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Psychosexual evaluations in child custody matters · Family Law Talk

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Family Law Talk. Familylaw Talk presented by Kirk
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  Stangy of Stangy Law Firm PC. Stangy Law Firm is
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  a multi state family law firm. Now here's your host,
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  Kirk Stangy.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to Family Law Talk. We have an interesting topic today.
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  The topic is psycho sexual evaluations and chocusting matters. And
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  this topic today is based on an article on our
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  blog Famlawheadquarters dot com data July twenty second, twenty twenty
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  five and the title of that article is what is
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  a psychosexual evaluation? So as a follow up to the
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  episode today, go on over to Famallawheadquarters dot com and
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  read this blog article for more information. But let's go
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  ahead and jump into the topic at hand. Sadly, in
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  some chowcusting matters, sexual abuse allegations can arise. One party
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  might allege that the other parent his sexual abuse the children,
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  or maybe that they've sexually abused other children and that
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  they could pose a risk to the kids who are
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  part of the child custume matter. Again, these are sad cases.
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  These are cases that nobody wants to see. Obviously, this
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  topic is one that obviously causes grief and anguish and
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  sorrow on the part of the individuals who are involved
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  in these types of cases. I mean, these are not
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  fun cases for attorneys to Okay and candidly, in some cases,
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  a party might be falsely accused of sexual abuse, so
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  maybe they didn't even do it, or it could be
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  a situation where maybe they had criminal charges against them,
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  but maybe they were acquitted of the criminal charges and
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  they still want to have visitation in contact with their kids.
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  But then the whole issue comes into play, which is
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  are they a risk to the kids and if they
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  were around the kids in an unsupervised manner, would be
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  a risk of sexual abuse. And in some cases, one
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  parent might alleges that the other parents shouldn't have any
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  visitation at all. If they think that they've committed sexual abuse,
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  then their position might be that the other parents shouldn't
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  be around the kids at all. Okay, these are tough cases.
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  These are difficult cases records, and the topic is the
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  concept of a psycho sexual evaluation. So if you're listening
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  to this episode today, you're probably wondering, what is this
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  and why is this important? Okay, These are niche psychological
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  evaluations that can be conducted on parties except that they're
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  a little bit different. The whole issue with a psycho
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  sexual evaluation is this, which is ultimately to come to
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  conclusion about whether or not a party is a risk
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  to sexually abuse the children that are part of the
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  custody case. And so an evaluator is going to go
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  through these testing methods with whoever the individual is who's
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  accused of sexual abuse, or maybe again maybe they say, no,
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  I didn't do this, I was falsely accused of sexual abuse.
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  I never did this, I didn't do this, and these
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  allegations are false and they're just really designed to try
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  to keep me away from the kids. Okay, So in
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  some of these custly cases where these sexual abuse allegations
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  are out there, and take a case where there's really
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  no tangible evidence of it, right, and again this is
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  a thorny topic. This can be very much in the weeds, Okay.
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  But in some cases with sexual abuse, there could be
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  physical trauma and sometimes there could be a rape kit
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  or something like that. Then it can be objectively shown
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  whether or not somebody's been subjected to some kind of
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  sexual abuse. But candidly, in some cases, if there was
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  a rape kit at all, it came back negative, and
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  maybe there's no signs abuse. There's no physical harm that
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  a doctor or anybody could find to really prove that
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  it happened, and so this gets to be thorny. But look,
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  a psycho sexual evaluation, what this is is this would
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  typically be a PhD, so a psychologist somebody who has
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  this kind of specific background in training, and what they
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  do is have an individual take psychological tests, okay, and
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  these psychological tests can vary, so we're talking paper pencil tests,
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  and they do various objective testing. They would say, now,
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  some are critique it and say it's not really objective,
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  it's subjective, but those who are in favor of these
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  testings typically say that no, this is objective. Okay. So
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  you're talking paper pencil test where there's scores in these
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  tests and show a propensity for somebody to be somebody
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  who might commit sexual abuse were show no propensity, okay.
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  The other part of the psychosexual evaluation is typically a
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  background history, So the psychologist is going to meet the
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  individual who's been accused of sexual abuse, go through a
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  detailed sexual history background. Sometimes they'll even have them take
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  an intelligence test or what sometimes called an IQ test
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  which can measure in individual's intellectual abilities. And again it
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  can help the evaluate to determine is this individual somebody
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  who's a risk to commit sexual abuse or is this
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  somebody who's not a risk at all, and maybe somebody
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  who's been falsely accused. Okay, there could be other sort
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  of unsavory things that can take place at this psychosexual evaluation.
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  For example, in male subjects. Okay, they can measure arousal.
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  And again this is thorny. This is in the and
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  I don't want to be too specific here, but ultimately
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  there can be stimuli shown to individuals and then the
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  issue is is does the individual become aroused of that
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  certain stimuli? And based on that, and this we're talking
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  particularly with males and so as part of the stimuli,
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  if there was an arousal to a certain stimuli, then
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  that could be relied upon buying an evaluator to say, hey,
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  this individual perhaps is a risk to commit sexual abuse
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  because there's arousal to stimulus that shouldn't arouse an individual
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  something to that degree. Okay, So these are psychosexual evaluations
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  in terms of more specifically how these can impact a
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  child custy case. I mean the reality is they can
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  have a big impact on a child custic case. Okay,
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  If an evaluator believes that an individual has committed sexual
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  abuse in the past, that there are risk to do
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  it in the future, and they come to that inclusion
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  based on the paper pencil test, based on the history,
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  based on the IQ test, and then the arouse of
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  the stimulus and whatever else they rely upon, then the
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  reality is that an individual's access to their kids could
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  be limited. Right. In some circumstances, they might just simply
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  get supervised visitation. They might not be left alone with
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  the kids. In other instances, where the kids have been
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  victimized and then having contact with that parent who's victimized
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  them could cause great harm, an individual might have no
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  visitation with that parent whatsoever. Okay. On the flip end,
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  if somebody has been falsely accused and they've never done
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  this before, right, these are just false allegations that the
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  other parent is raising to try to keep an individual
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  away from the kids. Then if the results of the
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  evaluation is that this individual is no risk to the
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  kids and that this individ never committed sexual abuse in
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  the past and there's just no reason to believe that
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  they would do in the future, and that these are
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  just simply false allegations. And sometimes you can also piggyback
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  it on the lack of physical evidence. Right, maybe a
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  rape kiss which I talked about before, took place, came
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  back negative and there's no other physical evidence to show
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  that this actually took place. And then you piggyback it
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  with the psychosexual evaluation that shows that an individual's no risk.
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  Then this can result in an individual getting normal visitation
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  with their kids, right, not supervised, not no contact, but
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  normal visitation with their kids. And in some cases where
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  the other parties raising false allegations of sexual abuse just
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  to keep a parent away when it didn't take place,
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  it could result in the parent who's been falsely accused
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  actually getting soul costly of the kids. And that could
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  be so physical or so legal, you name it. You know,
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  particularly where a parent is raising me false allegations and
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  they and they know, or there's a reasonable degree of
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  certainty that they know these allegations are false. They're just
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  raising it in a bad faith manner in order to
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  keep a parent away all right. Again, you know, some
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  critique of psycho sexual evaluations is while while some people
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  would argue that a lot of is testing is objective.
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  Some would say it's subjective that different psychologists could, you know,
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  do the evaluation on a particular individual and come up
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  with different results. So there's some subjectivity here, you know.
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  One of the other big drawbacks of psycho sexual evaluations
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  is that if somebody omits or withholds material information to
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  the individual doing the evaluation, or they're dishonest and they're
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  not candid and they don't tell things that they should tell,
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  then this can obviously skew the results as well, and
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  so that can be a potential weakness as well. Okay, again,
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  this is a nasty topic. This isn't really a fun topic.
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  Hopefully most of the listeners never have to experience these
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  types of cases, but the reality is they do happen
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  circumstances where sexual abuse has taken place. These are terrible cases.
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  And then there are cases where individuals have been falsely
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  abused and there's been no sexual abuse at all. So
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  I wanted to cover this topic today because it does happen,
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  and these can be gut wrenching types of cases for
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  individuals going through it. All right, as a follow up
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  to the episode today, going over to Familylawheadquarters dot com.
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  Read the article titled what is a psychosexual the valuation?
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  The date is July twenty second, twenty twenty five. This
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  will give you more information on this topic. But thanks
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  for tuning in today. Stay tuned our next episode coming up.
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  Thank you very much.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Family Law Talk with Kirk Stangy.
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  Is it Stangy Lawfirm dot com for more about today's
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  topic or to put Stangy Lawfirm to work for your
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