Fool me once

02/15/2024

Subject matter; divorce financial settlement.

Tone; outraged

Protagonist; me

Antagonist; all lawyers involved, including the ex lawyers at the court, e.g the judge, looking after his profession.

How it works.

Step 1. Former couple not speaking to each other but have assets to divide.

Step 2. The braver/stupider of the pair (the applicant) approaches a lawyer to apply for divorce and financial settlement.

Step 3. Lawyer writes vaguely threatening letter to other party (the respondent), who immediately hires its own lawyer.

Step 4. Both sets of lawyers rub their hands together, gleefully.

Step 5. Respondent claims 100% of all assets because they are functionally useless and the applicant is a cunt (sic).

Step 6. Applicant’s lawyer sends the case to the court that act like a sort of umpire in a tennis match. Court orders are actions the lawyers apply to the court for, and that the other party is obliged to respond to.

Step 7. Both parties use court orders to gather information from the other that both parties already have in their possession. This process is designed by lawyers to drive the parties absolutely crazy.

Step 8. Ideally there are some intangible assets (like startup shares) in the mix, so one party can suggest that the cunt gets those and she keeps all the tangibles.

Step 9. The lawyers gleefully collect fees in this outrage of a ping point match until (a) a list of assets is agreed by both parties and the court, and (b) both parties are out of legal funds. A good set of odious lawyers can make sure (a) and (b) occur simultaneously, without even having a sidebar conversation; it’s the core skill of their profession.

Step 10. The more reasonable of the two parties (aka the fool) accepts a shit deal to avoid court and the $150k plus costs.

And that’s it.

In hindsight,

1. Use an expensive lawyer to get the ball rolling (up to step 3 above) then sack it. Hopefully the other party hires a similarly expensive lawyer and keeps it on.

2. Then self represent up until when you can’t get a reasonable agreement and have to go to court. Be as unreasonable as possible without being in contempt of court in order to suck up as much of the available legal fees that your adversary can afford

3. Then spend your good money on a top barrister (fuck the solicitor, its a waste of time).

Ideally you get the much promoted but rarely achieved 50-50 split.

And that’s all you have to know.