessary, even in civil litigation like working off to court, you still have a lot of brokenness that could use some more approaches. But beyond that, family law is such a different beast, and I feel like there’s so many attorneys who don’t approach it that differently. They’re like, let’s run off and do depositions. It’s just court. It’s just sworn financial statements. It’s just the money side of it. We’re not assassinating the family, and yet, I don’t think that they understand how much they’re potentially causing risk to these kids. So what do you see with that? Maybe I just see the worst of the worst, because I’m on a lot of those points.
Larry Jones 31:46
It’s like in any profession. You’re going to have all kinds. We could talk about lawyers, Joni could talk about doctors. Anyone could talk about accountants. There are going to be some really, really good ones, and there are going to be some who maybe are not as productive and are not as helpful. So you know, when you talk about an adversarial system while you know a judge or guardian ad litem or someone neutral, could say how important it is for the child to have peace and stability and when possible, to functional parents who can, even if they don’t love each other anymore, can kind of deal with each other, with flexibility and and logic. Some attorneys, the way they look at it is, this is an adversarial system, and we’re at war, and their client wants them to, they will. They want to see a tiger. They want to see a bulldog. And usually the beginning of the case right before all the money has been exhausted, sometimes that type of thing. Sometimes it’s like you see this, and some attorneys like almost putting on a show for their client. Look how tough I am. Meanwhile, it’s getting nowhere. How many times in your career, Krista, have you ever seen a single case settled in family court by one attorney trying to bulldoze the other side? I’ll bet you’ve never seen it. You never will. And I bet nobody who’s listening to this podcast has ever seen that or will ever see that, because it goes against human nature. Nobody responds well to that. When you have a settlement conference, for example, when I was practicing, I would say to you, to the client in advance, I said, you may think that this is like a trial and you want to see a bulldog, but I’m telling you, if you want to settle this case, if that’s your real priority, you have to understand upfront that I am going to be very cordial to the other side. That’s right, because that’s respectful, because that’s the way you’re going to get a dialog. The other way you’re going to get nowhere. This isn’t like TV, where’s this like the Judge Judy show, where you’re going to come on and start banging your shoe on the table, and somehow that’s going to be effective. It’s going to be completely ineffective. You’re going to be throwing money away. And once they understood that upfront, before we walked in there, their expectations were aligned with what we were doing. I was on the same page with the client. They understood it. There was no need to put on a show. There was no need to say, oh, look, how tough I am, because they understood that was not going to be helpful to them in the process. Some people don’t have that conversation with their attorney, and some people don’t understand it. And some attorneys, especially if they don’t do a lot of family law, they just litigate. And they think the best way to litigate, some attorneys, is to be a tiger all the time. But when you’re a tiger all the time and you have nothing to show for it, or in a giant pile of papers and nasty insults going back and forth between two tigers, two attorneys and a giant bill for the client to pay them. That’s when the client starts looking for another attorney. It happens very often, because they’ve paid $15,000 for this fight or more, sometimes a lot more that they can’t afford and is getting them nowhere. So a lot of times you see clients, they’re disappointed with their own attorneys after a year or so in litigation, and now they’re shopping for someone else. They’re coming in with their whole bag of papers from their first attorney, dropping them on the desk of the second attorney, and hoping that someone’s going to help them. The second attorney will probably have to charge them more money just to read through from the first attorney. So it’s really unproductive, and when you start getting more productive in terms of right up front thinking, how are we going to manage this? It’s almost like a business deal, in a way, but it’s not a business deal, because if you’re talking about your child, it’s a lot more but how to manage it in a way where you try to save money, save time, save the stress on the child growing up in that kind of warfare, where you’re listening to both parents talking on the phone to their attorneys or their friends or your cheerleaders, and that’s what you really have to do up front if you’re really putting the child’s best interest first.
Joni Jones 35:25
I just wanted to add that the attorneys can set the pace right out of the gate. So when you are doing the complaint, make it simple. You don’t have to air all your dirty laundry, because once you start that way, what do you think you’re going to get in response? So it’s important to, you know, just not have each other be disrespected, because I think that’s one thing in human nature. People don’t like when they feel disrespected, and then they’re going to come back with that, with the settlement conferences. I always say, watch the triggers, because somebody’s bringing their boyfriend or their girlfriend, or somebody in the family that is a trigger and doesn’t keep that simple. Don’t complicate it. Because if you’re going to bring in all that animosity, what do you think you’re going to get out of it? And then there’s so many times that they’re sharing negative things about the other ones, and putting it on Facebook, and doing this, I always say, think about extending that olive branch. I think about the dance floor. You got a great band out there. Nobody’s on the dance floor, but somebody finally gets up. Once that one person gets up, then the whole dance floor is full. A lot of times I see that people are demanding, they’re demanding this, they’re demanding that, but if they can, the attorney can get them to just take it down as a suggestion. And then really talk about what, what Larry was saying earlier was about how important the compromise is because if you think it’s going to be all or nothing, is that really reality based? So there’s too many times that people are also throwing those digs at the other side. So when somebody’s doing that, how do they think that’s going to respond, it’s going to respond as an escalation. A lot of people don’t understand the compromise. At 100% they don’t understand that. And, you know, a lot of times what we also see is being responsible to the process. Because if you’re both going to, let’s say, a baseball game, and you’re sitting in opposite things, and then you’re like, giving faces, or you’re, you know, you’re getting sides against each other, you’re creating that hostility at what’s supposed to be a memorable, great experience at your child’s sporting event.
Larry Jones 37:53
And the response that you’ll hear all the time is, well, you’ve never met anyone like my ex before, and everyone has this magical ex who’s very special, but we’ve seen them before. I know every person is unique, but the categories are kind of limited in a way. And the truth of the matter is, if you go into foreign court, there’s a pretty good chance the court has seen even if your circumstances are very unique, because every case is different, has seen similar cases in one form or another, before the truth of the matter is, and this is sometimes people, they’re gonna hit like a thunderbolt with this when they think about this, when at the start of a mediation or the start of a settlement conference or whatever, and you’re consulting, let’s say you’re an attorney, you’re consulting with your client, you say, hey, look, just keep one thing in mind. You may have your wish list for all of these things you want, but keep in mind what you both need here, if you want to settle this case, what you both need, meaning you and your ex are each other’s signatures. Now, if you’re asking for something that’s completely top sided to you, your ex can assign that any faster than you would if he asked for everything for himself or herself, and you get nothing. You can posture all you want, but you’re not going to get the signature, so you’re going to walk out of here without a case being done. What’s going to happen here? Settlement requires voluntary consent from both sides. This is why it’s so important when that blank page example I was giving before is the person has to get firm in their own mind what it is they’re looking for, and is it something that the other side might actually sign on to if they wouldn’t, and you know they wouldn’t. What are you doing? You’re just gonna go to trial. Take your shot. Keep in mind that the judge is obligated to be fair to both sides, not just to you or to your ex, and so you might be going through all this and have nothing to show for it at the end anyway that you couldn’t have already gotten by settling it $10,000 earlier, in a year earlier. It’s so important to have these conversations with your attorney as the case is going on, we find a lot of times, you know, people haven’t even spoken with their attorney. They haven’t even spoken to your attorney before they walked into the mediation. It’s like sometimes the attorney will send the substitute for one reason or another. They’re having the conversation for the first time, and then the attorney comes in, and says something like, I speak for my client. Well, what good is that in mediation? The client can’t speak at their own mediation. I understand why. Sometimes people say that as attorneys, but in the overall context of things, if you want to have a productive settlement conference, it might make a little more sense to map it out a week or two or three in advance. The attorney and client should meet a couple of times, if not in person, at least by zoom or whatever, and get clear on what the strategy is going to be. What are you really looking for? You could ask for the moon and the stars, but if you’re not going to get that, what do you really need?
Krista Nash 40:37
And set expectations. There’s so little expectation setting and so, yeah, you’re in a very emotional setting. And I find that there’s so many people who have not had those hard conversations. They haven’t even talked to the attorney.
Larry Jones 40:54
Yeah, and that’s unfair to the attorney too, because how does the attorney know? Other than saying no to everything, or we’ll see you in court and making some big, over dramatic statement. How does the attorney know? Unless they’ve had the conversation with the client and informed conversation about what it really takes to get a case done and why, and those the notepad example that I gave before an attorney could do that with their client. Just tell me in writing. What do you think? Take the time to write it out so you crystallize your thoughts about what it is you’d be asking for. Send it to me a week before the settlement conference, and I can get back to you. We could talk about it, I could give you my legal opinion as to what you’re asking for, whether it’s obtainable or whether it’s not obtainable, because you’re hiring me not just to go in and argue. You’re hiring me for my advice to you in confidence, which sometimes sets the whole table for what’s going to happen in a settlement conference, and you go from there now with children. It’s really important, because the risk of having an ongoing fight and everybody just fighting with each other, just to argue and no direction at all. Who is going to be the real victim of that? It’s more likely not going to be the child exactly like in the Point C video. And then the child grows up. And even if either parent felt during the course of the case that the child was siding with them in some fashion, sometimes people want the child to side with them. I can tell you, I interviewed a lot of children when I was on the bench outside the presence of both parents. I could tell you that over and over and over again, not every time, but enough times that no matter what, each child was unique. What was very consistent were really two things. Number one, that what they really wanted was for the fighting to stop. They didn’t care who was right or wrong, regardless of what they told mom or dad at their kitchen table. And secondly, they knew how much money and time that could have been spent on them was going out the back door, especially the teenagers and pre teens. They knew it. The reason they knew it is because there’s a 50% divorce rate in this country, right? So they go to school, and half their friends are also going through divorce. And what do you think they talk about? They talk about their parents, and maybe not so much in a positive way. So they know this. The kids aren’t stupid. They overhear things. They understand that this is costing time and money, and very often, to the shock of one or sometimes both parents, the kids, to me, when I was interviewing them, blamed both parents very, very bluntly, very negatively, sometimes very angrily. And the parents had no clue, because all they were hearing was when they heard their child’s politically correct answer to them in their particular house. Oh, I want to live with you, Dad. I want to live with you, Mom. Meanwhile, they may not want to live with either one of you because of what’s taking place. So I would, very often after the interviews, bring the parents back in, outside the child’s presence, on some other day with their attorney standing there, and I’d give them a summary. And it would be very often inside, in a lot of cases, at least a wake up call to the parents that what they thought they were doing, fighting for their children’s desires, wasn’t exactly what was really happening, because the child was telling me something very different than what they were telling them.
Krista Nash 44:03
And see, that’s the role I often play in my work, where I’m going in and helping get that information, because in Colorado, we don’t have enough judges really talking to children, really at any age, and so I end up doing that work, but the families I really decide that I can’t help are when I do bring that information back, and it’s not done in an echo chamber. We’re a best interest state. So kids sometimes don’t know what is best for them, depending on their age and stage. I use the analogy of my broken hand I had last year. And I tell kids, let me just tell you, I went to the doctor, they did a scan. They said, I’m sorry your hand is broken. And I’m like, well, that’s nice, what should I do about it? I don’t think it’s a problem. They’re like, well, you have to have a cast. And I’m like, no, I don’t think