After the Decree: How Family Lawyers Build Clients for Life

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Dominate Law Podcast, where we empower attorneys as entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Angie. And today's episode is for every family law firm that has ever asked the quiet question, what is the actual value of a client after the case is over? Because for many firms, the answer has been nothing. And that answer is costing them more than they realize. Before we get into it, a quick word about our sponsor, Equa Marketing.

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Book it at www.dominatelaw.com. Now into today's episode. Across five pillars, we look at the post -divorce client journey, the legal needs that emerge after the decree, the referral ecosystem that quietly drives long-term firm growth, a practical 90 -day post-decree touchpoint system, and how all of that comes together in a genuine client for life practice. To guide us, two of the most respected voices in this space, Kelly Myers, founder of First Steps Divorce and a certified divorce coach, mediator and co-parenting specialist who helps families navigate the emotional and practical decisions that most legal decrees never address.

And Randall Kessler, founding partner of Kessler and Solomini LLC in Atlanta, a nationally recognized family law attorney, author and educator at Emory University School of Law. Let's dive in. What does the pattern of post-decree needs bringing former clients back reveal about where firms typically end their support too early after a case closes? So I'm going to give you a backhanded or maybe an open-handed compliment.

This is an underexplored area. You're absolutely right. Most divorce lawyers, they finish the decree and that's it. The clients don't want to see them again. A lot of times we don't want to see the clients again. A lot of times we have good relationships with them. We want to see them away from this mess. We want to see them at a ballgame or somewhere in a concert where it's fun and see them back in the swing of things.

So it's underexplored. I think it's something that we have to sit down. I don't think there's a formula. I don't think we can say there's a one-size-fits-all. I think we do need to look at the decree and maybe for each case even, depends on your practice. But if you have a certain type of practice, maybe there's some norms. In three months, we're going to touch base. What if there's a house being sold? There might be a deadline.

Touch base. Have all the liens been removed? Has the list of tenants been listed? So each case, I think it's also billable time, right? It's valuable time that you can make money on that the client should pay you for because you're helping them make sure that they don't get a piece of paper they don't understand. And I know we don't want to spend hours on each question, but I want to leave you this one story. I work a lot with the NBA and the NFL Players Association, and I go to a lot of their presentations.

And I remember the head of the NFL Players Association was talking to agents. He said, you don't need to worry about the post-career options for your players. One of the agents said, well, they don't hire me to get a job after the NFL. They hire me to get a job in the NFL. And I just thought to myself, that guy doesn't get it. Of course, they hire you for the divorce. Once they have you, part of your obligation, part of your commitment to the client is to make sure when what you do is done for them, that they're still on the right path forward.

So I think it's, we don't have enough time to talk about all the things you can do, but it's read the final agreement. Make sure that you or someone on your staff knows what is due when. Some cases, there's not much to do. Some cases, it's a child support case, and the guy wants nothing to do with the child. Just make sure he pays every month, and that's it. Some touch base, and it never hurts to write and say, how are you?

How's the case going? How's your relationship going? And there's some people that you know really don't want to be, you know, it's too much for them to even hear from a divorce lawyer. They could have post-traumatic stress disorder because it just brings back memories. So it's a case-by-case basis. I wish I could give a clearer answer. The main thing is, think about it. You know, measure twice, go once. Think about what can I do?

What would I want if I was the client, and my world came crashing down, and the divorce just ended, and all these people guiding me, holding my hands, the forensic accountants, the psychologists, the parental coordinators, the Kellys, the whoever it is, they're all going to be gone for my life. Where do I go? Make sure you have a plan for that, and it should be case-by-case, in my opinion. Let's stay with that pattern for a moment, Randy.

What's usually the first sign that the client -lawyer relationship was closed before the client's needs really ended? You're asking Kelly or me? You. So, you know, the first time the relationship closed too early is when they call you and say, you know, we're trying to sell the house, but there's still a lien on the house. Or, you know, he was supposed to pay me, but he's not paying me. Or there's a retirement account that's supposed to be divided, and my banker says I need something like a quadrant.

What's that? You know, those are, you know, you'll hear from the clients if you don't do what you're supposed to do, and that is our fault. We should prepare them for that, you know, but that's what I mean. Who do you send them to? For retirement plan division, you send them to an expert in qualified domestic relation orders. For a tough visitation issue, you try to set them up with parent coordinators, people they can help massage it and explain in a friendly way how they should work together.

It just depends on what the issue is in that case. The sign that it ended too early is when you get a call where they're saying, what did you do? What have I done? How do I do it? But what's not a sign of a problem is when a family member calls and said, how did you let my daughter do this? That's not a sign of a problem. That's a sign that the daughter wanted to do something. And if you did your job, there are things she didn't tell her father or her family members.

Your family members don't know why the daughter got less than she should have. Maybe she's done something wrong that she didn't tell her parents about. So when family members complain, which will happen, it's not an automatic sign that you did something wrong. I think it's a sign that, you know, we've just got to, the lawyers have a problem, right? We can't say, well, if you only knew what your daughter did, you know, we just got to zip it and say, that's the result.

I'm down by confidence. I'm sorry. But otherwise, when a client calls, it's sort of like, I was going to use this later, but Potter Stewart, the famous chief justice, not chief justice, justice of the Supreme Court, when he was trying to describe pornography, he said, I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it. You know, when it's close to early, because the warning signs there, you get a call from a real estate agent, from an accountant, from their new financial advisor that says, you would have been in these properties, but these properties aren't in his name to award.

They're in an irrevocable trust. So how could you have got, you know, you'll know it sooner than later if you close the relationship to him. If I could pick up on that, Randy, because as a coach, I see this a lot of times. And what I'll tell you is very often the client won't call the attorney when they don't know what the, what the decree really says. So I'm working with clients who go, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Right. And I don't know what to do. And I don't want to call my attorney because now I'm going to be billed, you know, $1,000 for that. And I've often thought it would be so helpful if an attorney at the end of the case gave kind of a summary, a readable summary, an understandable summary so that clients knew in common language, this is what you're supposed to do. This is what your spouse is supposed to do. So that it was really easy to understand.

I love what you said, Randy, about kind of flagging in the system as well. Some of those important dates and being able to check in with a client ahead of time to make sure they have everything they need. They understand how to move forward. But I do see a lot of times my coaching clients don't know what they're supposed to do. And I find that to be, you know, disappointing. And I'm sure that attorney would too, if they knew that.

Kelly, I think that's a great point. You know, the problem is we have 30, 40, 50 page agreements and trying to summarize that is still going to be 10 pages. So, you know, do we do it? An easier example would be for a prenuptial agreement. We represent a lot of folks, a lot of athletes, a lot of folks that are not, we know they're not going to read it, you know, and we have to make sure they read it. So we do a summary for those things saying you are in essence agreeing for each year of marriage, you know, and you summarize it.

But it would be a great idea if you could do it for every settlement agreement. But I get worried I'm going to miss something. Here's what you're supposed to do on parenting time. But the general idea is hopefully if we've done a good job, they'll know because they've negotiated. But yes, a cover sheet and the way I like to do my closing letters and when I send things to clients summarizing it, I think about how would their parent or their friend digest it or how would the next lawyer that they go to see it?

So they read it and they say, oh, okay, I get this. That makes sense. I understand why that happened to someone who wasn't involved in the process. They were involved in the process and lawyers fall into this trap of they were with me. They know exactly what they signed. They know what they did. No, they don't always do it. So write a letter, even if it's not for the client, but so they can have it if they move to another state or they marry somebody and they want somebody to understand what they signed off on, you know, a summary page is a wonderful idea, Kelly.

We try our best. Well, and I think to your point, you know, I think attorneys think, well, the client was with me, right? They were part of this negotiation. But we have to remember very often they're emotionally dysregulated, right? They're not thinking clearly. They've got a million things that they're thinking about while they're negotiating these things. And often they'll walk away and not remember all of it and or remember the details of it, right?

Like it's the agreement is one thing, but the people have to live in the details. And sometimes it's the details that they that get mixed up and they don't know what to do. Kelly, sometimes I get in trouble because we'll be at a mediation going late at night and I refuse to let my client sign something. And the telltale signs are when a client says something like, Randy, I can't even follow this anymore. If you tell me I should sign it, I'll just sign it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If it's a good deal, it will still be good tomorrow. And if they're happy with it on the other side, take it home, read it, ask questions because you only get one chance at it. You know, measure twice, cut once. I mean, if it's the best deal in the world and you know, it's great, there might be an exception to that rule, but you want to lock it in before the other side realizes how foolish they're being.

More often, it's going to be, I woke up this morning, I, you know, we forgot to mention that Johnny's birthday also falls on the 4th of July. And I agree that he gets every 4th of July with the children. It means I don't get to see my kid on, you know, so whenever a client is weary, there's no need to sign it right that minute. Even if they blame the Lord and say, you're just trying to frustrate yourself. You just want to make more money.

I'd rather the client understand what they're doing than be mad at me for letting them sign something. Sure. All right. Kelly, let's get back to you. When a contract ends immediately after the decree, where do former clients most often feel abandoned or confused as parenting, financial or communication problems begin? Well, I think that piggybacks on what we've been talking about. This idea that, you know, you create these agreements and they're great.

And a lot of them, you know, even though they were there during the negotiation, the agreements are written in legalese that often isn't language that is easily understood for the client. And they don't understand the details behind it. Right. So what do I do to make this transfer? Right. What does it mean when it talks about, you know, transitioning my kids, you know, from one home to the other? You know, how am I supposed to do that?

What happens if I'm late? Right. What happens if the other parent is late all the time? Right. There just is a ton of questions that tend to come up after the agreement is signed. And I think that's really a place. It's almost like I think it's in, you know, the shipping industry. They talk about the last mile. And I think it's the last mile that is sometimes missed. It is, OK, the agreement's done, but they still need a little bit more handholding, understanding how they get everything done.

What are the what is the fine details and all of this that they're going to need in order to be able to move forward and live a life that isn't filled with conflict and confusion, particularly if they have kids and these parents still need to be interacting after the divorce. I couldn't agree more. And I don't mean to be a naysayer, but, you know, you have this problem, which is you want the big picture. You know, we once had a client in a mediation and he had a thick, you know, Middle Eastern accent and he goes, Randy, we caught the fish, but we let it slip through our hands.

We didn't hold it tight enough. So when you get what you really want, which is the marital residence or primary custody, you're so adamant to make sure you get that. Sometimes people don't focus on the little things, which at that moment, they are little things compared to the big picture. And my job is to get the big picture done. The problem is you got to follow up on that and stuff. And also people get lawyer fatigue and divorce fatigue.

You know, they don't want to spend hours now negotiating. Well, what happens if he's late for visitation? Can he pay an extra fine so that I can pay for a babysitter? You know what? That's not going to happen. So it's hard to manage all those little details. But if you know your client, you can anticipate here's something that is going to happen. Let's try to prevent it. And also, it's a money thing. A lot of times, you know, clients run out of money.

They already owe their lawyers money. It's over. The lawyers don't want to keep doing work that they're not getting paid for. The clients don't want to keep getting billed. And, you know, I appreciate you getting me my primary home and my primary custody. But I don't want to pay the same rate to worry about, you know, what happens if he brings kids back two days late from vacation. So it's a balance of warning them and telling them, you know, I recommend X, Y, and Z.

Nothing else you can put in writing. Say, here's the recommendation if you want to pursue it now or later. So I'm wondering, you know, one of the things that you just talked about there was, you know, this idea that the attorney, you're really there to get the big picture deal. Right. And but the fact of the matter is, is that these people do live in the details. And I'm wondering if you're seeing more law firms now bringing on divorce coaches, family law firms to help with that.

And I help to manage some of the emotional aspects, some of that, you know, ruminating on things that clients can do. And, you know, I think that that is a source also that can help. And also divorce coaches can help get underneath what really is important to the client, what they're really trying to protect, because sometimes what they say isn't actually what is really, you know, important. And they're usually less expensive, right?

I mean, I, you know, I've shake my head because so I chair the family law section of American Law and I'm very active in that and some other academies. And so I talked to a lot of lawyers. One problem with family lawyers is a lot of us have small firms where we're the only lawyer and we've got too much on our plate. And I think what lawyers don't do well enough is delegate. And, you know, it took me a while before I got big enough cases to realize in almost every one of our cases now we need a forensic accountant.

I shouldn't figure out the finances. I'm too expensive to do that. I don't know what I'm doing when there's complicated stuff. There's somebody that will do that for a lower hourly rate. They should handle the money. There are people that do the custody evaluations, you know, and unfortunately, I think divorce coaches are down the line in, you know, financial person will help me. A forensic will help me. A custody evaluation might help me, you know.

But my ego is I don't need some divorce coach to coach my client through it. I can do that. I can handle the client, but I can't. But I think that's the problem. The divorcers don't see it as, you know, as important as it is. And I don't know how you break into that, how we spread the word that you also it's also something that, and no offense to divorce coaches. You don't know the good from the bad until you've had one, right?

Until you get a reputation. Tell you you've got a great reputation. So you're great. But, you know, if you want somebody in your community, somebody, and nowadays, I guess Zoom is as good as anything. And I would, I would encourage anybody listening who has thought about, you know, bringing on or working with a divorce coach. It's just like anybody else, right? If you're going to work with a CDFA, you're going to make sure it's a good one.

There's lots of them out there. Not all of them are good, right? I mean, any profession that you are going to be collaborating with, you kind of have to get to know them, you know, do some research on them. But I do think what a divorce coach can do is help take away some of that work. That is, it makes it. And I think we can often ask coaches get to really what the client needs and bring that forward to you in a way that you may not be able to get to as well as a coach can.

And actually help you make your job easier and have a more successful outcome. Because clients get angry. You might say the same thing we're saying in a different way. You might say the reason you need to do your financial budget is so that the judge knows why you need this much. And it's not the customer wants you to fill out a form. It's going to help, you know, whatever. You can say it in your way, which might be more persuasive than how I see it.

But another, another example is people say, let's just say it's the parent who took care of the kids, you know, most of the time, right? And they don't want to give up that, that relationship with the kids. They want to maintain that primary caretaking of the kids. And so I want full custody, right? Well, and I know that as attorneys, you'll talk through what can happen there and the risks with that and the conflict that can ensue.

And as a coach, I can approach it a little bit differently, you know, around. So tell me what kind of relationship, you know, your kids have with their parent, you know, the other parent, what do you think is important to those kids about that relationship? We can talk about it a little different to get the client to realize, ah, it's really important that my kids maintain contact. What does that look like? What will it look like to you as your finances are changing?

And now you have to support your home. If you have to go back to work, how are you going to be able to take, continue to do all these responsibilities with your kids while also having to go back to work and develop a career? I think also the problem sometimes is, Kelly, you are a luxury. You're valuable. But you know, if my client's got a budget, they need the lawyer, they might need a forensic accountant. We can talk about it a little differently, I think.

Yeah, right. But the question is, from where I, and again, from the way I look at it, they need the lawyer to get a divorce. They might need a forensic accountant. They might need a psychologist. They might need a guardian ad litem. If they're, you know, some person investigating what's in the children's best interest, that's four or five professionals before they can get to you. If they have the money, you're a wonderful resource and you're valuable.

And you can, and the nice thing, the best thing about somebody like Kelly is that she's there after the divorce. I mean, the whole point of this program, if you can get her in early, then when the case is over, she's not as expensive. She understands the divorce language. She's been there herself and she knows how to talk to people and how to get, and she can tell them you're at the point where you need to go back to the lawyer or you can solve this yourself.

I'm not here to sell divorce coaches. So that was really just the idea of what, what is it that clients, what do they need when, when the agreement signed? Well, what we're talking about is maybe some clarity, some handholding and, and how do we do that in a way that best serves the client and most importantly makes the client feel as though the firm is still supporting them. That's the idea, right? How do, how do we bring in the different resources under the firm umbrella to make the client feel as though they, they are continuing to get the support they need?

All right, Randy, let's move on to the referral ecosystem. Now, what changes in referral behavior become visible after a divorce case closes, particularly among former clients and the professionals who supported them through the process? Well, if we've done our job right, they already have those names and those resources. You know, aside from all the people we just talked about, forensic accountants, guardian, items, psychologists, individual therapists, not to testify in court, but also, you know, I, well, when I started my practice, I thought there was a letter I had to tell clients that I think you need a psychologist.

How do you tell somebody they need a psychologist? So I came up with a form letter. I worked really hard on it. I called it the, you need a shrink letter, right? Just to interior, you got to have gallows humor, math about this stuff. But how do you tell somebody that in a nice way and explain it? The judge is not going to hold it against you that you have a therapist. The judge is going to say, thank you for recognizing that you could use help.

And there are times when we say, you absolutely, if you don't have one, you need one. Most of our clients already have it. You know, it's been an evolution for me. I've gotten clients that now have therapists. It's more accepted now to have a therapist. But when I started, I remember we should be connecting them with the people that help them post-divorce before the final decree. It shouldn't be, okay, the divorce is over.

Now let's sit down and game plan. I mean, the truth of the matter is, and I did a presentation on this. Right now, if you're married to somebody, what are the rules? There are no rules, right? Who gets to take the children? If I want to take my kid to Disney World and my wife wants to take her, our daughter to Memphis to see her folks, who wins? Well, the wife wins, but there are no rules. So what we're doing in a divorce is we're creating a blueprint for the future.

Right now, what's the curfew? Well, I say 11 o'clock. She says 12. We are creating the rules. So if we do it right, that blueprint is how they're going to be governed. Hopefully, they don't look at it. They just figure it out. But if they need to, they put out in the document, there should be comprehensive. I taught a law school class years ago where it was basics of family law. It was three hours every Tuesday night.

One night of the session of the semester, we said, let's create a settlement agreement. And we're going to go around and everyone has to think about what if. Kelly was talking about what if. What if we disagree on one of the curfews? What if we disagree about whether she should get a tattoo? And I told the students, you're going to each have to come up with one. They said, but I'm number 50. My ideas are going to be gone.

We went around three times. They kept coming up with what ifs. What if my daughter wants to drive? Or what if she wants to drive, but she can't afford the insurance? You can predict all of the things if you're a good divorce lawyer. You can say, listen, for this eventuality, here's what's going to happen. What if my husband's got a girlfriend that I don't like? You can agree that she won't be around the children unless they're married.

But be careful because now you might marry her sooner if that's what you do. But we can discuss all these potential problems. And if you've been around the block as a divorce lawyer for a while, you know the typical problems. You ask your client, what are you afraid of? What's your worst fear? Because if you're smart, you can preempt it ahead of time. That's how we get better. We see mistakes we've made and that other lawyers made.

People come to us and they say, he never shows up on time. And I have to cancel my date every time that he's supposed to have visitation because he doesn't want me to go out on a date so he doesn't pick up the kids. Well, had I thought about it, I would put a provision in that says if he doesn't show up, he's got to pay for the babysitter that I hire. But it's prevention. The answer to prevention is the best way to worry about those referrals.

And that's a longer answer to your question. But before the relationship ends, because a lot of times at the end of the case, that's it. They don't want to talk to us more. Not because they don't like us, but it's just there's a hard time in their life. They want to go get away from it. And so I'd rather do it before the case is over. Very rarely will someone come in for like a post-mortem, like a doctor's day. The worst, sometimes we'll get together and say, what can we have done different?

But clients I don't find want to come in. It's me making sure if there's something vital, a deadline, like we talked about earlier, then sometimes we have a tickler on the counter to reach out and make sure that's gone through. Make sure if they've got a lien on their property, we better make sure we take that lien off as soon as they paid us. Because then we get in trouble for frustrating a sale. So there are a lot of, so many things.

It's don't say I'm so happy this case is over. What's my next case? Say I'm happy this case is over. How do I make sure this client is going to be okay? I've done the hard work. Don't screw up by missing some little detail. All right, Kelly, let's get back to you. How can firms decide between offering structured post -decree contact and leaving space when former clients may experience continued outreach as helpful, intrusive, or emotionally difficult?

Well, I think Randy covered that a little bit when he said, hopefully you're getting to know your clients first and foremost, and getting to know what they need from you. What is your relationship with them? To Randy's point, some clients want to be done and they don't want to hear divorce anymore. They want to move on with their life. And they may not want to talk to their attorney, not because their attorney didn't do a good job or they didn't like them, but it was a really tough time in their life.

So I do think that this follow-up has to be very personalized. You know, there are cases I think where a lot of us can anticipate there's going to be custody issues, you know, and it may be helping, you know, one parent really understand how they should be tracking behaviors, right? How they should be keeping track of, you know, whether the pickups were done, whether they took their parenting time when they were supposed to, how are we helping them prepare that?

So when they eventually do have to come back and litigate, some custody issues, they can be done much more successfully because the client has been taught how to do that. And that could be done in a number of different ways as personal outreach. It could be a newsletter that the law firm creates and or, you know, kind of handouts that could be created when they know that a client could potentially have this issue. It could be sent to them, you know, at some point.

I think Randy made a good point. There are kind of some typical issues that clients hit post-divorce and those may be able to be handled in kind of an informational handout that then could be sent to the client afterwards to kind of help them educate them in those particular areas. I've thought about this a lot, Angie. You know, like one really good touch point would be if it's a two-year-old or three-year-old child, there's a 50 -50 range.

When the children go to school, a lot of times it pivots to a more stable one parent's primary parent or where do the children go to school in which school district, who's going to be primary. Maybe that's the right time to call back and say, what's going on now? But to me, it just feels offensive to touch base and say, hey, you want to pay me some more money to do something? I just, you know, it's a balance of letting them know ahead of time and say, we're here.

This might be a time when you think about it or, you know, and this is something I also don't like telling clients, but I think I have to. Each state has a certain age where if a child hits a certain age, they can elect who they want to live with. And so we have clients that should have custody. For some reason, they don't get awarded custody and they need to know that at age 14 in Georgia, children can elect who they want to live with.

And I don't like telling them that because I know that they could easily say to their son, listen, just buy your time at age 14. We'll go back to counsel's office and, you know, I don't want to promote more litigation, but they need to know that's the law. So that's a balance. You know, I'm a big fan of how you say things. And as long as, and if I'm worried about it, I'll put it in writing and say, I'm not promoting litigation.

But if your son, you know, tells you he wants to live with you, see how it goes. And let's have a discussion around that time. Let's talk about whether it's really good for him to figure out the time. There's some ages of election. It's something we need to tell clients about. Yeah. And I apologize, my internet kind of stalled there for a second. So I'm not sure if you said this or any, you started talking about, you know, as kids get older.

And I think another thing is, you know, when kids get older, a parenting plan that was created when a kid was two may need to change. And that may have been what you said, but you know, yeah, that needs to be updated. We have a unique job. We represent a lot of athletes. There's a schedule for people that play in the national football league that their off season is not always the same as the school breaks, but they're going to be out of the league soon.

So you got to totally change that. And people have jobs or people have overseas jobs and they come back and they get transferred. You know, there are a whole bunch of ways. There's so many ways. That's why.