Welcome to another episode of Ask The Attorney Anything. I'm Rebecca Zung. I'm so excited
to see all of you here. I am broadcasting simultaneously live via StreamYard into my
YouTube channel, my Facebook group, and my Facebook page, so I can reach as many of you
in my community as I possibly can all at once. It's just such a lovely invention. And I see
that I already have some people here. I would love to know where you are all tuning in from,
and we have people who watch from literally all over the world. Narcissism is everywhere.
There are toxic people and difficult people wherever there are people. My dad used to
say that the percentage of idiots per population is the same wherever you go. I think that's
definitely true. Hello Joyful and hello Natalie. Hi from the UK, and hello Kelly from New York
and Lexi and Tia from Cincinnati. I'm so excited to see all of you here and answer your questions
and be in service to you. Hi, Trudy from Australia. We have a lot of people in our community from
Australia and New Zealand and the UK. It's really, really great to see all of you here.
I want to see if any of you have any questions for me. I actually just interviewed Judge
Lynn Toler this morning. I'm so excited to share that interview with all of you. She
was the presiding judge on the television show Divorce Court for 14 years and answered
lots and lots of questions about how to best present your case to a judge, what happens
if you think that the judge is believing the narcissist's lies and all kinds of stuff.
I mean, really, really good stuff. I would love to answer any questions that you guys
have. Hello Georgia from the US and hello Mati from
Germany. And Jennifer says, "Very kind of you to give your time." I love answering your
questions. I love being in service to all of you. My only dismay is that I got so many
questions from you guys that I can't answer them individually anymore, but I can certainly
answer them here, and I can also answer them on my live webinars when I do an extended
version of this, which there will be another one this Thursday at 9:00 AM, Pacific Time.
If you can't make it, you will get the replay. So sign up anyway even if that time doesn't
necessarily work for you, because I do... Showing them live is better if you can, because
I do an extended version of the Ask The Attorney Anything and I try to be there as long as
I can to answer all the questions that I can. Let's see. I have a question from Kate Graham,
"How do I stop the other party from filing false motions and reneging on agreements made
in family services meetings?" Those are two separate questions, Kate. One is, how do you
stop them from filing false motions? Well, you can't. You can't stop them from
filing false motions. People can file whatever they want to, but you can call them out on
it. You can either respond to it formally if that's the process in your particular state,
country, or jurisdiction, or you can file something that says it's harassment or it's
false or it's fraudulent or something like that, depending on what the law provides for
in your particular state, country, or jurisdiction. As far as enforcing agreements, if these agreements
were reduced to a writing and memorialized in writing, then I would definitely have those
writings turned into a court order. If it's just a contract, then you will have to just
ask the judge to enforce the contract. But if you've had the contract rendered into a
court order, now you can say, "Hey, enforce the order," or hold them in contempt of court
because they are now thumbing their nose at a court order.
If it's just an agreement that you had verbally that was never reduced to a writing, very,
very, very difficult to enforce oral agreements. And that's why I try to tell people to have
as many layers of enforcement as you possibly can so that you have many different avenues
to go after them to enforce those agreements. Narcissists are very, very, very famous for
not keeping their word, which actually works to their detriment a lot of times, because
now you can show how they're not upholding their ends of the deal and their ends of the
agreement. Okay? That's the answer to that. Let's see. A question
from Cynthia, "How can you find out if my soon to be ex is going through workman's compensation
settlement in Michigan?" I'm not sure if that's something that maybe you could search the
docket for. Is it Cynthia? Yeah. You might be able to search the docket, like the court
dockets, for that. If not, then you can potentially just subpoena either whoever the workman's
comp company is or just ask in discovery. You can always do a request for production,
or you can do other kinds of questions like interrogatory, something like that, and you
can depose the person as well. That's going to be definitely part of your discovery process.
There are a number of different avenues that you can go through to try to find that. If
you know who's representing him on that issue, maybe you can contact them and get the information
as well either through a subpoena or a deposition. Okay? That's that answer. Pink girl, "How
long does discovery take?" Well, when you're dealing with a narcissist,
it can take a long time. I've seen discovery take years sometimes, because what happens
is they don't provide the documents that they're supposed to provide. They block everything.
They'll file whatever they need to to block things, or they just don't provide anything,
or they only provide parts of things. And so you're constantly trying to find the breadcrumbs
to get to having all of the information that you need.
A lot of times I tell people, don't bother with like requests for production to try to
get the narcissist to provide the documents voluntarily, because most of the time they
don't. I would definitely just skip that step and go straight to a subpoena if you can,
if procedure in your particular area allows for that, because you just kind of take out
that middleman and just go directly to the source. You can't always do that.
Sometimes if you're trying to get documents out of another country and you have to go
through that country's court system in order to get the subpoena issued, it can be more
difficult. But if it's possible for you to just go directly to the source and skip the
narcissist in it, I would have definitely do that. Okay? Let's see. Yeah, the discovery
can take a long time, but there're ways to shorten it.
And by the way, if they didn't provide the documents that they were supposed to and let's
say they were due on February 1st or something like that, on February 2nd, somebody needs
to be doing something about that. Don't just let that go by, because now the narcissist
is like feeling emboldened and empowered. Some jurisdictions require that the lawyers
try to confer before you file anything. Sometimes people are frustrated that the lawyer is just
sending a letter saying, "Hey, can you send over the documents? You missed your deadline."
But sometimes that's actually required by the local rules, so they have to do that.
And then they can file their motion to compel, which will say, "Hey, I certify that I did
try to resolve this peacefully, but it didn't work out." You have to sometimes send a letter,
say, "Okay, you get five more days or you get a week or whatever. If I don't have everything
by this date, then I'm filing my motion to compel." Then you filed the motion to compel
and potentially you can ask for attorney's fees then too, depending on the laws in your
area. Okay? Hopefully that answers your question. Cindy's
asking, "My son is going through a divorce with a narcissist. She's everything you described.
His three children in temporary seven days with him and seven with her. How to win in
court against her?" That is exactly what I teach you how to do in my S.L.A.Y. program.
I would just start by coming to my webinar, have your son come to my webinar on Thursday,
because I talk a lot about that and how to create leverage and how to create your strategy.
The webinar is free. It lasts about an hour. I give tons and tons of content, and then
I do an extended version of the Ask The Attorney Anything. So check that out. Again, if you
can't come on a live basis, you can certainly get the replay if it doesn't work out, as
far as time. That's definitely what I would do. Let's see. Somebody is saying, "Agreements
in family services can be entered into court orders. We ask a judge and they approve."
Yes. Yes. That is the answer. You just take your agreement and you ask the judge, "Can
you please order that this agreement becomes a court order?"
And now the judge has the power. They're basically just ratifying your agreement. That's the
terminology. They're ratifying your agreement. They're saying, "Yes, the court's ratifying
and approving this agreement," and now the court has jurisdiction to modify, enforce
it, or do whatever they want with it at that point. And that way, if the person doesn't
do what they say they're going to do, then you can ask the court to hold them in show
cause, why they shouldn't be held in contempt, or ask them to be held in contempt.
Normally for financial orders, people aren't like put into jail. There's no incarceration
for not filing your financial documents or anything like that normally. But if they don't,
then they can be sanctioned in several other ways, depending on the laws in your particular
area. Sometimes the sanctions can run anywhere from attorney's fees to striking their pleadings,
to not allowing them to present certain things. I mean, the sanctions can be pretty harsh
sometimes. And for a narcissist, one of the worst sanctions
is just that they're like lashed out in court, that they're exposed, that they are now not
being seen as the perfect one. They want the judge to think that they're perfect and you're
the crazy one. That's one of the best things that you get out of it, by the way. Are questions
on Facebook looked at? Potentially. I mean, things that I say is anything that
you put your hand to is a potential trial exhibit, so be really, really careful about
anything you put your hand to, whether it's a text message or an email or anything you
put on social media is potentially a trial exhibit. What I always say is if you don't
want the judge to see it, if it's going to make you look bad, then you don't want to
hit send or push texts or whatever it is that is going to memorialize it for all the world
to see forever. So just be really, really careful about that.
If you're just asking a question of me or something, that's not going to hurt you in
any way. Trying to get information and help yourself is certainly not going to hurt you
in any way. Now, I mean, the narcissist might say that it does. But Judge Lynn Toler, who
I interviewed this morning, she's a judge from Divorce Course. She's got some great
tips in the interview. It'll be coming out in a few weeks. But one of the things that
she was saying is just look at them and just sort of smile and just go, "Oh, there they
are. I check that. I see that," and sort of laugh to yourself.
Don't laugh in their face because that won't get you anywhere. But if you just sort of
mentally kind of take yourself out of the situation and look at it as an observer, it
can really be very helpful sometimes, so that you're not triggered by them. They want you
to be triggered. That's one of the ways that they can control you and have power over you.
They will definitely say things to trigger you. They'll say the things that are the absolute
things that they know mean the most to you. They'll say like, "You're a horrible parent,
or you are terrible with money," or however they can hurt you. They're masters at reading
people. They'll say whatever they need to in order to manipulate you and get you going.
Staying untriggered is really, really important. Let's see if I can take another question.
Make sure that you like this video, by the way. Like it and make sure you subscribe to
my channel and join my Facebook group and like my page and all that sort of thing, because
that way you can get notified when I go live like this.
I'm starting to have some guests on my lives, and I have some amazing, amazing guests coming
out as well and some really great new content. So make sure you like everything. And let's
see. What other things questions can I answer for you? Is there a delay tactic that's used
for some purpose with responding and scheduling? I'm not sure what that means, but I know that
narcissists definitely used delay tactics, because it's just a way of controlling you.
It's a way of making you miserable, and they enjoy the process of getting you upset.
It's definitely really way of getting you upset. Let me just see if there's any other
questions I can answer. What would constitute as a reason for a judge to change a judgment?
It really would depend. This is a question from Julie. It really would depend because
it's going to be based on the law around modification of whatever the topic is that you're looking
at. Modification enforcement, all those kinds of things, are usually driven by either statutes
or case law. And you want to make sure that you have everything
ready, all your ducks in a row, because that will help you present your case to the judge.
Judges want to see facts. They don't want to just see like somebody coming in and saying
the person's a narcissist or the person's a liar. They want to see facts. They want
to see evidence. And it's really important that you have all of that lined up, because
a lot of times you only have 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe two hours at the most. If you
get a full day, it's a lot of judicial time. You want to be super laser focused in how
you present your case and your strategy, and you want to have your leverage ready to go
and all that sort of thing. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Ask The
Attorney Anything. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to serve you. That's
why I put out so, so, so much free content, which is all on my YouTube channel, my podcast.
I do these lives so that I can serve as many of you as possible in a free way for those
people who aren't able to afford lawyers or afford other things that I offer.
I'm so glad that you're here. Make sure you like this video. Make sure that you drop me
a comment. Share it out. Come to my free webinar on Thursday and also subscribe to my channel.
If you want my free Crush My Negotiation Prep Worksheet, you can get that at winmynegotiation.com
as well. And I will see you in the next video. Thank you all so much for being here.