Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - Why Relationships Die & Which Ethnicity is WORST in Divorce | The Divorce Expert

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

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

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

You ever walk into the DMV and go, these people should be in charge of everything. You are pro-marriage, you're just anti-marriage without a prenup. People wanna do dumb shit. People jump out of planes. It's like, I don't give a fuck. You wanna do some dumb shit, do some dumb shit. Just admit you're doing some dumb shit.

What is your craziest divorce that you've had? I shouldn't say this in public, but I will. Her husband ran her over three times and stabbed her 16 times. Who's the worst in divorce? Culturally, ethnically, racially. Sometimes stereotypes are a real time saver. Let's just call that it.

Russian women, in my experience professionally, they get ice cold. When you're married to a Russian woman, there is nothing she won't do for you. And when you're divorcing a Russian woman, there is nothing she won't do to you. Like she will f*** your s*** right up. Is there anything that you've learned

through all these divorces about what makes marriages successful? I've learned a lot by being a divorce lawyer about what keeps people together what I've learned I would say more than anything else is just pay attention people get divorced the same way they go bankrupt Very slowly and then all at once What's up everybody welcome to flagrant and today's guest? I just want to point out Was not suggested by any of the people that were sitting here. All happily married or in great relationships and none of us would suggest such a guest. Okay, prolific guest, mind you. Okay, we got Jim Sex in here. The world's most murderous

divorce attorney. Wow. The world's most murderous divorce attorney Obviously obviously you're incredibly successful. We've seen a bunch of the Content that you've put up out on the internet like it mostly interviews that you've done It's kind of interesting because you've been this divorce attorney for decades And now you have like a public profile about your job so bizarre. Yes, so bizarre I can't actually stand still anywhere in New York City because people without someone coming up going you're that divorce lawyer You know the problem is when you do like if you're gonna be known for a viral clip. Don't be wearing the same outfit Because there's no way to camp it's like your mustache

Blend right in but that's what I'm playing out that's what you want to take a week or two off So advice are you right there new Salino and Barnes for us New Yorkers Wow Both Salino and Barnes for us New Yorkers? Wow. Wow. I could be both Salino and Barnes. Of course. Man, that's a high-end. They had a bad breakup. Did you work on that before?

Get out of myself. Yeah. That's a deep-cut New York reference. I just want to let you know. These were iconic New York lawyers, and it was one of the first call lines for law advice. Yeah. 1-800-888-888 Did that exist?

We had the most major re-attorneys 1-800-888 8888 There was a lot of 8 They had the most brutal breakup like like epic level breakup Yes Then what's the... you died

Which is like you know here you go You finish this brutal hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to get away from each other and then one of you dies. Yeah. Oh fuck, that's pretty lucky for you. Yeah, yeah, for that other guy. He was like, shit, I could've saved some counsel.

How many people just kill their wife instead of divorcing them? Surprising number of people killed. Have you ever been involved in one of those cases? I've never had one where someone was killed. I did have a client who, her husband or estranged husband, now ex-husband, ran her over three times and stabbed her 16 times.

This is during the divorce? During the divorce. And she survived. Like this guy couldn't even get that shit right. Like he stabbed someone 16 times, run him over three times, and she's alive to tell the tail in fucking prison Okay, so she got a hundred percent in the end. She got a hundred percent

She also had to get like another kidney and some other things so she lost out Yeah, I mean with the amount of money. Yeah, she did. All right. Yeah. Now what role do you play in that? I? Wasn't like the lookout if that's it I wasn't like the lookout if that's what you mean. No, no, no. There she is! You know, like it's- Meaning like how much pressure were you putting on him where he just goes, I gotta kill it. A lot, yeah.

A lot, yeah. I mean I think, you know, when you're dealing with like high net worth and ultra high net worth divorces- What is high net worth? So high net worth is generally defined as a divorce where the estate is more than $10 million. Got it. Ultra high net worth is over $100 million.

Got it. So that's, it's a different level in some ways, because you're fighting over bigger numbers, it's harder to track the values. A lot of the stuff that people do for like wealth preservation and tax avoidance, like super, super rich people don't own anything. They have trusts that own LLCs that are beneficiaries of, they're like great grandchildren

that haven't been born yet own everything, and they just borrow it from you. So that's why they pay less in taxes than a guy who works at Burger King. So it's unbelievable. They're not actually generating income, and you only pay tax on income. I guess you could pay capital gains too.

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

to figure out where is the money, what is marital, what is outside the scope of the marital estate, what can the judge get their hands on, what can't they get their hands on. So it becomes a really, really tricky, messy thing. what is outside the scope of the marital estate, what can the judge get their hands on, what can't they get their hands on, so it becomes a really, really tricky, messy thing. Do you prefer the ultra high net worth clients, those cases? I mean, they pay their bill on time, which is nice.

But outside of payment, is it just more stressful, is it more grueling, is it? I'm very blessed, I'm at the place in my career now where I have high net worth and ultra high net worth clients, and you can have a smaller number of clients who you give a lot more personalized attention to. Because anybody who's at a certain level of net worth,

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

but unlike a plumber, like you do get to yell at them. Like, you do get, like sometimes that's what they want. This is interesting, yeah, you're almost like an authority figure, even though, okay, you are. Yeah. Yeah. Even though they're hiring you. That's really, yeah, it's like there's few positions

where you're subservient to the person you're hiring. Like a trainer is one of them. Like your trainer can yell at you, tell you to get lazy, get your ass together, stop eating this shit. There's lawyer and then maybe like doctor. Yeah, I mean, people you should never lie to or your doctor and your lawyer.

Cause like everything you tell us, every single thing you tell us is protected by privilege and there's absolutely, our only jobs to protect you. How do you do that in the beginning? So you're sitting down with somebody and you could tell they're being a little fugazi about the information. How do you just go, dude, you're gonna screw yourself

if you don't tell me where the fucking bodies are buried? I literally say that. I mean, I don't pull any punches on it. Like I very much, but what I usually will say to them just to kind of like take it to a place that they can understand is I'll say, look, at the beginning of this relationship, I want you to understand I represent people

who have been victims of domestic violence. I represent perpetrators of domestic violence. I represent people who are, by any objective standard, amazing parents. And I represent people who just want to put the kids in the middle for leverage for child support purposes. And I am no one's moral compass. I'm a weapon.

And a weapon in the hands of a hero, right, is going to protect people. And a weapon in the hands of the villain is going to cause chaos. But the weapon is kind of neutral, right? Who's the worst person you've defended? Who? I mean, obviously, a lot of my clients, I can't disclose who they are except... Not in that room. What do they do?

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

I represent a lot of people in finance who could buy those celebrities 10 times over, but would walk past you on the street, you never know who they were. Did you represent any current or former presidents? No, no presidents yet. Yeah, no presidents yet. They all seem to keep it together, right?

Clint and I got my fingers crossed. How do you come up with that? Bomber maybe. Real quick, because I don't want to get away from that. The reason why I was asking that question, like the worst person you've represented. Yeah. Like, talking to you even before,

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

It's a great question. So you're representing sometimes scumbags. Awful people, yeah, awful people. Is there ever a moment where you're like, I can't fight for this guy? No, because- Real quick, just a caveat. This guy abuses his kids, or this woman abuses her kids,

and by fighting for custody, I'm enabling the abuse of those kids. Yeah, so you have that thought. Like, so first of all, yes, I'm a sensitive person. I don't think I could do this job well if I wasn't. Because to do this job well, it's just like, I think it's like being a comic. I think you have to have a sensitivity.

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

Like, our job is to manipulate people. You want them to laugh, relax, and enjoy. I want the other side to be scared. I want my client to feel safe. I want the judge to like my client and hate the other side. So I'm here just manipulating everybody's emotional state. And to do that well, I have to be very open, receptive, empathetic, and sensitive.

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

Give me an example of that where those- I was talking about it on Mark's show some time ago, when I represented a guy who was a pimp, like literally a pimp, that was his job. Like he actually was, I mean he had other, he's in federal prison now for guns, but he was an atrocious human being, he was an abuser, he had other, he's in federal prison now for guns, but he was an atrocious human being, he was an abuser, he was,

and I was up against an adversary who was an unskilled attorney, and very, like it was all this woman could afford, and I absolutely ran her over, and we walked out of court, and the guy pat me on the back, and he said, man, one good lawyer's worth 20 stick-up men Because that just feels dirty

But so you do have that I've always wondered if lawyers had that feeling worse of course and then and then can you compartmentalize that? I think you have move on I think you have to because Look what I'll tell you is the truth has a way of coming out, sometimes despite my best efforts. Like the system. Me and that guy ends up in federal prison. Yeah, well that's what ended up happening with that guy, is he ended up in federal prison. I mean, I think the truth has a way of coming out. I have to tell my clients that sometimes.

Like look, I can throw up a lot of smoke and mirrors, but shit comes out. Like the truth comes out. So many questions I'm sure everybody else does, but very exciting. Okay, so there's this thing with lawyers where like a lot of times our engagement with lawyers is usually during maybe the worst times in our lives.

So the connectivity that we have with lawyers is like, it's pretty abysmal, right? But when you need help and a lawyer is helping you, they are heroic, as you just said. And you've seen TV shows that talk about, Lincoln Lawyer was a great movie with McConnie, now they have this TV show where the lawyer is Protecting the innocent that are wrongfully accused etc like you've seen it with Joe Pesci and my cousin Vinnie and that kind of stuff

Suits are there suits are there ever moments? Where you get to be the hero and what does that feel like that feels amazing? That's a toxic a give me give me an example of somebody who you protected. It was a woman who was being abused. Yeah, I'll give you a great one. I'll give you a great one. I'm a dog person. I love dogs. So I had a woman come in and she said to me, described this situation of coercive control, domestic violence

she'd been in for ages, and this guy was controlling, abusive in the worst, worst possible ways, like insidious ways, but also was an incredibly charming narcissist. So like no one would ever suspect. Like if you said to anybody this guy was an abuser, they'd be like, him? He's the nicest guy, are you kidding me? And she told me her story, she said,

I'm afraid nobody's gonna believe me. He said to me, no one will ever believe you. I'll make sure you're penniless. I'll do whatever I have to do to like crush you. And I'm afraid nobody's gonna believe me. He said to me, no one will ever believe you. I'll make sure you're penniless. I'll do whatever I have to do to crush you. And I'm listening to this, and I've handled a lot of domestic violence cases before. So I was like, okay, look, the system has a way of sorting these things out,

and let's talk about what we can prove and what we can't. And she said, you know, I have something. She said, we have a puppy. We have a six-month-old Black Lab puppy. And the ring camera of our doorbell caught him just beating the shit out of this six-month-old puppy. And I was like, and you have that footage?

And she was like, yeah. And I was like, okay, like, give me everything you have, and I'll take a look. And I sat there that night, and I watched this footage. And as a dog lover, like, I was shaking. I mean, it was to listen to it, to hear it, to watch this guy just beating this puppy. And the puppy is a puppy, it's tails wagging, it's trying to kind of get away from him

and it doesn't understand what's going on. And I just remember looking at it and thinking, I'm gonna torture this fucking guy to death. Ah! And I called her the next day and I said, I'll take your case. And she was like, well I'm worried I can't afford you. I'm like, I'll cut my hourly rate in half.

I was like, I just want a piece of this fucking guy. No proboga. No proboga. No proboga. I was like, got it. 100% no proboga. What, what, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He ain't killin' dogs. Dogs all right. Dogs forget. I gotta eat. I'm sorry that you shook me a little bit. It's worse than the memory of the dog meat. For free? Yeah, free! God, I'm alive. Jesus, I cut my rate in half! That's impressive! That's only like 500 bucks!

That's impressive! That's only like 500 bucks! You know, that's pretty good. So I took on the case, and, you know, I... It was like a professional hit. Like, I got this guy thrown out of his house. I got... I mean, it happened to get assigned to a judge who I knew liked dogs, who had a court attorney who I knew liked dogs.

So I just made a meal out of this. Like, you meal out of this. And I actually, when I got to the courthouse, I shouldn't say this in public, but I will. I'm close enough to retirement, I can get away with it. I actually went up to the court officers who are the security for the building, they're armed, and I said to them, by the way, this is, because I had mentioned that there was this case coming in where I had video of this guy beating the dog, and you ever wanna see people's vindictive side come out, tell them somebody beat up a puppy. Like I have to tell you, people,

like a little old lady would be like, kill the motherfucker. So I said to the court officer, I said, listen, I said this case is in today, they said, oh, that guy's today, I said, yeah. I said, and by the way, I said, if he and I ended up in the restroom at the same time together,

he started whatever fight happened. And they were like, absolutely. Yeah. In fact, we heard him shouting at me. I was like, thanks, man. But sure enough, that was a case where that single piece of evidence was able to just neutralize his ability to go in and be a charming person. You saw the real side of evidence. Yeah was able to just Neutralize his ability to go in and charm him

And you saw the real side of him exactly talked about exactly and the more he went in Trying to be charming as opposed to saying like the more psycho he looks Sometimes you see a person and this you can see in smaller examples That's such a crystal clear example of like, Oh, everything you say is bullshit. This is you. This is you. And everything she says, I'm gonna believe. Well, and that's exactly what you say to the judge, because I say to the judge, I'm like, No, judge, you know, for every cockroach you see, there's 50 in the walls. Like, we caught this on video. Like, how many other times did this happen?

How many other times? Like, when was the camera not rolling in the last? And the next time I'm in court, it'll be another cockroach. So just for my case is specific Did he did the apology video? But then the hotel video came out and was like we looked at that apology video as such bullshit Yeah, you're a psycho. And this is in the lobby of the hotel. That's in the entrance of the house We're not seeing what's actually happening behind closed doors, you know what I mean? So perpetrators of domestic violence are, in my experience, like they're charming. Like, how else would they get victims?

Like, the way you, you know, there are people that are great at love bombing. They're great at, like, convincing a person that, oh, my God, I would never hurt you. I care so much about you. And then when something happens, doing the whole, like, I'm so sorry that that happens. You know, I love you so much.

It'll never happen again. It's really interesting because a lot of times when they're portrayed in, like, doing the whole, like, I'm so sorry that that happens, you know, I love you so much, it'll never happen again. It's really interesting because a lot of times when they're portrayed in, like, TV or film, they're these, like, drunken asshole scumbags. Yeah, no way. But there was that show, I don't know if it was Pretty Little Liars or something, not Pretty Little Liars, the one that takes place in Silicon Valley,

it had Nicole Kidman. Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Big Little Lies. Big Little Lies. Big Little Lies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The husband of Nicole about. Big little lies. Big little lies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The husband of Nicole Kidman was an abuser. That was a great portrayal of what they're like. What they actually are like.

Yeah, yeah, good looking, charming, successful. Great with the kids, like all these things. Well, because a lot of that adjustment personality disorder, that sociopath behavior, that ability to sort of blend into your circumstances. A, it makes people very effective in their professional lives, because they can just go into whatever setting and be whoever they need to be in that setting.

But in their home life, it turns into something that, that's chaos when you have to deal with those DVK systems. I'm not gonna say who, because it's not worth it, but we all know that at my wedding, the guy gave a speech, leveled the room, so funny, so so charming and then behind closed doors. It's just like this is a monster It's a whole different human being. Yeah, you thought my speech was funny Alright guys, you also gotta buy tickets first of all Columbus, Ohio Two shows have already sold out.

The only two shows that have some tickets left are March 28th. Hurry up and buy those. Then I'm in Tampa from April 10th through the 13th. We got eight shows, but most of the tickets are already gone. I think there's like five left at every show except April 13th, so buy tickets to that. April 17th through 20th, it's my favorite weekend of the year. No disrespect to any other city, butWorks Denver is probably the best comedy club in the country. Shouts to Wendy. But I'm gonna be there 17th 18th and 19th and then on 420. As

always we're doing the high show, gummies, maybe shrooms, who knows. All those dates and more at AkashSingh.com. Also man there's some fucked up things going on with stand-up in India so just if you are, if you look like me, make some noise about it if you don't live in India because they'll actually listen to us. If you're white, make some noise about it because India is dying for white people's approval. So just see what's going on and shouts to the Habitat Comedy Club. Love you guys.

Love you, Balraj. Let's get back to the show. What's up guys? World's fastest ad read. Don't skip. Okay. I want everyone to come out to my shows on the road platonically and don't do anything weird. I'm going to be in Bangor, Maine. Let's get back to the show. Stanford, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Levittown, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego, Montreal, Toronto, and Poughkeepsie, all on my website, themarkdagnon.com. South Carolina, go south on his dick!

Check it out, I think everything's on sale Friday or something, but I'll see you guys on the road. Love you, thanks, bye. You had mentioned to me that you kind of enjoy representing bad people. Oh my God, I got pilloried for that, by the way. Did you really? Well, you put that clip up, and all of a sudden,

all the comments were like, look at this scumbag. How dare you? Great job, Mark. I was like, great. Yeah, thanks a lot. You're a weapon. You're a weapon. But I said, I'm sorry you live in a democracy.

We have a system. Everyone's entitled to have counsel. And by the way, it's not like fucked up people come in and at the consul go, listen, I'm a straight piece of shit. I've been hitting this woman for years and I just need you to help me get out of it. I've been hitting this woman for years and I just need you to help me get out of it. It's not how it works. They come in like a victim too.

They come in and they're like, listen, she's crazy. She attacks me. And once I had like pushed her off me and yeah, she hit against the wall, but now she's going to falsely accuse me of domestic violence. And you sit there and you're kind of, and sometimes I'm in court. When I'm, you know, sitting my clients next to me and I realize like, oh shit, I've got the villain. Okay, alright, like that was not great. You know, because it's not surprising, like when people tell you the story of their life, they're usually the fucking hero of the story.

Like rarely do they come in and go, listen, I'm all fucked up. It's one of the few things that like standups I think do very well. Yeah, we're fucked up. Is they come in and just go, I'm so fucked up. It's one of the few things that standups, I think, do very well. Yeah, we're fucked up. Is they come in and just go, I'm so fucked up. Most people come in and just go like, oh listen, I'm wonderful, I'm great, and then you sort of learn progressively and you start to look at their text messages.

Also, dude, there's human growth, too. Who you were 10 years ago and who you are now. I had a client once who was a custody case about like a 10 year old. And when the woman was pregnant, when the mother was pregnant, so 11 years earlier, he had sent her all these text messages saying, because they'd been dating for like two months,

like you need to get an abortion, I don't want this baby, if you have this baby, I want nothing to do with it. And of course he'd been for 10 years a phenomenal father, loves his. And the other side, in our exchange of discovery, you have to like, you know, share all your ammunition in advance, because it's not supposed to be trial by surprise.

They sent me these text messages. Real quick, so everybody understands that, is that like, all the information that both lawyers are gonna use in court has to be shared with both lawyers. So no lawyer is going, ah, but you didn't see this text. Exactly right, so both lawyers are gonna use in court has to be shared with both lawyers. So no lawyer is going, ah, but you didn't see this. Exactly right, so anything you're gonna put in, like photographs, audio recordings, video,

you have to exchange it in advance. That's called discovery? It's called discovery, yeah, and it's a process where it's meant so that everyone has the opportunity to review something, make sure it's authentic, have it reviewed by experts if they need to, and also to prepare their case. Prepare, prepare their case as best they can. You're not allowed to trial by surprise,

like, did you order the code red? It doesn't really work that way. Like, what you have to do is you have to exchange the stuff. So they'd sent these text messages, and my attitude was, okay, we gotta get in front of this. Like, we gotta M&M eight mile final rap battle. Like, I gotta go in and cover this and be like, now tell these people something they don't know about him. You know, like, I gotta do something an M8 mile final rap battle. Like I gotta go in and like cover this

and be like, now tell these people something they don't know about him. You know, like I gotta do something with it. So that's exactly what I did. I put him on the stand and I said, you know, you see these text messages. You know, did you send these texts? And he said, yeah.

And I said, is that how you felt at the time? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, how do you feel when you read those text messages now? And this guy legitimately started crying on the way to the stand. And he was like, I'm so, he's like, I'm so mad at myself. He's like, and I'm so horrified. And I'm so like, if she'd listened to me,

I wouldn't have my son. Like, and he's like, I, but I know I was like, just stupid and scared. And I'm watching opposing counsel just crossing out whole pages of cross-examination because we got in front of it. But that is what happens sometimes. And that's also a more human-relatable moment.

It is terrifying. I imagine when somebody gets somebody pregnant and they're not aware of it, they don't know what to do, and that's this knee-jerk reaction, and you sound horrible, and then you have 10 years with the most amazing thing you've ever created, and you are just so embarrassed that that, you could have made one flippant decision that eliminated those 10 years.

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

If I look at the worst moment you've ever had as a husband, then that's the totality of you. I'm bonafide. But that's not how it works. You kind of have to average and file. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's an interesting thing too, because I imagine in divorce or in an argument

or in anything, the only thing that we're focusing on are the worst moments of that person's life. So I'm sure the husband and the wife in those circumstances are just judging them by the most horrible things that they've done, when in reality, there's probably amazing memories. I'm not talking about domestic violence people. I'm talking about people that had a marriage

and then it became loveless and they're like, let's separate, and now it gets contentious over kids or assets. But again, you're just focusing on these horrible things. Not a beautiful vacation you guys went to, not a great time you guys cooked dinner together, the laughs. Like, and again, maybe this doesn't make you enough money, but is there ever, not enough money, but is there ever a moment like in divorce where both lawyers are going, hey, should we try, these people don't hate each other,

nobody did something heinous, how can we not prolong this? Do you guys do that at all or no? 100%, the best of us absolutely do that. Like this is a, you live and die by reputation in this business. And if you're the kind of person that just exacerbates conflict,

you don't last long in this business. Because why, it looks like you're just trying to milk it and then the lawyers get rich and everybody else. Yeah, and your client leaves with a really bad taste in their mouth because they start, they see that you're just amplifying. Like my job very often is to protect people from the part of themselves that's feeling

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

Like I have an ex-wife trust me. I gotta sit next to her graduations I gotta sit next to her wet like it's what you do So you got to learn how to interact with this person and And you try to say to them, look, most people, the good news is most people love their kids more than they hate their ex. Like most people's love for their children is the most powerful thing they have. I mean, I know we've got two relatively new fathers here.

So I mean, the truth is that that is a powerful emotion that very often will make you put down a lot of other stuff. And so it really turns into something where our job is to try to bring out the angels of people's better nature. So I always tell clients, like in a negotiating table in a courtroom, I'm a weapon. My job is to just go at a person and attack and do that. But before you get there.

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

I'll send them right to a mediator. I'd probably send two, three cases a week to mediators. Is that the, what is like the process? Yeah, well there's a lot of paths up the mountain, but the ideal process is two people sit down and they map out what do you wanna do with the kids, what's gonna make sense. Like, well you work this night, I work this night,

so you'll have the kids this night or that night. I mean, ideally people could sit down at the kitchen table with a piece of paper and just map it out. But second best is you go to a mediator, that's a person who's usually an attorney or an accountant who's trained, who knows what issues to talk about, and they walk through it with you

and they'll say, all right, here's the things we have to decide, and they don't represent either person, they represent both people in a sense. The next step from that is you get two attorneys that work collaboratively, that just don't come at each other, don't try to vilify either side, and just try to work, come up with identifying assets,

valuing them and how to divide them, figuring out what's going on and just doing it that way. The thing I've got very good at over the course of 25 years is the warfare part of that like the courtroom So the people that come to me now tend to be people that have that kind of complex case Yeah, and they need someone who knows how to do that particular set of skills Yeah, which is why I have all of these amusing anecdotes of like chaos But the truth is like the majority of divorce lawyers. It's really just about a negotiation

It's about trying to sort of you know work with people in a way that doesn't amp up the conflict Yeah, 56% of people get divorced. It can't be 56% warfare. No, it's actually thankfully a really small Yeah, that's right. But but you know the the outliers Like very few people can just like hold hands sing kumbaya and like write it down and solve it very few people go to war Yeah, but you hear about the war, because A, it's way more fucking interesting. I don't get invited to a lot of parties, but if I'm at a cocktail party and someone says,

what do you do? I say, I'm a divorce lawyer. And they're gonna go, oh my God, you must have stories. And if I said, I do, there was this couple and they were married and then they slowly grew apart from each other. So they decided how they would amicably resolve their differences financially

and they shared their time with the children They'd be like that's the worst fucking story like they want to hear the like no and then he took a chainsaw and he cut The car in half and they said pick which half you want bitch, you know What is your crazy let's go there what is your craziest divorce Well, I mean the guy and the lady over and stabbed her 16 times. Yeah, fun crazy. Fun crazy? No, it doesn't have to be fun. Yeah.

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

tennis ball cans. Wow. So there was like $800,000 of cash in the lining of the jacuzzi and I actually had to bring in an expert to testify to the the lining of the jacuzzi. And I actually had to bring in an expert to testify to the size of the jacuzzi and the size of how much could be held in the tennis cans to ascertain what the value of the money that he had then removed from the jacuzzi was. He took it all out. And he was like, what money?

I don't know what you're talking about. So that kind of stuff is like always an interesting, bizarre puzzle. But yeah, I mean, people are constantly cutting shit in half. I mean, the ones that shock me are the people who come in and they've, and by the way, like, Apple, like Apple technology

is responsible for more divorces than they've ever been. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's real discovery right there. Yeah, like, sorry, shots fired, Steve Jobs. I'm sorry, Tim would. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's real discovery right there. Yeah, I'm sorry, shots fired. Steve Jobs, I'm sorry, Tim Cook's gonna, my iPhone's gonna stop working now. Love your products, don't do that to me, man. But the truth is, there's the whole integration

of the different devices. A lot of people don't realize your fucking text messages are coming up on the iPad that your kid's playing with. Oh wow. And then your wife, you're upstairs texting with the girlfriend about like, it was so great last night, you know, and then the kid is like, bing, bing, bing, and mom comes over like, what's going on? And they're like, I don't know, the cartoon stopped.

And mom's like, what is this? And all of a sudden there's naked pictures of the girlfriend and she's reading in real time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this happens like once a week, I get one of those things. Okay, question about that. Do you think those people are just at the point

where they're okay getting caught? Because that seems so foolish. Yeah, I ask myself that question a lot because sometimes people are so brazen. That it's just like you're kind of go, yeah, like I want to be caught. On some level, subconsciously, you're like. I mean, subconsciously, I think so. And they're cowards, they can't end it, and they're like,

I just need some... If something does happen where it does end, I'm okay with it, but I don't want quiet quitting. Yeah, I feel... You know, Patrice O'Neil had a thing he used to say about how... Point me over right here. He had a great thing about how he said, you know, cheating, if you think about it, is a man.

Yeah. Is that a man is leaving his home to get some happiness without hurting your feelings. Go to fuck a girl behind a dumpster. Right, right, like, but fool you. Get a little bit of happiness. So I think a lot of these guys. Without hurting your feelings.

Without hurting your feelings. Cheating is for you. Yes, for you, yeah. And I remember like hearing that and going like, but you know, when you spend enough time with people who've cheated, that's legit. They're like, look, I love her. I love her, but we don't have that anymore.

We have this, we're running a daycare center together. And I love her, I like coming home to her. I like her mom, I like her brother. We all get along. I like all the stuff we do. I like our home, I like our life, but I wanna fuck sometimes. And I don't need, I like our life, but like, I wanna fuck sometimes. Like, you know, I don't need,

like, I had a friend who once said to me, like, prostitution, dude. That the moment you know you're in a relationship is when you're in the middle of sex and you think, one of these days, I've gotta get laid. You know, and I think that most married men do not acknowledge that this is correct. No, it's a bit.

Most married men, it's a bit. Most married men, it's a bit. Most married men will go, oh yeah, okay, like I kinda get that, like the difference, because again, I think there is something really true about you can't, some of the freaky shit you wanna do in your head, blame Pornhub, you know, it's on everybody's heads, you're not gonna do that with the person that then you'll be like, okay,

so which of us is gonna bathe the kids now? Like, You're not gonna do that with the person that then you'd be like, okay, so which of us is gonna bathe the kids now? Like, I'm not gonna do that. So I think men sometimes move away from that kind of a connection with their spouse and then they say, look, I don't wanna hurt her, I don't wanna lose my family. They sneak in other places. I wanna chase this shiny object.

And by the way, like, I mean, how, look at how many half-naked women we are exposed to on a daily basis thanks to Instagram and TikTok and everything else. So it's our fault, really. We have to keep degrading the women we love. Is that your point?

I mean, I don't think that's bad advice. I mean, insofar as they at some point enjoyed that. Yes, like if you started out that way and they said, she might secretly be like, why don't you ever try it? Like a filthy slut? I'm also a mom, but I'm also a filthy slut. Yeah, I'm both.

We can be both. You can be both. I think you probably can be both. So Mark, that's why our parents are still married. Yeah, exactly. That's what it is, bro. I didn't know what like the gymp costume in the basement. There's no Madonna war complex.

You gotta just put them together, okay? Your parents got eight kids. That could have told you they were doing some wop. My dad always put them together. Your parents got eight kids. I could have told you they were doing some wild things. My dad always makes this combo. We'll be at dinner. He's like, you know, man, do you still got that nurse outfit? And everyone's like, dad, what the fuck? No way.

He's like, I'm joking. But dude. That's awesome. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, cheating is one of those things. I mean, I joke that I've got a PhD in cheating because you listen to people who've been cheated on, you listen to people who've done the cheating,

but the people that I'm shocked by are the people that like they know their spouse is cheating. Like they had one of those iMessage moments where they like cameras catch stuff, all the little Nest cams, security cams, the baby cams, nanny cams, catch stuff and they don't let the spouse know that they know it. And they're like three, four months in to like, I watched this person having sex with their mistress on the nanny cam, and I'm still sitting

across the table from them. And I find myself thinking like, how the fuck do you keep that? Yeah, you're the sociopath, actually. Yeah, I feel a little like that. Like you kinda that? Yeah, you're the sociopath, actually. Yeah, I mean, it feels a little like that. Like, you kinda go, how are you not, like, just losing your shit on this person at all? You know, but people can do it.

And why do you think that? Kids usually are. I think it's, I don't know, I think it's a combination of, like, if they say it out loud, it's real. Yeah, they're in denial. Yeah, sometimes people come into my office and, like, they have a very hard time.

There's tissues on like every desk because people just, they, having to say it out loud, you know, having to like say out loud like, yeah, this thing's broken, you know. Yeah, you also see why like sometimes it's forgivable for people. Like I think sometimes when you're like young and in a relationship and you don't have like children or anything like that, and there's like a cheating thing, it's like the one thing you can't do children or anything like that. And there's a cheating thing. It's the one thing you can't do. Well, I gotta tell you, in modern society, what I will tell you is a lot more people

come back from cheating than you'll ever know. So yeah, I'm interested to talk about that. Not for personal reasons at all. I don't. No, no, no, nothing to do with that. But yeah, I feel like when you have X amount of kids, you have homes, you have a life that you guys all enjoy. And then the husband does some, when the wife does it,

I bet the dads are like, fuck this, it's fucking over. But when the husband does some shit, I wonder if some of the wives are like, does he not have a relationship with her? Is it a one time fucking? Well, it depends what the shit is. Right. It depends what you do. Well, and the question.

What do you mean by that? Well, it depends on the nature of the inf depends what you do. Well, and the question is... Wait, what do you mean by that? Well, it depends on the nature of the infidelity. Yeah, if you get your dick sucked while you're on a trip with the boys or something like that, that's different than if you're fucking, like, her friend in the community. Because now you're embarrassing her and there's this whole... Well, what I'll tell you is the difference between men and women is when a woman gets caught cheating, the man's first question is, did you fuck him? Wow. And the woman's first question is, did you fuck him? And the woman's first question is, do you love her?

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

I mean the comments. What, which, the reality is that women are much more forgiving of those things, because I think there is a part of them that goes, yeah, you're a fucking idiot. You're a guy. Like you're an idiot, you're a guy. Like this had nothing to do with me. And this has to do with you.

And there's so much to lose. Yeah. That you losing so much, whereas a man allowing his wife to cheat, he's lost his entire identity as a man. I don't think a woman loses anything as a woman when we cheat because the expectation of us is we're a bunch of fucking idiots and can't stop putting our dick in stuff. They spend the majority of their lives telling guys

that they don't want to fuck them. So when they do, you must have wanted that shit. Real quick, Bill Maher, when I was doing this podcast with Bill Maher, he had a funny idea. He was like, I often hear female rappers say this thing like, I'm going to steal your man. I'm going to steal your man. And it's like, oh no. That's the hardest, how the hell, you stole me?

The easiest thing in the world. That's the hard task to do. No, it's the easiest thing in the world. Yeah, stealing somebody's girl is tough because you're taking away from a life she really wants. Well, that's why I've always's the easiest thing to work with. Stealing somebody's girl is tough because you're taking away from a life you really want. Well, that's why I've always said the whole thing of a hall pass

is the fucking dumbest deal in the world for men. Yes, yes. Because like, think about it. If I say, you know, all right, with my girl, if I say to her, like, all right, we each have a hall pass, and she goes, okay, mine's Bradley Cooper, and I say, okay, mine is, I don't know, Angelina Jolie, whatever, the chances of him,

if I leave her in the first class lounge and I go, listen, just so you know, I have permission if you wanna go have a little something, but the chances of like a guy being like, you know, she went, listen, I'm allowed to suck your dick right now, you'd be like, I got 10 minutes, I'm done, so it's never a good deal for the men.

I'm being ambitious. You've got a camera set up. Jet blue flight attendant. And then some gay guy with tits. And you're just like, that's the one who I'm going to cheat on. Something attainable. But it really is one of those things that I think with women, what I do feel bad for women about is the women

who have been cheated on, they've said, okay, you know what, I'm going to look past this. We have kids and stuff like that. No, what I actually feel bad is that how other women, they have to suffer in silence because if they told any of the women in their life, I'm taking him back, they would be fucking excored. They would be destroyed. Like you ever wanna read vitriolic comments?

Any woman who takes back a man who cheated on her, like Beyonce got way more shit than Jay-Z. She had to put out a whole album. Because she had to beat him up somehow to have some redemption and again from other women because women were like how dare you take him because it has to she left him that's so she'd have been the girl boss she'd have been the yeah you he has no right to do that wouldn't that be the same for men though if a girl cheats and a guy takes her back wouldn't guys

say fucking yeah same thing you get pillory for it yeah you feel i i it. I mean, I would. So you have to suffer in silence. You have to not tell people that this happened. Which, by the way, it is a hard thing for people to come back from Rebuild Trust from. People do it all the time. People do it all the time. And usually what it is, they come into my office, they're like, I wanna kill him, I want him out,

I wanna file tomorrow. And I have done this long enough, and I go, okay, listen, if we wanna do it, and on Monday we'll still do it, but let's just happen. Just hang out a sec. Let's take a breath. Let's get our ducks in order.

And usually a couple days later they'll call me and they'll say, you know what, we talked and then we're gonna go talk to someone, we're gonna go to counselor. And very often I never hear from that person again and I think that they figure out a way to navigate it. Do kids make a difference? Kids make a huge difference.

Massive. Look, you have a tremendous reason to keep it together if you have children. way to navigate. Do kids make a difference? Yeah. Kids make a huge difference. Massive. Yeah, yeah. Look, you have a tremendous reason to keep it together if you have children. You're fully going, in best case scenario, you're going to lose a huge chunk of time with your children. You're going to lose the support of a co-parent. It's difficult to raise a child with two people.

It's difficult with one person. It's incredibly difficult. It's almost impossible. Yeah. It's like, unless you have help, I can't almost impossible. Yeah, it's like let's see if I can't believe yeah, it's very challenging So I think that people have the more skin you have in the game, you know Like that's why I always I always say like the ultra people say like oh must be really hard representing like super wealthy people I'm like no they have enough money to buy another fucking house Yeah, and another apartment and another place in the Hampton

So they each have one and they have nannies that travel between both places so their stability for the kids sometimes they keep the kid in the same house and the parents nesting yeah that's the parents the kids have the nest so the kids never have to leave which is a parent's apartment and they kind of come back and forth with the kids you know look we don't like a huge privilege how many people can own very home like it's very but that is probably the best for the children because now they're not packing a bag literally every single week.

You know what I'll tell you is, we don't know who discovered water but it probably wasn't a fish. Like when a kid grows up in an environment where mom was here, dad was here, and I spent time with each other, that's just all they know. Like okay, that's how it was.

Like when a kid's 10, 11, 12, and suddenly mom and dad who were living together are living in different places, that's traumatic, that's how it was. Like when a kid's 10, 11, 12, and suddenly mom and dad who were living together are living in different places, that's traumatic, that's challenging. But if you're a little, if you're a two year old, and now it's like okay, dad lives here, mom lives here, and I spent, when you ask that person when they're in high school, like what was your childhood like,

they'll say like, I don't know, like it was, yeah, I lived with mom sometimes, dad sometimes, I spent time with both of them. It's not what it was. Also, if you grew up in like New York City where divorce is pretty popular, it's probably easier for you to do. But I agree with you, the kids can be absolutely destroyed

if it happens when they're a little bit older, a little bit smarter and aware of what's going on. And I see a lot of divorce where the kids are kind of being used as a leverage tool. That's really fucked up. Is there ever a time where you step in, you go, why are we punishing the kids? I try to do that a lot. What I always say is that the person who cares less about the children has tactical advantage in a custody proceeding. In the same

way that a bank robber has tactical advantage over the cops because they can shoot innocent bystanders. The cops can't just spray with a machine gun and hope they'll hit one of the robbers, but robbers can just spray and hope they hit the cops. They can run over the sidewalks. Cops can't do that. How would that work in the court proceeding, for example? By insidiously alienating a child from their co-parent, by injecting into the child a dislike or a fear

of your co-parent so that you get custody. I mean, by the way, most of the time, this isn't just done as a vindictive thing. It's also done for financial reasons, because if you have the children more than 50% of the time, you get child support. And that's a big chunk of money. New York State, one kid's 17% of your gross income less FICA. Two kids is 25%.

Three kids, 29%. Four kids, 31%. So like the gross income. Think about that. That's for taxes. So if you're spending 50% of taxes, like say you're some rich person, 31% is going to your wife and the children.

If you have four kids. If you have four kids. And only if she gets them 51% of the time. You still gotta provide for your life. It'd be a lot cheaper to just hire a nanny and fight for custody. And that's what ends up happening. And there's alimony that goes along with that?

There can be spousal support that goes along with that. But think about it, so if it goes to 50% and you hire the nanny, at 51% to 50%, there's no real difference in the amount that you're going to see your children. But the difference in the amount that you're giving to that woman who now you hate and hates you. Wow. Yeah. And by the way, there's no one like doing an accounting

to make sure it's spent on the kids. That's the other thing you hear a lot. So like sometimes it's like that was meant to be for the kids and it was used for the tit job. Or it was used for like sex toys with the new boyfriend. And how is that decided, who gets custody? In New York we have what's called the best interest standard,

but most states have some variation of that and it's as subjective and crazy as you'd think it is. It really is full-contact storytelling. You go in as a lawyer and you just have to try to tell the story of why your client is stable, consistent, reliable, and a good parent, and why the other side is less than. This may be a New York thing,

but I always hear that the mother always gets the custody. Yeah, that's a pretty common misconception, and I understand why people say that, because I think women fight much harder for custody than men do, and I'll tell you why. And I probably don't even need to, but I'll point out why. If you and I, if we meet in real life, we're just out in the bar, and you say to me,

so Jim, tell me about yourself. And I say, well, I'm a lawyer, I'm divorced, I have my kids, they live with their mom, every other weekend I have them, you'd go, oh, divorced dad, nice guy probably, you know. I'm a woman. You don't have those kids. I have two kids, they live with their dad,

I see them every day. What the fuck is wrong with her? Social problems. Drugs, mental health, and by the way, I mean, go on Instagram, hashtag mom life. Believe me, I've represented some co-parents of celebrities that these people are opiated out of their minds, but when it's time to trick that kid out like a Birkin bag,

they bring him out and they're like, ah, I'm a mom. And then they're like, all right, take this fucking kid away, and they can care less. But it's optics. Whereas for a man, if you go, yeah, the kids live with their mom, back to, all right, take this fucking kid away, you know? And they can care less. But it's optics, you know? Whereas for a man, if you go, yeah, the kids live with their mom, people go, oh yeah, well of course the kids live with their mom. So that's where I think that comes from.

But the truth is, like, men get custody all the time. The maternal presumption was eradicated years ago. There used to be something called, what was called the tender years doctrine, which was if a child was under the age of seven, you let the mom hang. Mom automatically got custody unless you could show she was an unfit mother. year's doctrine, which was if a child was under the age of seven, mom automatically got custody unless you could show she was an unfit mother. That was eradicated in the

1980s, but some of the judges have been around since then, so they remember that. And remember, judges are human. Judges are people, so they have the same bias as anybody else has. So sometimes the judge is a divorced dad who's like, dads are just as good as moms, what the fuck? Sometimes they're a pissed off ex are just as good as moms. What the fuck? Sometimes they're a pissed off ex-wife of somebody and they're like fuck that guy because they're taking out, you know, these are humans I got a break for a second. I got some absolutely incredible news Okay, all you Call of Duty warzone fans out there. The wait is finally over. No, you're not gonna get laid No, you're not going to get laid. Verdansk is back on April 3rd.

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No, you know I represented actually I was one of the first people to represent a trans woman in a custody proceeding about 20 years ago and Were they divorcing themselves? No, they were they were they were this was actually a really amazing story. I I This was like the most manly man I'd ever known. Like he was like the most, he was jacked, he was like a big dude. And he, I knew him because he'd actually done work on my house.

And I remember thinking, because I was married at the time, I remember thinking my ex-wife secretly wanted to fuck him because he was like this big dude, work boots, the whole thing. So one day he calls me up and he says- He loves renovations. He calls me up. He's an interior decorator, right? It doesn't matter.

It's a fixer-upper. He made some significant changes. He calls me up one day and he says, can I come in and talk to you? And I said, yeah, sure. And I knew he was married and he had two very young kids. So he comes in, I'm like, oh shit, he's probably having marital problems. Comes into my office and I said, what's going on? He says, look, I think we're splitting up.

And then I said, oh man, I'm sorry to hear it. I said, what's going on? And he goes, well, I've decided I wanna live my life as a woman. I was like, wait, excuse me? Like, this is 20 years ago. Like, this is not part of, like, the cadence, you know? This wasn't a thing.

And this was not the dude you would think. Like, there was nothing feminine about this guy. Like, I was way more feminine than this guy. And he was like, yeah, you know, I've always felt this way. And he did. Sure enough, he transitioned pretty quickly. And like many people who transition, initially he looked like a guy wearing a wig.

Like, he looked like a dude who was, you know, he'd started hormones. And when we went to court, the judge actually issued a temporary Decision saying that that he was allowed to see his kids as long as he dressed like a man when he saw his kids Now the judge did that now they'd be thrown off the bench Yeah, and I possibly jailed for a hate crime But back then that was considered a perfectly acceptable resolution. Yeah funny PS to that story by the way

Yeah, ten years later That was considered a perfectly acceptable resolution. Funny PS to that story, by the way. 10 years later, I'm walking into the courthouse and I'm standing there talking to one of my colleagues and I look off to the far left and I see a very attractive woman staring at me and I'm thinking like, you still got it, sexist. Yes, you know, it's the tie. And she's just smiling at me.

So I'm like, do I know her? This is weird. So I finish this conversation, I kind of do the peacocking thing So I'm like, do I know her? This is weird. So I finished this conversation. I kind of do the peacocking thing where I'm like, all right, man, catch you later. And I'm like, I'm gonna walk past her. So I walk up, very cute. I said, hey, how you doing?

And she goes, good, how you doing? I go, good. She goes, you don't remember me. And I said, I'm sorry, I don't. I would think I would. And she goes, it's me, Amy. And I was like, Amy? And she goes, it's me, Amy. And I was like, Amy? And she goes, Andy?

And I went, holy shit! It was that person. It was that person with 10 years of hormones and a bunch of other things. Being hot is both genders, seems unfair. It really does. It really is, by the way. Like, could do great home renovations.

Like, what the fuck, dog? If you transition, you should introduce yourself again. You should lead with that. Hey, by the way, done some updates. I've done a little work here. If you did recognize her, you did a bad job. I guess so, but it just felt like, you know, I did feel a little deflated because I was like, oh, I got this hot chick checking me out.

And then I'm like, oh no, okay, it's not for the reasons I thought. Form a client, you can't do that. Yeah, no, but then after we slept together, it was fine. No. What's the weirdest way you've gotten paid? A motorcycle. So yeah.

I was given a motorcycle once. I had a client who said, you know, he used to like fix up bikes, and I used to ride at the time, and he said, you know, I'm gonna pay you up bikes and I used to ride at the time and he said You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna pay you. I just got to sell this bike that I just fixed up I'll take what bike is it is it any show being I was like, I'll just take the bike What about cash like just people try to pay me in cash all the time

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

I'll bring you a check, you know, and instead. Okay, so you're by the book when it comes to payment. You have to be as a lawyer. A lot of lawyers are Wild West with that shit. You know, not who's gonna say that. He's almost retired, he said. He didn't let it say it. Not who. He's almost retired, he said. He didn't let it go. Not lawyers.

He's banging trees outside of town. Yeah, he's fucking with him. No, we went to a hotel last night. I have some class here. I'm a cheap date. No, I feel like a lot of lawyers, what's interesting is if you read the disciplinary opinions for lawyers,

it's really funny because they fuck up lawyers and disbar lawyers for financial stuff really fast. Almost like you read that they publish these decisions. It runs chills through all of us. But you'll read it and they're like, this lawyer had sex with three of his clients, he had a serious cocaine problem, and he told three of his clients that cases were resolved

when in fact they weren't you know suspended for two weeks from the practice of law and they were like this guy did not report 23 dollars that he received in cash disbarred and you're like fuck like the money thing is the biggest thing so lawyers who play it fast and loose with that stuff like you're not going to be around have you ever hooked up with any clients no No, no, and I have to tell you. Have they thrown it at you? No, for real. They've thrown it at you. You never circled back after you got the good divorce,

got a pay and now it's like, you can spend his money. No, and I'll tell you why. I will tell you why. Because, I'm trying to figure out how to say this without offending any of my existing clients. The truth is that if you represent a woman in her divorce, you will never fucking want to date her.

You see the worst of this person. Wow. Like, there's a rule. That's a good lie. There's a rule. I know, that's a good lie. That's a good lie. He's a good lawyer.

I almost believed that. I'm like, no, there's a rule in New York. There's a rule in New York. Matrimonial lawyers are not, we're the only lawyers that are not allowed to have sex with our clients. It's a rule. Like if you do a real estate closer for someone, you can fuck them. But if you're a divorce lawyer, a domestic relations lawyer, you cannot have sex with your clients for six months after the representation is concluded. You should have said that. It's illegal.

No, we're saying do circle the block seven months in. But I'm telling you something. Yeah! Whoever wrote that rule was not a divorce lawyer because you don't even want to fucking talk to these people much less fuck them. Some of these women too, they have a hero thing they've put on you that is so unhealthy. It's the first time I've stopped to sweat all. Yeah. Can we take a break?

I can call my lawyer. So we know you've never fucked a client or anything, but hypothetically speaking, if you ever were to circle the block seven months later, eight months later, and now that girl has tons of money that you won for her, and she's really grateful. What would that be like hypothetically? What is that head like?

Hypothetically speaking, like when you just got her a hundred million dollars. I mean look, it'd probably be fantastic. Yeah, it'd be a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not, you know, I'm not... She's got enough money to do better than me at that point. No, but she's really grateful.

Yeah, I mean look, they do, what I'll tell you is, your female clients fall in love with you. They do. But it's not you that they're in love with. You're their hero in this situation. Of course, yeah. And so you have to have the presence of mind, like, it's like when you're a college professor,

like, yeah, of course, you got 20-something year old girls who are like coming to your office hours, like, and they're into you. Of course, there's a part of your brain that goes, oh my God, are you kidding me? This is fucking, but the truth is, they think you know shit you don't know. They think that you're this genius person.

You're just a fucking person. Like, so I really don't, like, that's not, they're not in love with you. I think like 20 of them, you fucked up. I think, I'm a fair minimum. I'm a fair minimum. Yeah, what? In two decades, in two decades, 25. You're at a bar know you're bare minimums! I'm not bare minimums! In two decades, in two decades!

You're at a bar, you're drinking, I know! You're a husband's worst nightmare! I know some things, I know some things! Well here's what I'll tell you, it upsets- I know a court clerk in Manhattan Family Court, she knows some stories about you. Oh shit!

We do research on this. We don't fuck around. That's really wild. How did he launch that one? That's how you get 50% off. It's never pro bono. I'm going to give you my card. You don't have to need anything. Contracts will come over with lovely.

But they should! If it's like a horrible divorce and you free this woman from this oppressive man and then you take the majority of money, give it to him and the house and all this other stuff and she can't just, you know... But you got it in your head too. I mean, see, like in your head, there's like these super hot young women I'm representing who like now have $100 million and want to fuck me.

It's really like- We're not thinking about the money. It's mostly like women in like their 50s with like they all got that New York, you know, like surprise cosmetic surgery look. And like this is not, like I could do better than that. What about somebody's second wife? You know, somebody's second wife, this is like prenup. If there's a prenup, it's not as...

Yeah, they're smart enough to lock them in as say to the three fucking guys who are married and don't have prenups. Well, he's not married yet. Should he get a prenup? Should he get a prenup? Of course he should have a prenup! All fucking three, all of you should have a prenup! Why?

Why? Don't you like the risk of Why? It's no fun. Don't you like the risk of it? Like every argument that you get in with your wife, you're like, man, half my shit at the end of this argument. That's an incentive for you. Isn't that exciting? Don't you want to live on the edge?

Weird definition of excitement. I'm Alex Hoddle. I'm climbing the side of the cliff. That's how you do it. No ropes. It's like, okay, ropes. No ropes. Wow, wow.

I honestly do feel like if we get divorced, you take half the shit. Do I think I can't make more money? Like, go away. I honestly do feel like if we get divorced you take half the shit Do I think I can't make more money like go away? I'm paying you to go away. Yeah, here's half my shit. Shut up Yeah, I'm gonna go make more money and then we're done. What'd it be even cooler though? He has to just buy two fucking munchies. Andrews whole goal is to have her make more money than me anyway, who cares? Yeah, I mean look what I'll tell you is I mean first of all I don't think anybody wants their marriage to continue Their spouse to stay in the marriage because they don't want to give up

half their shit. That's like a bad incentive. Like, you want someone to stay married to you because they want to be married to you. They think you add value to their life, that they enjoy your company, that more often than not, they're glad they're with you, whatever. Any number of justifications.

But to say, well, I'm with him because I don't want to have to give away half of my shit. That's what Al's got, he's got broke boy mentality. That's a terrible way to put it. He's got broke boy mentality. He's like a child. He's like a big child. Yeah, we gotta get this out. So if I were to get a prenup, what should I include in it?

I think the easiest prenup is the one that I would encourage most people to have, which is I call it the yours, mine, and ours. If it's in your name, asset or reliability, you keep it. If it's in her name, asset or reliability, you keep it. If it's in her name, asset or liability, she keeps it. If it's in joint names, you split it 50-50. That's it, clean. Here's what I'll tell you. Everybody, you have, all three of you have a prenup. The government wrote it.

The state legislature wrote your fucking prenup. And by the way, like, you think that's a good idea? Like, you think, you ever been to the DMV? You ever walk into the DMV and go, these people should be in charge of everything. Like they're great at it. This is really good. No, the reality is, is like the government

is the worst fucking people to write your freedom. To whom though? To whom? Worst to whom? To my wife or to me? Both of you. Both of you. The process, you signed up for a rule set that you don't even know. I don't know. You bought a house, right?

You bought a house. You had to sign a HUD one, a lead paint disclosure. You got all this fucking information about the loan. You got married, you didn't get a fucking pamphlet. You just did the most legally significant thing you're going to do in your whole life other than die. And you have no fucking clue what happened. The first time, the first time you got a loan. That's what's called big dick. That's what's called big dick energy. That's what it's called, that's what it's called, big dick energy. I don't know, pussy ass shit, I wouldn't even look at the documents. I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. I'm gonna take it.

More lead, more lead pay. Translate that to go into business. More lead pay. And being like, I'm betting it all on black, how much? I don't know, all of it. Go. I would do that. That's fucking crazy.

I have and I've lost quite a few Bitcoins. It is crazy. It is what it is. It is crazy. It is crazy. 100%. Because my attitude is, look, all kidding aside, every marriage has a prenup. It's either one that's written by the government or it's written by the two people that like each other theoretically more than the other 8 billion other options, right?

So who is better to come up with a rule set than those two people? And that's all the prenup is. A prenup is just saying, look, there's going to come up with a rule set than those two people. And that's all a prenup is. A prenup is just saying, look, there's gonna come a time, like if you're getting married, it's smart to say to your spouse, when you're getting along still, we're gonna get in a fight at some point, I promise. It's probably gonna be my fault, I'm gonna say some dumb shit. I say dumb shit, it happens.

When we get in that fight, what should that look like? Do you need a minute? Should I give you some space? If I force you to talk about it, is it gonna turn into a whole thing? Or do we need to take care of this now because you don't wanna go to bed angry? I wanna know, because the worst time to learn how to fight

is when you're in a fucking fight. That's the worst time to learn how to do a fight. So that's all the prenup is. The prenup is saying, look, we're getting along right now, we have an abundance of goodwill between the two of us. If, God forbid, in the highly unlikely 56 fucking percent, the highly unlikely chance that we would get divorced, what would that look like?

And by the way, there's a way to say it that I think has a tremendous amount of big dick energy, which is to say, you know what, you're my woman. I want you to feel safe. You can't feel loved unless you feel safe. And the way I want you to feel safe, the way I want you to feel safe is I want you to feel safe from everyone including me. So what is it?

We're going to go live show hard. Well, I mean the married you. She's like, I got this simp. Yo, actual question, yours mine and ours. How does that go once you're married? Everything is just going to go hours, right? You're going to buy the house, it's going to be our name. You're going to buy the cars, it's going to be our name. It's a conversation you got to have.

Like, look, you know this as a married man. If you can't have difficult conversations with your spouse, don't get fucking married. Like part of being married is having hard conversations, talking about tough stuff. How do you feel, personally? Let's say you and your wife are both working. Wife decides to not work to raise the child. Sure, common.

Maybe I'm telling you how I feel without asking you how you feel. But like, there's a part of me that goes Okay, well anything first of all anything I don't have a pre-empt obviously is there anything that we own is both of ours But like I think that if she's gonna make that sacrifice in that decision I think she's entitled to half of everything who would disagree with okay good because I think there's sometimes people totally fair Okay, and I think sometimes people are like well if you're making the money, that's all you it's like right Yeah, yeah, but you're able to do that because somebody's looking after the child now their circumstances like your guys circumstances

They don't have a kid yet, right? So like he's making money and you know she your wife could be making money So he might have an argument to go well I'm gonna keep all of this because you could be working yeah, but I do think once you add children into the mix Yeah, there's a very different... But I totally agree, and I think any reasonable person would. But just to push back on that thought a little bit, what I would say to you is, okay, but there's got to be a stop loss somewhere in there, right?

What does that mean? Like, there's got to be some sense of, like, what is that obligation? Because look, at the end of the day, we all owe each other things when we make decisions like this, right? Oh, some ways, in some ways, you wouldn't have the success you have if it wasn't for your wife. She's supported you, she's helped build it. Okay, absolutely.

Your wife wouldn't be the person she is if it wasn't for her mother. So what do you owe her mother? How much? I think at least half. Okay. Her mother wouldn't be the person she was if it wasn't for her mother.

So how much do we owe Grandma? Okay, so the math on this gets a little fuzzy. They all need half. So the reality is, Okay. Her mother wouldn't be the person she was if it wasn't for her mother. She needs half of it. So how much do we owe grandma? She needs half of it. Okay. So the math on this gets a little fuzzy. They all need half. So the reality is... Everybody. Look, I think fundamentally...

Yeah, they need half of her. Value is an important thing. Yeah, right? I just watched your special, you know, and I got a huge kick out, especially as a divorce lawyer, the shit we laugh at. But when you said the thing about, you know, like, that, that, that. We made a baby. We made a baby, and you're like, oh,

just like we made this money, like it's our money. Like, okay, look, at the end of the day, we know you earn more than her, right? Okay, so we don't, why do we have to be afraid to say that out loud? Like, marriage is an economy. That's not a dirty word. An economy is, we're exchanging value.

We're giving and receiving. And an economy does not require that everyone gives and receives the exact same fucking thing. You can say like Steve Jobs, Steve Woznak, without Steve Woznak, Steve Jobs would have a lot of cool ideas he couldn't do shit with. And if it wasn't for Steve Jobs, Steve Woznak should see a dude in his garage making shit

but have no vision. So together they brought something to fruition. Same thing with the marriage. I think. Does she get half? Does that really make sense? Half of everything? So there's no question of whether

what you're saying makes sense. I think the difficult emotional battle which you've probably done thousands of times is putting a dollar value on what somebody brings to the table in a marriage. What is the dollar value you're worth for raising our kid? That's a really difficult thing to do.

It feels icky to say it. It feels icky. But it only feels icky for reasons that I think we could fix as a culture, and that is that why can't we be on, like I'm a fan of honesty. I'm a fan of just being, just say a quiet part out loud. Like, you give me, like, cause here's the problem.

Here's the problem with modern marriage from a man's perspective, as far as I'm concerned. Most of the marriages I know, okay, the man provides financially, he protects, right? He, you know, he's also there to be part of the family dynamic, taking care of kids, doing the things that he can do. What does the woman bring?

She brings love, affection, a little bit of sweetness at the end of the day, you, she brings taking care of kids. Okay, if you get divorced, every single thing on that side of the man equation, he can be compelled to do by the power of the state and if he fails to do it, they can put him in jail. Nothing on that other side, the female side, is enforceable at law.

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

and what value we want to attribute to something? But the court can't force you to protect your wife. My attitude is, why don't we then just have an honest conversation about what we could both be afraid of and what value we want to attribute to something. But the court can't force you to protect your wife and the court can't force you to make money for your family. Well, economically, they can force you to. They can force you to protect somebody. I've had cases where the court says, OK, this person needs a security detail.

If it's a celebrity, they say these kids are going to need security for when they go to school, things like that. But the average person, like, can the court say you have to work to a dad? Well, what the courts say is Lincoln freed the slaves like if you're a you know if you're a if you're She jumps right in on that. Non-delicat, by the way. She wants to pick up. What does that mean? What I'm saying, what I...

The dude in court. The dude in court. The dude in court there. You said her blood was like a Bola Opa. Yeah, yeah. You said she's thicker than a Bola Opa. Thicker than a Bola Opa. So, if your financial status at the moment you were getting

divorced determined what your obligations were, everybody quit their fucking job the minute they were getting divorced. So what the courts say is like, if you're a brain surgeon, who now I'm getting divorced, I decided I want to be a fucking yoga teacher. The court goes, look, like in Free the Slaves, we can't make you be a brain surgeon.

You're just gonna be a brain, you're gonna be a yoga teacher who has the financial obligations of a brain surgeon. Oh, wow. So they impute an income to you. Oh, really? And they'll say, whatever you do for a living, it's fine. We can't force you to work, but we can give you financial obligations commensurate with your earning capacity, even if you're not earning at that capacity.

Wow. Wow. Which is actually really fucked up sometimes. That's fucked up. Yeah. Like I had a client once who was an air traffic controller. And if you know anything about air traffic controllers like you can have a high school education be an air traffic controller Make like three four hundred grand a year Wow you can do really really well. Well this guy his mother passed away

He was very close with her He had a lot of anxiety and a lot of depression from it and he had to go on on Medication psychiatric medication to like sort of deal with it You're not allowed to be on benzodiazepines or certain psychiatric medications while you're in air traffic control, so he was terminated from his position. The next best job this guy could get,

he made about 50 grand a year, but the court was like, no, no, no. Your earning capacity is $350,000 a year, that's what you made. And we were like, judge, what job can this guy get where he's gonna make that amount of money So it can sometimes this is how guys end up in jail for not paying so what do you do? Not their fault. So what he do?

To take he suffered basically. Yeah, I mean he had a very unfair child support award placed against him He ended up in jail a couple of times. It was a really because he was like selling drugs or something to make them No, he just was not he he didn't pay his support. It's illegal to not pay child support. You can be put in jail. But you can't go back for a readjustment if you have... We did after a certain amount of time and then it was granted. Yeah.

Oh, so... The judge sort of didn't buy that this was not done intentionally. We joke in our industry that, you know, we call it sudden income deficiency syndrome, that it hits like nine out of 10 divorcing men. Like guys are doing really great and then all of a sudden they're getting divorced and they're like, but this year's gonna be bad. I'm not gonna do well this year.

Like you worked for Goldman Sachs. You're like, yeah, but we're having a bad year. So it happens a lot that judges tend to look at people and go, you know, something tells me that if you're saying you're suddenly not doing well financially and it happens to be when you're getting divorced, there might be, you know, it's not a coincidence. So I hear about these guys who don't pay child support,

you see that anecdotally, whatever, but then the saying I always hear is, well, courts are not in the collections business. So how do some guys seemingly not really pay kind of be unfair and then some guys, well-intentioned, end up in jail? So the courts, it depends on how bold the judge is. I mean, what I'll tell you is a big,

I'll give you some free legal advice. If you ever have a child support obligation against you, which I hope you never do, and you have to pay it, and you don't have the money to pay it, like if you're supposed to give her $2,000 a month, and you don't have $2,000, don't give her $1,000. Give her $1,226.37.

Because then when we get in front of the judge, we can say, Judge, I had $1,000. I borrowed $200 from my cousin. I found $32 under the mats of my car. This is everything I have. Because what people do is if you gave $1,000, why didn't you give $1,001? If you gave $1,500, like, of a round number,

it just looks like you're full of shit. You know, so, but yeah, I mean, look, courts don't always, you know, again, because judges are human. There are some judges, they will put you right the fuck in jail. I've had clients let off in orange, you know, where the judge says, look,

you got a week to pay this child support, and if you don't, bring a toothbrush when you come back to court, because I'm putting you away. And they'll put some, they'll lock guys up, they have what's called weekend jail, where on Friday after work, you check in and you stay in jail until Monday morning. And then Monday morning.

And you get to work early. So you can work and pay your child support. Yeah. Why does alimony exist? That's a great question. This, I get child support. I get. It's a great question. This? Yeah. I get child support. Yeah. I get.

Splitting of assets. I get that. You ever want to, you ever want to. Real quick, real quick. You ever want to take a feminism out of a woman? Yeah. Make her pay alimony. Dude, I think one of the coolest things

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

They hate it. Yes. Okay, so can you explain one, what is alimony? And two, what is like the steelman argument for it? Like give me the, not like, oh this sucks, but what is the best case scenario for why is it important? Yeah, so alimony or spousal support or spousal maintenance, every state calls it something different, is a payment that's made from one former spouse to another and it's intended to either rehabilitate their earning capacity so that they can kind of

get on their feet or it's to roughly approximate the marital lifestyle for a certain period of time. So it's very rarely what we call non-durational, meaning like you broke it, you bought it forever, you owe her the marital lifestyle. There was a time where that was the way it was done, but it hasn't been that way for many, many years now. So just so I can clarify, and everybody's listening,

essentially there's this idea where if you're married and you have a certain lifestyle. Right, and there's a wide disparity in your incomes. And there's a wide disparity in your potential income because the wife might not even be working. Correct. It is up to the husband or the wife, whoever is the breadwinner, to maintain that lifestyle outside of the marriage. Or some approximation of it for some period of time. Got it. So the steelman argument for it is the following. There are economic decisions you make during your marriage and you make them as a couple, right?

So it is very difficult for everybody to be Beyonce. Somebody's gotta be Destiny's Child. You know, you can't all be the Lionel Richie, somebody's gotta be the comedians. So what you do is you say, okay, look, you're the star right now, I'm gonna stand back, I'm gonna take care of her at home, I'm gonna do my thing.

In the law we call it diminished lifetime earning capacity, which basically means if a woman takes her late 20s or her 30s off from the workforce, because that's when you have kids. You have kids in your 30s, kids in your 40s. Very hard for her to get back into the workforce. And when she gets back into the workforce, she's behind in the race.

So now she's still. Like if you join the New York City marathon halfway through, you're not going to finish with everybody else no matter how fucking fast you are. Just clarifying, behind at the race means like when she was 20, she would be in this beginner position, I forget what that's called, like early entry position. At 40, she should be like a VP or something. Because she hasn't worked for two decades, she has to go back at that beginning position.

So in the law, we call that diminished lifetime earning. And because it's a beginning position, the earning potential is very small. And it'll never catch up because by the time she reaches the age she would have been at 40, she's 60, so she's closer to retirement. So it's lost. So what you're doing is you're sort of saying,

okay, we're gonna compensate for that. That's the argument for it. Now, I actually think that there's a lot of compassion and empathy in that idea. Sure. That's the best steel man I've heard for it. It makes I actually think that there's a lot of compassion, empathy in that idea. I like that's the best steel man I've heard for it. It makes a lot of sense. Here's the question. I don't think most people would disagree with. No, no, no. Here's the other question I have. There are certain circumstances where there is a divorce. There's a payment and splitting of assets to the tune of like tens of millions of dollars. And on top of that, an alimony payment,

isn't there a way where it could be calculated that the assets themselves would assume that alimony payment? So what's really interesting is without realizing it, you've actually just joined the legislative committee of the New York State Bar Association. Because a few years ago, the domestic relations law was actually modified to reflect exactly that. OK, I think that's more fair.

Where they said what they call it is the income creating capacity of assets received in equitable distribution. And now it is one of the factors. When I started my career 25 years ago, that wasn't a factor. And then a lot of lawyers, myself included, were like, wait, she's getting $20 million. Why does she also?

Put it in treasuries at 5%. She's got an income stream. So the courts and the legislature caught up. And now they say, yeah, if you're getting, like I just did a divorce where there was a $800 million marital estate. Wow. Jesus. She actually had the audacity to ask for Alamo.

I mean, the judge looked at it and went, listen, you're getting $400 million worth of assets, you're gonna be alright. That can kick off income if you want it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, I'm glad that they are making these adjustments. And I think a lot of times you have to put in this legislation because you have to protect women,

especially at a time where they weren't able to work. Yes. Like a lot of these laws, I imagine, are put in times where women aren't even part of the workforce. That's when a lot of them came about and then the law is very slow to change because the way that our law works is it's sort of a living thing that modifies

as times and standards change. As it should, but there is bureaucracy you have to go through and that's always gonna be difficult. And by the way, to bring it back to where we started here, that's why I'm a fan of prenups. Yes, yes, yes. Because if you're a fair person and your soon to be spouse is a fair person,

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

put that into the prenup. If you don't, you can remove it. So I think that's an interesting argument for it. That's to me the best argument for it, because here's the other problem. Is there another contract that you've ever heard of that they can change the terms of the contract without even fucking telling you?

That's interesting. Like imagine if you bought or leased a car. Yeah, this is really interesting. And they said, oh, by the way, the state just decided we're gonna change how the interest rate works and when you have to make the payments. And you're not allowed to go, oh, well then I'd like to opt out and return the car.

And they go, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that, sorry. So there's rules, there's a prenup that was written for all three of your marriages. By the government. That can be changed unilaterally by people other than you and your wife and affect you forever. So to me, my attitude is, listen, you could do a prenup one way

and then three years later do an addendum and modify it. Like you can make it a living document just like you make your will, you make your will at one point, you make it again five years later, you change it, you change it frequently. I think the perception of it is a person with a lot of assets trying to make sure that the person

that they're gonna spend the rest of their life with never gets those assets in the event that their marriage doesn't work out, which is the goal of a lot of prenuptial. And by the way, not an unfair concept. Like let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's go to an alternate reality. Wait a minute, I gotta people quick,

because the next thing I do wanna talk to you about is like, I think we're getting there. Like what happens with these like huge estates, these people that have like generational wealth? Anyway, can we take like two minute break? Listen, very important that we discuss March Madness. There's nothing that is more important to the people in this podcast than amateur sports. Yes. We love amateur sports. We love amateur football. We love amateur basketball right Right now, are they even amateur? So they're just shittier pros.

We love shittier pros. I don't have enough time to watch every NBA game that I want to watch, but I make sure I make time to watch shittier pros. Most of them watch guys who will probably never make it to the NBA. And if they do, they'll be huge disappointments. There's maybe one or two guys that will have a career in this entire draft. So, yeah, but you know, it's March Madness. Doesn't feel very mad, right?

Does it feel like so mad? I don't know. Have there been crazy upsets yet? Yeah, probably. St. John's is the only one. That team lost to that team or whatever. Oh, I heard about that. Yeah, I heard about that.

And then everybody, and then all the adults pretended like they cared. Do you remember? They all have, my brackets, it's bostos. My brackets are bostos. No sport has had as much done for it by March Madness with brackets. Like it's saved. This is the only reason anybody gives a fuck, because their office is going to give you free lunch if you win.

And that's why you care. Yeah, you're all working at Lumen. Yeah. Yeah. I think this was fantasy sports before fantasy. if you win. And that's why you care. Yeah, you're all working at Lumen. I think this was fantasy sports before fantasy. And that like, remember, I don't know, obviously everybody gambled on whatever the fuck they wanted to gamble back in the day.

But like you rooted for your team. When we were growing up, I rooted for the Knicks. I rooted for the Giants or the Jets, whoever was fucking worse. I root for the Yankees. And then fantasy comes around, you start rooting for individual players, because it reflects on your team.

And I think that the bracket was the closest that we came to that. Most of us did not go to the colleges that are playing in the tournament. My school, I think we made it the year before I went there, I don't even know if we've made it since. So you end up having this almost fantasy-esque relationship with the bracket. So we pretend that we care about amateur athletics, which we do not New York people have a weird relationship with college sports in general

Which I don't get because so many New Yorkers will go to state schools and then they'll that should have some patriotism Because there's no good state school like at athletics in New York But if you know from New York, I don't like Ole Miss a lot of New Yorkers end up going to Michigan or Wisconsin If they can't get into high school. And they'll still be like, eh. So like, if there's a New Yorker that's at Michigan or Wisconsin, I just want you all to know that that was his last choice.

Yeah. And I'm gonna be honest, they thought they were better than that. They applied to Cornell, they applied to Brown. They probably didn't think they were smart enough to get into like Harvard or Princeton, but they applied to the lower IDEs. They didn't get in, and they're like,

my safety school will be, I will make the pilgrimage with the rest of the New York Jews to Wisconsin or Michigan. They have a good business school. They have a good business school. Anyway, and then they pretend to like the college amateur athletic. And ironically, NYU is a bunch of kids who wanted to get an IDEs and couldn't, so they're at NYU. Exactly, they're at NYU. But it's actually a good school.

Yeah. That's the difference. Whereas Michigan and Wisconsin. They just hated their parents and they wanted to get away from them. Yeah. Say again? I said they hated their parents. They just wanted to get away from them. They just wanted to say like how do we get away from them. Why go to an even colder place? You did it well.

Go to Santa Barbara. The polar opposite weather-wise. Let's go to a shittier weather state. No winter, no classes. Like perfect. You know mean, that's that's what you wanted to call it Do you remember a single thing you learned in college Maybe yeah, maybe one or two. I don't remember one. I thought about this No, come on, I don't know what like I can't remember us, you know learned in college. No, come on. I don't remember one. Like, I can't remember a single thing. You know all of gente Fernandez because of college. Not in college.

Extravirricular. Yeah, I would've learned that shit here too. You know, you'd think I would've been a Mexican kid here. I was gonna go out and watch some fucking money. That's a good point. No, I- If they had that class though. I'm trying to think, I think I learned some like

evolutionary biology stuff. That's all I remember. Maybe some psych 101, but I don't think, you don't learn anything. Statistics right now, I can't remember. I can't remember. Mean, median, mode. I got to keep. Sine, cosine, tangent.

That might have been high school. That might have been high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't remember none of that shit. Anyway, the point is, if you want to bet on useless sports, you can bet on college sports. And you can do that with Stake. Stake is the leader in global betting and US social casinos bet on top sports and also college and political events and the use of promo code flagrant for your welcome bonus. Now, let me just caveat this.

Listen. I'm right. Yeah, well, there's only one way to make it fun. And that's gambling. Yeah Can we just acknowledge that yeah, yeah Off their foot. Oh, but it's the defense is better. It's more fundamentals. No, no, no, you're gambling on it That's what makes it exciting. Yeah You'll have to gamble in every single NBA game if you did you'd obviously do a steak But you don't have to because it's the only way it's exciting. You don't have to gamble in every single NBA game. If you did, you'd obviously do a mistake. But you don't have to because it's the best of the best.

But if I'm going to watch Liberty take on Drake, I need some fucking scratch on it. Yeah, a 19 year old athlete putting everything down, trying to get his mom out the hood. I'm putting money on it. Yeah, shout out to Cooper flag, man. Anyway, let's get back to the show. There are certain people that are targeted, meaning they come from very wealthy families.

Their families might have billions of dollars. Marriage has been almost like a tool to protect those assets for hundreds of years maybe in somebody's family. I mean, well, that's what marriage originally was designed culturally for the purposes of maintaining land ownership and merging clans. Like, I actually, after we get into this discussion, I'd really like to know some of the history of marriage. Like, why, one, why it's continued to be around.

I confess, if there's something that didn't have societal utility, I think that we would. Yeah, who were the first people that were like, this is going so great. We should get the government involved. Yeah. You know, like that's fucking weird. It does seem weird that... That's an interesting thing.

Even when my wife and I were getting married, I was like, I really don't care that the government knows about this. Right. It's important to me that you and I know about this, and we are committing to one another. And I think for them, I think that the idea that the government

knows about it makes it feel more real because of like societal expectations or whatever. But you know, what's an interesting thing I've always found fascinating is if you said to me, you know, Jim, I'm thinking about buying an airplane. If I said, oh, really, why? That's not a rude question. Yeah. You would say, oh You would say, oh, I fly a lot, it'd be nice, I wanna learn how to do it. Okay, if you're dating a girl for a certain period of time and you say to me, Jim, I'm thinking about getting married, and I go, why?

That's rude. Why's that rude? This is a technology that fails 56% of the fucking time. And let's say there's another another 10 20 percent to stay together for the kids because they don't want to give away half their shit Why is it rude to say to someone you guys are getting along? You're in love. You're having fun Why do you want to get the government involved? Yeah, like why what my my whole thing is? What is the problem? Yeah to which marriage is a solution? Like what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? Anything else in your life, you can answer that.

What is the problem to which this is a solution? It's hard to hold water in my hand, so we need a container for it. What is the problem to which this is a solution? It's nice to be able to talk to people when they're not in the room. Okay, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? I'm lonely?

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

Does he not really love you? Is he trying to protect his money or his assets or something like that? And I think a lot of times that informs their decision to quote unquote get the government involved. It's less about the government, it's more about like how will society view me as this person's partner?

And is it a lack of commitment? Which obviously now, we remove the emotion from it, we can unpack and go, yeah, it doesn't change anything in that relationship. But you can literally not get married, but you can sign a contract with some lawyers about how assets can be distributed. You can have the government play no part in it. And if you, by the way, don't even know

what role the government plays in that, it's kind of a fiction. And by the way, like you trust that Mark is married. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you checked the fucking paperwork ever? Exactly, yeah, yeah. No, no, you're right. Like honestly, like have you ever gone to a wedding

and after, at the end gone, lovely ceremony, great pigs in the blanket at the cocktail hour. You see the paperwork? Yeah, yeah. They go, well, I the end, gone, lovely ceremony, great pigs in the blanket at the cocktail hour. You see the paperwork? You go, I'm sorry, I'm not in the marriage license. I just wanna make sure. Like, your parents might not be fucking married. But you know what, did you check the paperwork?

I've never looked. We know about the nurse outfit. Yeah, yeah. So you don't know about the paperwork. Yeah, they're so loved. So you can, by the way, have as many fucking weddings as you want, guys. Like, getting married's lots of fun.

It's a great party, I'm all for it. I fucking love weddings, so I like pigs in blankets. But the truth is, does that mean you actually have to go sign a marriage license and get the government involved? Not necessarily. But let's real quick, let's just divide this up. What you're not saying, you're not saying that having a partner that you guys dedicate your lives to each other

and grow a family with is bad. Not only is it not bad, I think it's the best thing in the world. It's incredibly important. It has the best pair of hands. Like relationships, love, like what is better than love? Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I guess what happens is I think when people hear the word like why would you get married,

they often assume that you're like have a few girlfriends or don't commit to one person or it's not gonna work out. You're pro relationship, you're pro like. I'm pro monogamy. You're pro monog few girlfriends or don't commit to one person or it's not gonna work out your pro Relationship you're pro like I'm pro monogamy you're pro monogamy I'm pro people building families together Yeah, look there's there's a reason why throughout the history of humankind pair bonds monogamy Yeah, like if this exists for biological reasons that exists for social reasons Yeah, but to like But if I saw a correlation between love and marriage

and love being sustained by the fact that you've married, I would be the biggest fan of marriage in the world. What I see is the opposite. What I see is people dating and in love who then sign on for a contract that they do not understand at all. And then I think it becomes almost antagonistic to it, because our society considers it so acceptable.

Come on, listen, look at every group of women you've ever seen out who are married, okay? And one of them is not married. And the one who's not married is talking about a guy who she just started dating and they all are, oh my God, he sounds so great. So wonderful. So grow. Oh my God.

What did he know? He did that. He's so lovely. Yeah. And then when they talk about their husbands, oh, yeah, she's such a, I mean, you know, and then he comes home and all that is, is the guy that she's talking about a couple of years down the road.

Like marriage becomes very antagonistic to this situation, says the guy who's been married how many years now? I don't know. Like, so okay, the reality is, like listen, I'm telling you, the previews is always the best part of the movie. No, no, no, what I'm trying to say is, specifically, one, when everybody knows that you're married,

it's no like, you'd have to be a psychopath to walk into a room of your friends and be like, my wife and I did the most amazing thing and she's the kindest person. That's not what we want to hear about. We want to hear, like you said, as a divorce attorney and you walk into a party, you're like, tell me the drama, tell me the craziest thing. So I'm

coming in with the funny shit, which is the drama. When you're dating a new person, there's no drama yet. It's like, we went on one date, he beat me. That never happens. So it's just like, oh, what's the sex? What's it like? Is he good? And we miss that euphoria, not that the love fades, but it shifts from euphoria to a different love. And by the way, what it shifts to can also be way better than that euphoria. I think my relationship with my wife has gotten better since.

Yeah, I think most, there are a lot of people that will tell you that. And by the way, at its best, that's what happens in a relationship, is you give up novelty in exchange for a depth of connection, a person who understands you, a person who, look, this all makes sense to me. Again, the question I have is, how does the government get involved in that

and does the institution of marriage add value to it? Like, I genuinely believe what you are saying about how you feel about your wife. Yeah. Yeah. If you had not married her... Yeah. ...and you hadn't signed that contract, you would still feel that way.

I think what I could say in your favor is that maybe law hasn would still feel that way. I think what I could say in your favor is that maybe law hasn't caught up to society. Society has gotten more egalitarian gender roles-wise, equality-wise for men and women, but especially 40, 50 years ago, there wasn't that. So women needed that security, and I think that's still left over.

I don't think marriage has no place, but I definitely understand women's need for it more than men because they're still coming from, this equality thing is relatively recent. My attitude about tradition, because really marriage is a tradition, it's a societal tradition. And there's really two ways to look at tradition, and I think they're both valid, okay?

One is a tradition is something that worked in the past because there's reasons for it, and maybe the people before us knew some things that we haven't figured out yet because we're younger than them in the scheme of things. The other way you can look at tradition is peer pressure exerted by dead people. That's really what tradition very often is,

is it's peer pressure from dead people. Why are we doing it this way? Because my great-grandmother did it that way. Your great-grandmother didn't have a smartphone. Your great grandmother did a whole bunch of things differently, some of which, by the way, make as much, if not more sense now, but some of which make no sense anymore. And how have we evolved as a culture to the point where if you said, my wife is my property, she was her father's property, and then he handed her to me in exchange

for me giving something to her and now I own her. Sounds pretty fire. Sounds fire, but some people would have an issue with it. Yet, what is a wedding ceremony? Most wedding ceremonies is the gives away the bride. It's symbolic of things that most women would find terribly offensive. But because we put all these cultural things around it, it's like, oh yes, buying a woman an engagement ring. Like how many women have you met that are so feminist

that they go, I'm not accepting you giving me some expensive thing as a way of purchasing. Is it there? Fuck that! You could be a Bella Abzug feminist and you would still be like, oh yeah, no, I want a big fucking rock, and it better not be lab-made. You know, like that's how it works.

I mean, I like Christmas presents. Yeah, yeah, sure. It's the same shit, it doesn't make any sense. It's the exact same. But we like nice things, right? And there's no problem with that. Of course. But I don't then create a whole fiction

as to why this is good for society. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think what we agree on is two people coming together to share love and then potentially raising a family together and not leaving each other to go fuck other people and create other families at the same time. Yeah, the kids are the biggest thing. Exactly. It is really good and beneficial for society.

I think we can all agree on that. And let's just use the term marriage for that. Okay. If, for example, every marriage required a prenup, meaning you couldn't get married unless you had agreed on the terms of that marriage. Now we've removed the government doing the prenup, which it seems to me is your biggest concern.

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

So what you wanna do is, so I think, what you're telling me, just because I don't want it to seem like you're anti-marriage, you're anti, no sorry, you're pro what we assume marriage is, which is this union, without this antiquated gunk that is then imposed on us if it doesn't go well. If it doesn't go well. Exactly. What my attitude is, by the way, and if you want to buy into any of the antiquated gunk,

you have every right to. And you're putting it in your freedom. But I think you and this person who you've picked out of eight billion other options, you're saying this is my person. Yeah, yeah. And who is more qualified than the two of you to agree on the rule set? I think reframing thing, and I'm sure you've done this in every single meeting, I'm more talking to the audience, but I think us reframing marriage in that way

and having a real cool understanding and fair conversation about what would make us both comfortable in this. And then you learn a lot about each other. By the way, and that's the point. So to me, that is the point. Because that's a conversation worth having. Even if you don't end up doing a prenup.

Having a conversation about, hey, what do we owe each other? What does this mean to you? Like, what do you expect of me? Because I want to meet your expectations. What do you want from me? And then you learn a lot about each other through that process. Because if some guy is marrying a girl,

then they have to do this prenup process. Because that's part of the merit. The government basically says this. Hey, our rules are kind of fucked up, we're going to give you a baseline, use some, don't use some, but we recommend you go get an attorney, and maybe there's even like a public office where they can do it, I don't know if that's first. It doesn't even have to be that complicated. But yeah, so you go do it. And then you can learn a lot, if the guy goes, by the way, in this prenup, I want to make sure that you don't deviate within 10 pounds of your weight right now. You'll learn what's

really important to that guy. And then you might go- I mean, don't you want to know that before you marry this fucking guy? And then you might go, I don't want to get married to this guy who- That's the time to worry about what she says to you. Well, you know, if you earn less than X number of dollars- I don't want to be with her. Well, I'd like to have that conversation before we've signed up for that contract. So, I think that's like a very fair way of approaching it, but I like this idea that you're not against the union.

And I think a lot of times when there's criticism of marriage, people think it's criticism of two people starting a family and loving each other. That's not it. We need that for society. That's a good tradition. Saying I do isn't saying I can. It's saying I'll try. At best.

At best. At best. At best, what you say when you say I do is you're saying I'm making you a promise. And if you're not fucking three, you know people break promises, right? So really what you're saying when you make a promise is I'm gonna really try.

I'm gonna try my best. I'm gonna try my best. I'm gonna try my best to love you. I'm gonna try my best. I'm gonna try my best. I'm gonna try my best to love you. I'm gonna try my best to take everything that you bring to this relationship and see it in good faith. And I'm not gonna attribute negative intentions. I'm gonna cheer for you and you're gonna cheer for me.

And I'm gonna see your blind spots. And when I have to call you out, I'm gonna do it with love. And I'm gonna try to say to you, babe, I think this is gonna hurt you long-term what you're doing right now. Like, what is more beautiful than that disagree with that awesome But again like why not call those terms out in advance and have that I think this is a super healthy way of Looking at marriage and if you're telling me right now that the legislation has already changed

To adjust some of the antiquated ideas that were there to obviously protect women, but now are no longer needed What you're basically saying is the government is going, hey, we gotta update the prenup. If the government has a prenup, they're basically going, marriages deserve prenups. And the government, by the way, is changing it, but they're changing it the way the government changes things, which is way late in the game.

So it's like they don't catch up. Like there's a reason why the IRS's lawyers and the tax lawyers that get paid millions of dollars, the tax lawyers that get paid millions of dollars are always four steps ahead of these fucking guys. Like the top of the class goes to work for these firms. Why? Because they have every incentive to do that.

So for me, saying, you know what, I trust the government so much that I know they'll change the law to protect me. That's the most naive thing I've ever heard of a human being say. And even if you wanna look at the government acting in good faith, they're like, hey, there are these people who go,

hey, we got a problem. There are these divorced women, they're fucking homeless right now, or they're going back to living with their parents, like they're starving to eat, they can't even take care of their kids, so now they're not around their kids. We gotta do something to protect that.

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

And they say, look, I've got a ton of money. You know, if in an alternate universe, you are you now, at your level of success, and you meet a lovely young woman, and you say, you know, if in an alternate universe, you are you now at your level of success, and you meet a lovely young woman and you say, you know what, let's get it, let's do this thing. Yeah. Do you mean, if you get divorced in three months, you should get half of everything? That's fucking crazy.

That's crazy. And I think even the government would say that that's not how it goes. That isn't how it works. Yeah. But maybe there was a time where it was. Well, and there's still very complicated things, which is how guys like me make a lot of money, because what happens is we have what's called transmutation, which is maybe there was a time where it was well, and there's still very complicated things Which is how guys like me make a lot of money because what happens is we have what's called transmutation Which is if you had a separate property asset meaning something you own before the marriage And then you get married and you mix an asset that you earn during the marriage or income earned during the marriage with your

Premarital money. Yes, you turn that the separate into marital So we have what's separate into marital. So we have what's called the marital presumption, which is basically, so like think of it, I always tell clients, think about it like, you know, your separate property pre-marital money is like a bowl of water, and marital money is like a drop of red dye.

You drop that in, you can't take it back out, the whole thing's pink. So you're doing renovations on it, with your marital money. Now all of a sudden you're saying the property becomes marital. It's all marital. Transmuted. But you could make the argument that by doing those renovations it increased the value of that property five million. 100%. And you know I get paid a lot of money per hour to make that argument.

And then the other lawyer gets paid a bunch of money by the hour to say no, no, no, there was no donative intent, there was no consideration. So the reality is, is why are we making money on this? Why couldn't the two of you in advance just sit down and say, you know what, let's put aside some, let's decide the rule set. If we put it in your name, it's this. If we put it in joint sets, we'll split it 50-50. If we use premarital money, we'll do it this way.

Have that fucking conversation. This is great, I love how, obviously you're an amazing communicator and you're very spirited about this, but the spirit to me seems to come from this place of, guys, this could be so much easier. And so much better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So much better.

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

And then once we get married, we start building this amazing life. And that's probably the majority of people that are getting married. The majority of people that aren't coming from $300 million. And by the way, people that don't have as the majority of people that aren't coming from $300 million. And by the way, people that don't have as much are the ones who really have to worry about

how do we divide it and protect it. Because if you got hundreds of millions of dollars, fucking you, you're not right. But if you're in a situation where most people, you're kind of basically getting by, well now you're gonna have two electric bills and two cable bills and two everything. So to me, what's so funny

is when early in my career... I'm sorry to cut you here, but it is really interesting to, like, understand your perspective on this. You're not against the institution. You're like, it could be so much more... It just could be better. And you've gone through so many where you're like, we're still bickering over this because you guys

didn't make this very easy decision early on. And I just don't think it makes it unromantic. Yeah. Like, we all know life ends. How do you cross that bridge? Yeah, how would you? Does that mean life's not, like, did you ever go like, well, I'm gonna die someday, so I might as well just die now?

Like, no, like, the beauty is going through the press. Like, you're watching a movie and someone says, oh, the movie's gonna end. You don't go, well, fuck it, I'm not even gonna watch it. Like, no, the beauty is to watch the movie and know that this is a temporary thing. Look, look, the movie's gonna end. You don't go, well, fuck it, I'm not even gonna watch it. Like, no, the beauty is to watch the movie and know that this is a temporary thing. Look, look, every marriage ends. It ends in death or in divorce. Your marriage will end, I promise.

I hope it ends in death. That's a weird thing to say to a person. I hope your marriage ends in death, but I do. I hope that's how your marriage ends. Because the only two options are just gonna end in death or but I do. I hope that's how your marriage ends. Because the only two options are just gonna end in death or divorce. So you have life insurance. No one ever would look at you and go,

you're so morbid with that life insurance. Why would you think you have to do that? I'm protecting these people that I love. I know something's good. Okay, so what is wrong with two people? When I was early in my career, I decided, I thought, you know what? You did these wedding fairs.

Have you ever seen, I don't know if any of you were forced to do, you chose well if you didn't have to do this. This is good. You did well with the women in your lives. Where you go see a bunch of vendors or something? Yes. My wife did that.

OK, so she made you go? She didn't make you go? No. She's my sister. That's fantastic. Listen, this is next, but this is not. You ever want to see sad men? Have that thing, like they're just like, it's like if you took her to the car show.

She's just like, what the fuck are we doing here? So, but these things, they have photographers, the cake people, the invitations, the little sweatshirts. All of them, the whole wedding industrial complex. The whole crew. They are, please, I'm not the scavenger in this. I don't make it rain, I sell the umbrella. These fucking people, they're monsters.

They're full on monsters. They convince her, it's like you're actually gonna have a wedding and not give away scented candles. You don't care about your family, I guess you don't have to have the scented candles. She's you don't have to have the Senate candles. She's like, babe, we need Senate candles. But I went and I said, hey, listen, can I get a table? Can I have a table?

You pay like 10 grand, can I have a table? Just for prenups. Just for prenups. I said, and I promised I'll do it very respectfully and say, hey, congratulations on your engagement, let's talk about prenups. They wouldn't take my fucking money. They wouldn't let me in the door. Because, and why?

Because there's a fucking fantasy they're selling people and don't let reality get into the fantasy. For me, I think I'm actually a true romantic because I like reality. Like, and my attitude is I like somebody who looks at the situation and goes, you know what? Whether we win, whether we lose, let's play this fucking game.

Like, let's do this thing, let's try. Like, let's shoot for it. Like, this is a game we can't win. We're either gonna die and lose each other, or we're gonna divorce and lose each other, but fuck it, I wanna take this ride. Could you make the argument that going through that prenup process could lengthen the marriage?

Well here's what I'll tell you. I've been doing prenups for 25 years. 25 years I've been doing prenups and I always end up having a good relationship with the person at the end of the transaction because unlike a divorce it's not protracted, it's relatively inexpensive. I've probably only had to do three divorces, four divorces of people I didn't prenup with. This is interesting to talk about. I think it's a self-selecting group.

What are the percentages? Okay, so we know what the percentage of divorces for marriage. What is the percentage of divorce for pre-nup? You'll never know. And here's why. A pre-nup's not filed anywhere. I have celebrity clients who I did their pre-nup. That'd be really impressive.

And they are doing interviews saying, oh, we don't have a prenup It's in my safe I wrote it but they tell people because why it's one of those things Everything I need to here's the cake. Oh, here's this ticket out flowers. No one's ever like here's the signing the prenup because everybody goes Yeah, they got a point, you know You know, it's all social stigma. And there's no reason for, we have to normalize prenups. We have to democratize prenups. We have to, by the way, prenups are the, they are so unbelievably easy for attorneys to draft.

No one is making a bunch of money on prenups. Like, we make our money on litigation. We make money on the way out, not on the way in. So the truth is, like there is no reason why it has to be reserved for the wealthy. This is something that can be democratized. There can be an access to justice. People could go, even with AI technology that's out there now.

I was gonna say, chat GBT. Listen, I've been involved in a startup called Trusted Preenup. And our thing is gonna be, we are gonna democratize prenups. It's coming soon because AI has made it possible now for there to be like a tree menu where people go in and go,

okay, what do we wanna do with Alamo? Okay, what do we wanna do when it comes to our states? What do we wanna do? And you can just pick and put it together, spit that document out. And by the way, it's not filed anywhere. You don't have to tell anybody that you did it, it can just be a discussion between you and this partner that you tell

the most intimate things to, you have the most intimate experiences with, why can't you have honest conversations about that? So hearing that, are the three of you guys gonna get post-nups? No, for sure not, I mean, it's gonna be really bad for, I'm gonna have him watch this episode, so it's not gonna get posted.

And he's gonna show it to every girl. Right, baby, have him watch this episode. So I'm not going to get one third. And he's going to show it to every girl. Like, baby, once you watch this, is that last week? You had different haircuts. You're like, no, that was a rerun, but it was a good one. Our wives are going to watch this episode. He said something about Abraham Lincoln, very racist. You know, it was a whole issue. We had to cuss because we got two hands.

No, I think our wives are going to watch this episode for sure. I'm curious their perspective on it, but I... I texted Mark this morning and I said, I was like, you got to tell your wife that you're spending the day with a divorce lawyer. Like, you'll definitely get something. I brought that up three days ago. Yeah. I was like, by the way, you know, we're going to have this divorce attorney.

Yeah, my wife was definitely like, why are you having him on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your wives have never met me and all hate me, but hopefully by the end of this episode, they're like, you know, he's kind of a romantic, doesn't sound so bad. You are pro-marriage, you're just anti-marriage without a prenup.

Well, what I'll say is, I think it's irresponsible to marry without a prenup. I'm not again listening. People wanna do dumb shit. Like, you can jump out of planes. Like, I don't fucking care. You wanna do some dumb shit, do some dumb shit. Just admit people want to do dumb shit like You want to do some dumb shit do some dumb shit, yeah, just admit you're doing some dumb shit I'm an Indian kid who's a stand-up comic you know I'm new to dumb shit is at least own it. You know what I mean? Yeah, believe me. Yeah, it's very weird. Fuck, cause Merrick is like,

lottery, you're probably not gonna win. But if you win, it's so fucking good. Buy ticket, whatever man, do it. But I'm just the kind of guy who likes to, I don't go into the casino and go, yeah, I'll bet money, how much? I don't know, whatever you guys decide. Like that's fucking crazy.

No, it is high risk, high reward. And I think anybody who believes differently, it's crazy. It is high risk, high reward. I just think if you play and you do... And one thing, you brought up a car analogy. One thing I laugh at is people who are like... You know, you get a car, you get an oil change every 3,000 miles each, a transmission.

You get all the constant maintenance. Marriage, people are like, no, you don't need to go to counseling. You do it one time, maybe you're done forever. Well, what's even more amazing about marriage, if you want to take the car analogy a little bit further, like, all right, so you get married in your 20s or your 30s, right?

All right, when you're 20 years old, if I said to you, you can have any car in the world, what car do you want? You'd be like Ferrari, Lamborghini, whatever, Aston Martin, anything. It might be a muscle car, okay? You're, and then after you bought it, I saw, by the way, it's the only car

you're ever gonna have your whole fucking life. You'd be like, wait, what? Because I don't wanna be 80 getting out of a Ferrari. I'm gonna, if I have kids, where am I gonna put the car seat? Marriages, you are choosing this person, and theoretically, you are saying, in your 20s or 30s, you are saying, this person for the rest of my life.

Now again, at best, it's like those trees that grow next to each other and then become entwined and it's like they grow together and they become something different, but they become something different together. So like that's amazing when it's done the right way. But to suggest that like, oh, it'll never change, we're always gonna be like we were when we fell in love,

that's foolish. Jim, Jim, Jim, you need to switch the name. So it's called, I don't know why Al's been laughing at me. I got lost when Al Kosh was like, I don't know what he was saying. He's a car. But Al's been laughing at me and then I started going like, am I making a weird face? Does it look like I'm regretting my marriage? No regretting the marriage face and you don't have okay But I think that prenup is already so stained like it's just so stained Yeah, I think that if you called it like estate planning

Mm-hmm like for example like my wife and I did like estate planning and you're just playing for the worst-case scenario What if I die what if she died what if everybody died fucked up was that oh, it's awful Like for example, my wife and I did estate planning. And you're just playing for the worst case scenario. What if I die, what if she die, what if everybody die? How fucked up was that coming? Oh, it's awful. When you're like, what if we both die? And you're like, oh my God. What if we both die and your sister dies?

And then you're like, oh shit. It's horrifying, it's really fucked up. But really important. But it is important, and at no point during it was it this contentious thing, because you're all looking out for the best case scenario of everything. And I think prenup is already so radioactive.

It's like, what is another thing you could do? But I really like that idea of like, because you said it best. You're like, whatever it is, the government has a prenup for you, whether you like it or not. And most people don't even know what that means. And it changes depending on what state you're in.

That's the part that scares me the most. Which is the government can change it anytime time they want. And you could move to a different state and live there long enough and now I think that state takes a... Yeah, they take precedence. You've been there six months, they have jurisdiction. So the reality is there is nobody that doesn't have a prenup. Everyone has a prenup. So you could look into what it is. The thought that someone can change the terms and conditions and you can't opt out. Yeah, yeah, this is the education I think the Americans would.

Well, and that's the funny thing, because a lot of like, I did an interview with Matt Walsh a bunch of months ago on the Daily Wire, and he was all about no fault divorce, no fault divorce is the worst. What does that mean? So New York is a no fault state. Most states are now no fault states, which means you don't have to prove

why you're getting divorced. You don't have to have fault. It used to be you had to show adultery, you had to show incurable mental illness, you had to call abandonment. So it was great for lawyers because we had the, before we even got into the real fight, we had to get into a fight

of are you allowed to get divorced, okay? So the states eventually said, look, this is stupid. If one person in the marriage has decided the marriage is over, guess what? The marriage is over, so now we're no fault. Well, a lot of people on the far right, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, it was like their big flavor at the moment for a little while was they were saying

no fault divorce is the worst thing in the whole wide world. Because it incentivizes divorce in a way? Well, it's kind of like saying, we gotta get rid of all these emergency rooms because everybody who's in there has broken bones, so people must be breaking bones so they can go to the emergency room. That's fucking ridiculous.

Yeah, that's a lot. No, they didn't break it. This is just there to solve the problem. They have to pretend to care about sanctity. What I said to Matt is, look, why wouldn't we have, why would you have barriers to exit? Why don't you have barriers to entry? Why don't you have barriers to entry? Why don't you have, you have to take a class, or you have to sit down with a person who

went through an ugly divorce, or Catholics, they have the pre-Kena, where you got to sit down and you talk to couples who've been married for 30, 40 years, and the guy says, look, you're going to have to say I'm sorry for some shit you're not sorry for. That's part of being married. You go, all right, cool, I can live with that. Have some barriers to entry. Like I adopted a dog from ACC in New York City. You know how much fucking paperwork I had to fill out?

They wanted to know my third grade English teacher's name. Like they wanted to know, like did Mrs. Soibel, does she think you'd be good? If she hadn't seen me in 40 years, you need to have a, you want a piss test? Like I'm adopting a dog you were gonna kill in two days. Like just give me the fucking dog. Get married, 50 bucks you can pay all this in Vegas and you're married.

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Anyway, let's get back to the show. All right guys, I have a question for you. What do a mechanic and auto shop owner in Georgia, a taco restaurant operator in Arizona, and a life-saving medical innovator in Tennessee have in common? They're all small business owners thriving on TikTok. In the US

alone, over 7.5 million businesses, and I'm talking everything from family-owned shops to entrepreneurs who own tons of shit and are simply looking to get more rich, they're always in TikTok. It's how you compete, it's how you grow. 74% of businesses on TikTok say it's allowed them to scale operations, increase sales, and expand in new locations. And you know what that means? That means U.S. jobs. There are over 7.5 million U.S. businesses on TikTok employing more than 28 million people, and that number keeps growing. Small businesses thrive on TikTok. So if you've got a small business, you can learn more about TikTok's contribution to

the economy at TikTokEconomicImpact.com. My wife is on TikTok now, and Andrew's entire goal is to make her make more money than me and make my life miserable. TikTok, that's a platform that will ruin my marriage, but I'm okay with it because if she leaves me, I'm coming after her money. Let's get back to the show. You know, it's interesting. Back in the day, I had a different business manager and this is when we were about to

get married. The business manager hit me up on the side. He's like, by the way, I think that we should get this prenup settled or whatever like that. And I was operating with good faith, right? So I was like, well, why don't you just get a lawyer and then my wife and I will talk to the lawyer and then we'll see what the things are, right? Well, you're already smiling

because you know where this is going. Yeah, I know where it's going. Because I'm like, let's just figure out what these things are. She's not against it. And we talk to the lawyer and the lawyer goes, well, I don't know if I should be having this call with you and your wife.

And I'm like, well, I'm not trying to fuck over my wife. It's called potentially adverse interests. But there's the perfect example of how could you then go forward with this agreement if, obviously it's rational, but how can you go forward with this agreement if the first time you're talking to a lawyer, he basically says, hey, she shouldn't be on

because we're gonna try to fuck her. Right, right. To me, I literally was going, just give me a lawyer so they can explain what's going on, and then if this is something that we even feel like we should do, we'll- And I can't say, well, because here's the thing. What the lawyer is saying, and they don't say it

in artful ways, but what lawyers are saying in that situation is you have potentially adverse interests. More for you is less for her, less for you is more for her, right? So, but see again, this is all stuff that technology has made easier. So people come to me and they go, look, my fiance and I wanna talk to you about a prenup.

I go, look, I'm not allowed to counsel you both, but here's what we can do. Let's do it via Zoom, record the entire thing. She will hear everything. You can play it for whoever you want, including your fiance. I can't give her legal advice, but I can give you legal advice,

and you can play for her every word I say to you so that she doesn't feel intimidated. But see, this is the reality is we can do it, solve for the actual problem. So what you're saying is you're absolutely right. We're taking an adversarial system and you're hiring lawyers whose job theoretically is to protect their individual client

at the expense of the other. Which by the way, one of the things I'm least proud of my colleagues for is we're so used to dealing with warring tribes and divorce that then when we're doing a prenup, we approach it the same way. And these fucking people are getting in a car and driving home together.

Like this is not the same thing as a divorce. So there should be a different approach. And there can be, we just have to rethink the way we do it. Even the language, it was like, yeah, we just want to protect you. And I go, well, my wife's not trying to kill me. She's not trying to hurt me. Why are you using this language

as if she's trying to do something nefarious? Protect me from what? Protect me from what? Why aren't we protecting ourselves? That's why I'm saying the way that we approach this, and as you've talked about on the pod, I think it's been really healthy, which is like, hey, just come together on an agreement

that you think is superior than the agreement that the government is gonna impose on you. Who wouldn't agree to that? Totally useful, it makes total sense, it's a much easier sell. And by the way, I think what you said earlier is absolutely correct. Why isn't there a neutral party?

It's an opportunity for people to have a really important discussion. But why isn't there a lawyer that wouldn't represent each party, but just someone you could go to for information? There are ways to do it. There are people that do it that way. There should be, there are that.

There are lawyers who work collaboratively who'll say, let's all meet together. We each have a lawyer. There's people that work in mediation to mediate a prenup. There's a lot of ways to do more than one path up the mountain. Like you don't even have to do the prenup, but just inform us. Maybe we work it all out with you and then we get it. There's so many ways to do it. But again, we're just used to doing it one way. We've handed it off to an adversarial system.

And so to a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Like to a person who argues for a living, everything looks like an invitation to have a fucking argument. You know, I get paid to be paranoid. Like my mother tells me she loves me, I ask for references.

Like that's my job. Like that's my job, because I see the worst in people all day long. That's heavy. You know, so what you have to do is you have to get to a place where you go, OK, look, this is a conversation. Like I guarantee when you and your wife

did that estate planning, you probably had to have some conversations about like, hey, something happens. Like who watches the kids? Like, and what do we do about this? And do we trust that family member? Are they responsible enough? But I tell you, I bet that that deepens the level

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

100%. So to me, like early on in a relationship, when you're still madly in love with each other and you're about to sign up for this, I'm marrying you, it's gonna be you, you, and only you, that's the time to say, you know what, if we ever hurt each other, if we ever, what do we owe each other, how do we handle that?

How do I love you, how do I make you feel safe? That's a great time to have that conversation. Yeah, yeah, this is really healthy. I really think there should be a neutral party that you could go to for information about the laws in the state you are. There are, there's mediators. You can go to a mediator.

I think that'd be helpful. You can go to an attorney and say to the attorney, look, I just wanna have an educational conversation about this, I don't want you to draft the prenup necessarily. Again, I think you're gonna see in the coming years, I intend to be part of it, you're gonna see more of the democratization of prenups. Because I think the younger generation,

like I'm older than all of you, and I have to tell you, one of the things, like I look at my 20-something-year-old sons, and I have a lot of hope for the future, because I think that you're looking at a situation and going, okay, but why do we do it that way? Like, why do we do it? We don't have to do it that way.

And it's okay for people to say, hey, you know what, we can do it however we want to do it. That's, it just left a bad taste in both of our mouths. Like, I understood, like, where the business manager was coming from because he probably has these clients that got a bunch of gold diggers trying to go after him. But it's like, I don't have that relationship with my wife.

Like, we didn't have, I mean, I had a couple bucks, but like, it's not what it was now, and we were operating in good faith. It wasn't even like, how do we keep this from you? And then these lawyers are on the side or trying to talk to me going, hey, well, you know, they should have somebody else do it, and then we don't talk, and I'm like,

guys, this feels like I'm trying to screw over the person that I'm about to spend the rest of my life with, and I don't feel comfortable with that. But I'd tell you something, look, your career has been characterized by being somewhat iconoclastic. Like I've been a fan since the 441 days. Ah, respect, thank you.

And I'm sure when you said, I'm gonna put this out myself, some people who genuinely care about you and genuinely wanted to see you succeed, said, dude, don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime. And by the way, they were not trying to mislead you. They weren't trying to hurt you.

It's not that they didn't trust you. They were looking at it and going, dude, I don't wanna see it go wrong for you. Okay, so people can in very good faith give very fucking bad advice. Right? Because if that's the right way to do it, they did it fucking wrong. Oh, it reflects their own decision. They did it wrong, right?

Because if you go, no, no, I'm going to do it this way, and you knock it out of the park like you did, they go, well, what the fuck was that? Why did I do it this other way? And the answer is, because it was peer pressure from dead people. No, that's, you're right. We get caught up in these antiquated systems and they either work for us or we believe that we're invested in them and then we don't want to break things. And yet, and I don't mean to use you as an example, I'm not picking on you. Please.

You had the intelligence to think of this and the balls to try it. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. And yet, when it comes to getting married, there was never the thought of like, oh, you know, why am I gonna let the government impose a rule set, why wouldn't we figure out

a way to do it, now why? I don't blame you for that, I think it's just never been a conversation we have as a society. My parents also had a really good marriage, and I think when you come from broken marriages, it's a lot easier to look at how badly it could go. And I think that I'm very lucky to come from a very healthy marriage. And so in my mind, I'm like, oh yeah, it's just gonna go like that.

So maybe there's a little naivete in there. Right, and listen, I think there's a beauty to that. I wish I knew no astronomy when the stars appear. Like I think, you know, I liked it when I was like, look at the pretty lights in the sky. When you're like, oh, actually, that's something that flamed out a million years ago, and the lights just reaching. I was like, oh, fuck.

I wish I didn't know that. I just thought it was nice. Ignorance is bliss. Yeah. So I think there's something very beautiful about not knowing this stuff. But again, I am a fan. Like, I think the truth is actually even more beautiful.

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

Everything you love, you're gonna lose some day. So to love something is to accept the inevitability that it's going to break your fucking heart someday. And yet we do it anyway because it's the best thing. Because life is better with it. Right. So to me, that makes it more beautiful to say, you know what, if you break my fucking heart, it will have been worth it. It will have been worth it because we got to do this. Sold. Sold. Akash is getting a prenup. All right. Good.

Wait, can we ask the cultural questions? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Who's the worst in divorce? Culturally, ethnically, racially. Wow. Wow. Wow. Like who's the most ruthless? Who like treats the... Those are a bunch of different questions you just threw all at me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what I'll say is, like, the Russians... Russians, there's...

Chekhov's plays are dark for a fucking reason. Like, the winters are long. Like, Russians come in sometimes to professional hit. Like, they get cold. Really? The husband to the wife, you're saying? Or the wife to the husband? Wife more so, even. Russian women are... We used to call them the Red Menace sometimes in the courthouse.

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

And anyone who's ever dated a Latina woman, they will burn your fucking house down and then ask who Maria was who called. And you're like, that's from work. She's like, well, you should have told me that before. And you're like, before you burn the fucking house down? So that can be bad. Russian women, in my experience professionally,

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

So that's- Give an example of like, you don't have to give obviously a person, but something that they might've asked you to do or told you about. Oh, I mean, they'll surveil the guy. Like they'll have people follow him. They'll blow him up to the IRS.

I've had a couple of people come up to the IRS. Yeah. And they'll shoot first up to the IRS. I've had a couple of people come up to the IRS. Yeah, and they'll shoot first and ask questions later. Like they'll call the IRS and they'll go, by the way, I called the IRS. Not, I'm thinking about calling. So I can go, that's a terrible fucking idea. Like, nope, they're like, oh, I did it already. And you're like, okay, then I guess let's figure out

what we're gonna do with that. So that's a big one. Terms of who, I mean, I will say, again, I'm being very stereotypical, Italian women, a lot of Italian women in my experience, they're the most willing to put up with infidelity. They're the most willing to put up with infidelity. They're the most willing to put up with infidelity.

They're okay with the gumanas? The gumanas, yeah. No, it's just kind of like, What is it, Friday's for the gumanzas? No, it's just kind of like... What is it, Friday's for the gumanzas? It's like he's making a fool of himself. But it's like, don't bring him to restaurants we go to. Don't bring your fucking whore around with people. So like, if you... No, but it really is.

It's like, I don't want to don't ask, don't tell. But if somebody sees you out with the girlfriend you make you're embarrassing me Yeah, you're making a fool of me now like you're running around with some girl You're making a fool of yourself and you go ahead make a fucking fool of yourself But you run around with some girl in our frenzy you're making a fool of me. That's a different vibe Why do you think that is culturally? I don't know. I'm not Italian. So, you know, I'm German, we're all about the Blitzkrieg. But I don't really... Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think it's all cultural.

I think it's the way people... Like what you said, you observe your parents' marriage, you observe the marriage of people in your family, and you just sort of go, okay, this is how marriage is. So there are a lot, culturally, the idea of a guman, like the idea of, like, you know, men are fucking idiot, they run around, whatever. Who does he come home to, who does he take care of, who does he love, who does he have kids with, that's what matters.

Maybe it's like certain cultures place more value on different things. So if he's like a dedicated husband, he's a provider, a protector, there's a lot of emphasis on those things. And if he's killing it in those three things, and then he does this little shit on the side, whereas there might be other cultures, I think American culture puts a lot of emphasis on fidelity. Tremendous. And maybe more so than European cultures.

Yeah, America has, I mean, the French, I think, find infidelity charming. Yeah. Like, you know, it's sort of like, well, you know. I've been taking my wife to Paris for years, bro. Not rubbing off. Well, don't leave her alone. Yeah, but it is, there's sort of like a sense of,

you know, it's where existentialism came from. They invented, you know, existentialism, democracy, and the ménage à trois. We like indulgences. Three pretty good things, you know. They came up with a lot, and one of the things, they look at it like, yeah, people have dalliance, because there's a difference between an affair

and a dalliance. Like a dalliance is, like you said earlier, like you do some dumb shit, you hook up with this person, it doesn't really mean anything to you, you told them you're a race car driver named Steve, like who the fuck cares? I'm not making that personal. I was a race car driver, no.

So the truth is, I think there's a difference between that and an ongoing affair. You know, like I found my soul mate and it's this other person. That's a whole different level of stupid. I didn't understand the difference until getting married now. I'm like, oh, I see, that's a whole different thing.

It's a whole different thing. Well, and that's where I, like, people put in prenups sometimes. People put in infidelity clauses sometimes. In the prenup. Interesting. And I discourage people from doing that because in order to make something legally enforceable,

you have to define it. And so how do you define infidelity? Because if you define infidelity as like genital contact, that's one thing, but like which would be more upsetting? Like that your ex got drunk and kissed some dude or that she was texting this guy every single day and confiding her most personal secrets in with him? And like that to me, that's much more of a betrayal.

It depends on how much less work I have to do honestly. Yeah, yeah. Because she's not really annoying me. Like you're like delegating that. Exactly, that's exactly the word I use. Yeah, yeah. 1000%, yeah. That's better.

But again, personal decisions, right? Like this is a personal choice. Everybody's going to have a different definition of what it is that's offensive to them. A conversation worth having. What is cheating to you? You know, what constitutes cheating? This is going to become more and more relevant.

What's the weirdest thing that you've constituted as cheating in a prenup? I discourage those clauses, so usually I don't put them in there, and I get people, I talk people out of them because I'm good at persuading people. But the weirdest infidelity clause I ever put in is that they wanted to very strictly define what constituted infidelity. So like oral genital contact and genital to genital contact. And then there was a whole-

Oral to genital? No, no, no, no, no. What was great- Somebody's got to do it. You know what I mean? What's going on? What I thought was so funny is they wanted to talk about digital to genital contact, meaning digitally.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, first of all, I thought it was kind of- Get out, grow up, grow up. Because I was like, like, like hand jobs? Like that's a thing? Yeah. Like I thought it was like a Betamax. It's like outdated technology.

Like how do you give a hand job? Like you'd be a fucking grown-up use your mouth like that's No, that is that woman is smart because that's the massage part. Yeah, she's finding a way around That girl is on anal is open still though. Yeah, it seems like radically open Yeah, well actually that would there be an anal loophole. Yeah Not say did like anal to genital contact. As an attorney, that's what we do. I looked at Mark's head went there first. Mark found a loophole.

You're always like that. Yeah, you're hired. This comedy thing doesn't work out, you're hired. Okay, before we get out of here, what you were gonna mention the super high net worth of states and just the history of marriage in general. Yeah. Well, how does marriage start?

Well, marriage, I mean, you know, marriage as a legal definition, not the idea of a pair bond and two people, that started in a cave somewhere. But marriage, legal marriage started essentially during feudalism. It was essentially we were joining clans. We were bringing annexing lands, bringing together armies.

Like it was some Game of Thrones shit. Like it was basically people saying, we're joining our families together. We're having children together and merging these clans, merging these lands, merging these armies. It was essentially a land and wealth preservation technique. So it was a financial agreement more so than an emotional one. And then the idea of people marrying for love

was a very different thing. How old is that concept? Absolutely, and then the idea of people marrying for love was a very different thing. How old is that concept? That concept goes back to like the, I mean, depends on how, yeah, I mean, look, I think there was always a romantic element to things, there was always a connection, but the idea that like arranged marriage

was not the right move and that you should choose who it is that you wanna marry and that it should be based on the criteria of who you find sexually attractive and compelling as a human being. That's like the 40s and the 50s is when the hallmark cards started that shit. What most people call love today was something

that was invented in the 50s to sell shampoo. Wow. Like the idea that like, you know, I just have this feeling in the pit of my stomach and that means we should sign up for a governmental contract and then fuck. Like that is not, like that's, you had to sell that to people and you sold it kind of insidiously

without telling them the whole thing. Nobody read the terms and conditions on that. So I really think the idea of modern marriage is very, very different than what our grandparents signed up for. And it needs different requirements. I think it needs, I mean, there is no scenario where, I forget who was who said it, but we are

primitive biological creatures living in medieval institutions, holding God-like technology in our hands. How do you think that ends? Like, you think it ends well? Or do you think it ends with some really uncomfortable shit that we've gotta get our hands in and figure out right and all I'm suggesting like all of my public work Yeah, is about saying because I is just to say to people look guys like I love love Yeah, but I don't believe in fucking fairy tales, right?

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

Yeah, beautifully said. Any other questions, boys? Who has the most volatile divorces, heteros, gays, or lesbians? That's a great question. Lesbians, lesbian couples have the highest rate of domestic violence. I remember saying to a colleague of mine, a gay man,

an attorney, the first time I did a lesbian divorce, I said to him, wow, man, this is fucking ugly. And he looked at me and he went, it's two women. And I went, okay. So that's, I mean, yeah. Sometimes Al asks a question he knows the answer to. Lesbian drama can be a big thing. Gay men, you know, gay men, it's changed a lot

because there was a time where gay men very often didn't have kids. And there were even like countries that refused to let gay men adopt and there was not surrogacy law and reproductive rights hadn't gone where it is now. And there wasn't marriage equality. So like gay men had a lot of assets. Because if you don't have fucking kids, you get a lot of extra money. Like for real, if you didn't have kids, you're like, yeah, that's a Ferrari, this kid,

and this kid's a fucking house in the Hamptons. You got kids are expensive. So gay men just, they didn't have kids, so they just had tons of fucking assets and they would argue over them. In terms of vitriol, I don't think there's a pattern to it. I think the reality is everybody brings a different kind of crazy to it.

And divorce doesn't make people crazy. It just takes the crazy they had and turns the volume way up on it. So if someone was already anxious, now they're gonna have a full-on panic disorder. If someone was, because that's the part that's funny to me. What's really funny to me is people come in

and they'll say to me with a straight face, I can't believe my husband's being such a vindictive, cheap asshole. And I go, really, like during the marriage, was like, what was he like? And she's like, oh, he was a vindictive, cheap asshole. I'm like, well, you're divorcing the fucking person you were married to.

Like if this person was petty as fuck and nasty and selfish and okay, then that's who they're gonna be when they get divorced. Like if you're married to a realistic person who's prone to compromise and concedes the possibility of their own error, when you get divorced, that's who they get. Like my ex-wife's a lovely fucking person.

Like I love her, she's great. There's a lot of people I love but wouldn't wanna be fucking married. How was your divorce with her? Super friendly. We went to a mediator, we figured out what it was. Cause I've been wondering. Kids were five and seven, we've had 20 years since then.

She's remarried, couldn't be happier to a great guy who's fucking nothing like me. Like patient, quiet, sensitive. She was married to me for a number of years and I'd come home and she'd start telling me about her day and I'd be like, all right, come on, skip to the end. Let's go, we gotta just fucking move. I got three stand up fucking comics here

and I'm running the conversation. Like, I don't even think she stood a chance. Like, and the guy she's married to now, like, she just, you know, she'll sit there and he'll tell her, and then my cousin said this, and he's like, and he's genuinely interested. Like, he's genuinely interested. And I look at him, I'm like, we are made different.

We're just made different, and he's perfect for her. I love it enough to be like, he's perfect for her. Like, And I look at him, I'm like, we are made different. We're just made different. And he's perfect for her. I love it enough to be like, he's perfect for her. And I look at that. But that's what, when I married her, that's who she was. When I had kids with her, that's who she was. And that's why we've had a really, and by the way, I do not believe that that marriage was unsuccessful because it ended in divorce.

It produced two amazing kids who loved their mother, loved their father, like, get along with all of us, like, they're healthy, well-adjusted young men. So to me, like, just because something ends doesn't mean it wasn't successful. And I think we have to approach relationships that way. That's why, again, having the conversation early on, when you're still madly in love and in that romantic,

that's the time to talk about, like, look at... having the conversation early on, when you're still madly in love and in that romantic, well that's the time to talk about, like look at, if a person says to you, if every ex-boyfriend they have, they're like that guy was a piece of shit, da da da, or every ex-girlfriend you have, you're like she was such a piece of shit, that tells you something about this fucking person.

Either that they have a bismally bad judgment, or maybe you're the fucking problem. And so I think it's worthwhile to have conversations when things start about how they end. What's the dumbest reason you've ever seen for a divorce? Just on a personal basis. The dumbest one? Stupid. We had a lot of weird political divorces since 2016.

No way. Wow. Oh yeah. People that were like, yay divorces since 2016. No way. Wow. Oh yeah. People that were like, yeah, he watches Fox News, I'm out. That's unbelievable. Like he watches Newsmax, I'm gone. Like a lot of like he voted for Trump.

Just cause he has good taste. Yeah, no, but for real, like political shit. I had- I bet you wanted that sum of money. I've always said the saddest one I ever had was this guy was in his like late eighties and he left his wife of like 50 or 60 years for a 50-something-year-old woman that he was having an affair with.

Robin the Crane. And what was saddest about it to me was not that this 60-year marriage was ending. It was that, holy shit, I'm still going to be led around by my dick when I'm in my 80s. I legit thought I'm not gonna be chained to an idiot forever. I thought in my 80s, a beautiful woman would walk by and I would be like, oh, a human being. I would just think, and instead, I'm like, oh my God,

I'm gonna be 86 and still wanna fucking chase skirt? That's fucked. We're never gonna be free. So that to me was, but like yeah, people get divorced for some crazy shit. What's the most petty thing you saw in a divorce? I once had a divorce that was, there was a $25 million marital estate.

We, they burned several hundred thousand dollars each in council fees. We'd gone through a bunch of litigation. We managed to settle the case, and the only thing we were down to was the division of personal property, and we couldn't agree on who got a $45 toaster oven, and the settlement blew up.

Wow. The settlement blew up. Wow. $45 fucking dollar. Did you not just go all by myself? I actually did that. I actually said, I'm on Amazon right now, prime delivery. I will buy everyone in this room this toaster.

If we could just sign the fucking deal. Because it's never about the toaster. It wasn't about the fucking toaster. For all of you. But I will tell you, I mean, I have a lot of stories, but I will tell you, this is one you'll appreciate. So I had a client who was a devout, fundamentalist Christian.

And he was later convicted actually of molesting kids and went to jail. But that's a side note. See, it's not just Catholics. It's not just Catholics. Yeah, it's not just Catholics. Yeah, it's all of you. But it's not just all of you.

No, but it was a great, he was a client that was, he had a lot of money. And we had worked very hard to negotiate a settlement of his case. And worked very hard to negotiate a settlement of his case. And the day comes to sign the settlement and to do what's called a voir dire, which is what the judge says to each party. Do you understand the settlement? Did you agree to it or you own the duress?

So these are the steps. But like it was great. I got him a great deal, like a great deal. Like this was way better than it would have been at trial and he didn't have to go through the trial and this was great for him. And he meets me at the courthouse the morning of it and he says, Jim, I need to talk to you. I spoke to God last night. I prayed on it. Oh boy. And God said to me that I should not, that I should take it to trial. And I said, that is a terrible idea. And I explained to him again, here's all the

ways that we're getting value here, here's all the things, this is a terrible idea. And I explained to him again, here's all the ways that we're getting value here. Here's all the things. This is what it should be. And he said, no, I'm sorry. I prayed on it. And the Lord has said to me, you know. So of course, it fucking blew up. The whole thing went haywire.

We start the trial. The lunch break, I go back and my partner, Colin, it's been my law partner for many years, I go back to him and I tell him what happened. And he looks at me and he goes, you know, you played that all wrong, Jim. I said, what? He goes, what you should have said is,

what time did you talk to God? 10.30? Okay. At 11, I talked to him. And he said, Jim, my son in whom I am well pleased, my blessings upon you. By the way, are you going to see Steve later? When you do, tell him, forget that shit I said earlier, you should take the deal. He was like, it's unfalsifiable.

I tried to hit him back with the voicemail. Yeah, just say it, just say it. He's like, if you can't disprove what God said to him, he can't disprove what God said to you. You could've just said, I talked to God a half hour later and he said, take the fucking deal. So if that ever happens to me again, I'm gonna die. Were you kind of satisfied when you saw it go against him in court and does that happen?

Or like, you're in court, you realize this person sucks and it- Under the doctrine of fuck around and find out. Yeah. He fucked around and he found out. I mean, you know, and there's, listen, man, I give people advice and I tell clients all the time, like, look, 850 bucks an hour,

I'll mow your fucking lawn, I don't care. Like I was a waiter, I've done worse shit for less money. Yeah, yeah. But like, you're paying me for advice. So if you want to pay me for advice and ignore it, go ahead, your shit blows up, it's good for me. Yeah, yeah. Like the more protracted your case is,

the better it is for me. I'm trying to put myself out of business here. Like I'm trying to settle your case. But if you wanna fuck around and find out, fuck around and find out. So those cases where you're in court and you realize, oh, I'm representing the villain. Does that shift your, like without you,

you can't help it, it just like affects the way you not at all. Not at all. Because yeah, I'm wondering. It's not at work for me. Like, like I look at it as a it's a it's a legal issue. It's a puzzle. It's strategy. Like just like I think if a if a doctor, you know, is operating on a patient and he finds out that patient is a horrible person in real life, it's like, right, but I'm looking at this as like plumbing. I'm looking at this as like, this is a problem I'm trained to fix. Like I have a God-given talent. Like I don't know how it came about,

but like I see seven moves ahead in a courtroom. Like half the time, I don't even know why I'm making an argument I'm making. And then when I think about it, I go, oh, I did that. So they would do this so that then I could do this, that then would make the judge. Like, and I think about it, I go, Oh, I did that. So they would do this so that then I could do this, that that would make the judge like, and I, if I'd consciously, you know, they've been studies on how by the time there's any micro movement from a pitcher that could be observed by the batter, it's too late for them to start the swing.

But there's still people hit fastballs. So there is some exchange of energy that happens there. There's some micro something that can be sensed by a good hitter in baseball. It's the same thing. I have a talent for this that I don't know where it came from. I feel blessed to have it. I love what I do.

I love to be able to do something that you love and do it at the highest level and do it well is like the greatest gift in the world. But I really, when I'm in a courtroom, like I am way more comfortable in a courtroom than I am in my living room. I have no idea what to do with myself in my living room. I have no idea. I'm one of those people that, like, I'm great in war and terrible in peace. I have no idea what to do with myself. But in a courtroom, I know the rules. I know exactly what to do.

And I go in, and I am so calm and cool. It's like Neo in The Matrix. Everything slows down, and I just know exactly what's expected of me. And I don't know where that comes from. But that's what happens, is I no longer am thinking about this person or that person. I'm thinking about the job that needs to be done

and how to do it, and that's it. Flows things. I want to ask lastly just how religion plays a role. I know you mentioned this guy talked to God. Shout out to him. But like something like an arranged marriage in Hinduism or like Christian fundamentalism. Like Islam has different rules on marriage. How does that play in as it intersects with American culture? Yeah. Or like, you know, Christian fundamentalism, like Islam has different rules on marriage.

How does that play in as it intersects with American culture? Yeah, I mean, it comes in a lot. The divorce rate among cultures where there's a lot of arranged marriage is actually quite low because the, and I think that that can be attributed to the fact that people enter into marriage with a different expectation. Like in a lot of cultures where, you know, particularly Muslim cultures I've had some experience with, where individuals marry and there's an arranged marriage that's arranged by the parents, it's really done with this sense that marriage

is about a family, a partnership, building something together. It's not this overly romanticized. The idea is that we will grow to love each other. And love, you know, love is a feeling, but love is a verb, too. Like to love someone is to act with love towards that person. So like, there are plenty of examples of people who were in arranged marriages or marriages that they weren't quite sure, and then they grew to, through shared experience and common, like loving children together, they grew to say, you know, this is how it is. Like, so I think that religion and people's religious backgrounds plays a huge role in how they approach the world.

And how we approach the world obviously informs how we do our marriage. I mean, I will say as someone who was raised very strict Catholic, you know, my Catholicism and my like sort of understanding of the rigidity of the mass and when you stand and when you sit and how you address it, it's very much was good practice for the courtroom. Like, because courtroom's very much the same.

Like, there's people you treat a different way, there's someone who's in charge, there's, you know, there's like a hierarchy, and you humble yourself before that hierarchy, and you're not, like, bowing and genuflecting is not something that's a source of shame, it's a source of pride. It's like I'm strong enough to humble myself

in front of someone. So I think that religion at its best infuses every aspect of a person's life. And so I've seen some couples that are very religious. What is hard to watch, and I've done a lot of divorces where people have the same religious faith and then one of them loses that faith. And it creates a schism in the relationship that is very hard to fix.

Because religion has certain first principles from which people are working, you know? And so if you lose those foundational first principles, they tether so many other things in the marriage, like that it gets really, really tricky, you know? Yeah. Hmm, yeah. Man, that's kind of sad to lose your partner and your faith.

Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, but sometimes, again, to throw the counterpoint, I've done a lot of divorces, for example, in the Hasidic community, in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. And that is a community I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say that if you could choose of divorces, for example, in the Hasidic community, in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community.

And that is a community, I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say that if you could choose between being a man in that community or a woman in that community, you're better off being a man. Yeah. Yeah. Like women aren't allowed to drive, women aren't allowed, there's a lot of rules imposed on women that are challenging. It's a fairly admittedly patriarchal society, culture, you know,

enclave. And so sometimes those women will say like, yeah, I can't do this anymore. Like, I don't want to be in this game anymore. I want to step out of this. And that's very challenging. It's very, very challenging because it is, it is very, very difficult to reconcile an ultra orthodox religious life and someone who goes fully in the other, because people like, moderation doesn't play into it. People treat dandruff with decapitation.

Like there becomes, like people go from, I'm ultra religious to fuck that, I'm as far from religious as you can be. Like you ever want to meet somebody who's a virulent atheist? Find someone who is raised super religious. You know, it's like people go in that opposite direction. And it's, yeah, it's challenging,

but it also sometimes is, you know, we all change as time moves on. And that's the challenge, I think, is being honest with yourself about what's changed, and then being able to be honest with your partner. I will tell you, doing what I do for a living, one of the things I've learned is the most dangerous lives are the ones we tell ourselves.

And most of the time when we lie to our partner, we're lying to our self and then we're lying to our partner. And so I just, that's why I'm always a fan of the honest conversation. Like just be honest, be frank, be candid, just say the quiet part out loud. And I think that's why to some degree, like I'm not saying this to be,

I'm not trying to have your wives not be mad at me, although it would be good to have them not be mad at me or you. I think one of the things I've found about comics, I've represented a couple of comics, there is something really naked and honest about getting up in front of people and talking about your most vulnerable, embarrassing,

dumb shit. It's also the funniest shit. It's the shit people can relate to. But you use that muscle all the time. So I imagine in relationship, you do the same thing. And that's probably why, like, there are, like, I know a lot of comics that are incredibly happily married. I know some that never marry because of the lifestyle and the road and things like that,

substance use issues, stuff like that. But I know a lot of comics that are very, very happily married because that same self-effacing insight and open, unashamed, like, calling out their own bullshit serves people pretty well in a relationship. Okay, before we leave, is there anything that you've learned through all these divorces about what makes marriages successful?

I wrote a whole book on that. Can you give us like, just so we end on a nice positive note, what are some things that you've felt? I think you can learn a lot about keeping things together by watching how they fall apart, and that's why I wrote the book. What are some things that you've felt? I think you can learn a lot about keeping things together by watching how they fall apart. And that's why I wrote the book.

What's the name of the book? The book is called How to Stay in Love, Practical Wisdom from an Unlikely Source. And you can get it on Audible if you want to listen to me talk for eight and a half hours. Or you can just get it anywhere. It's for sale anywhere. And you know, I've learned a lot by being a divorce lawyer

about what keeps people together. What I've learned, I would say more than anything else, is just pay attention. Just pay attention. Like, people get divorced the same way they go bankrupt. Very slowly and then all at once. Like, you don't get divorced because your husband's cheating on you, your wife's cheating on you.

Your husband's cheating on you, your wife's cheating on you because there was slippage. Mmm. There were all these little things. Like, you know those little things you did when you first were dating your wife to, like, let her know how beautiful she was

and how, like, you like her better than other options? And all those little things she did for you that made you feel like the fucking coolest guy and the best guy. You loved who you were when you were with her. Yeah, for sure. You stood taller. You went like, yeah, this, like, this,

I might be the person this person thinks I am. When we start losing that, like, there are these little things. Like, the advice I give, one of the pieces of advice I give in my book, the one that I get the most feedback on, as I said, leave a note. Just leave your wife a note. Whatever, every day when you leave the house,

just take 30 seconds. Just like, babe, like, it was so fun watching that movie with you last night. Like, I married the prettiest girl in the world. Yeah. Can't wait to see you later. Like, what does it take? 30 seconds? Yeah. Like, you know, what is that doing, though? It's saying I still see you. I still think you're beautiful.

You're still worth my time. You're still worth my attention. There's all these other things going on in the world. There's the kids. There's a million things, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, right? But you're still, it's still you and me. It's still you and me. And those little things, just pay attention. Pay attention and don't let slippage happen.

Because it is, look, it is so much easier to stay a healthy weight than it is to get super fucking fat and try to lose 100 pounds. So it's the same thing. Once the wheels come off this thing, it is really hard to get back there. So just, if you care about this person and you care about the value of that marriage,

just take that little bit of time to just, again, it can be just a kind word. It can just be building this person up when people are around instead of taking the piss out of them around people. Like, it can be anything. It can be any little gestures, but those are the things that make us fall in love. Those are the things that make us stay in love.

And when you let those little things slip, that's when the wheels start coming off. And that's, there's a short road from that to my office. So I always just tell people, pay attention and just make a point of cheering for the person that you're with. That's it. Amen to that.

Thank you so much, man. Awesome, appreciate you.