Latest / The Parent Tap / Divorce Like a Boss: Diana Romanov on Protecting Your Kids & Money Before You File
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_01: Diana, tell us your origin story.
- 0:01SPEAKER_01: You you grew up across Ukraine, Russia, and Germany.
- 0:04SPEAKER_01: You became a prosecutor in Berlin.
- 0:06SPEAKER_01: Now you run a family law practice in San Francisco.
- 0:09SPEAKER_01: So what drew you out of the courtroom and into the family law?
- 0:12SPEAKER_01: Specifically, was there a walk-in, a case, or a person that made you realize this was your calling?
- 0:17SPEAKER_00: It was a cer circumstances are surrounding my childhood and my adulthood and growing up and everything.
- 0:23SPEAKER_00: So I was born in Ukraine to very young parents, 19 and 24 years old when I was born.
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: And needless to say that they were figuring life out and and they were divorcing each other five times.
- 0:35SPEAKER_00: Five times I have seen the insanity in and out battle and going back and forth uh with each other.
- 0:42SPEAKER_00: And then I got married in Germany and I got divorced.
- 0:45SPEAKER_00: And I remember in in the law office with two lawyers.
- 0:48SPEAKER_00: One said, You got you got gifts for$100,000.
- 0:52SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I don't even give my wife so so many gifts.
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: And the other lawyers spoke completely different.
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: He said differently.
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: He said, You're going to San Francisco, and he had San Francisco poster in his office, and he said, I'll make sure you don't appear in person and appear remotely.
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: And so based on how they handled how this lawyer, who I ended up with obviously was lawyer number two, handled my case, I realized I want to turn my pain in into a profitable talent that I can help people.
- 1:21SPEAKER_00: I can help people to see the situation from a child's perspective because I remember seeing my dad when I was six coming to the home, asking me out with him, and I was hiding his wallet so that he cannot leave, trying to be a diplomat for them to stay together.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: They're still together, by the way, after all these years.
- 1:38SPEAKER_00: And also seeing how I negotiated my own divorce, observing my negotiations that led me to America because I negotiated so well.
- 1:47SPEAKER_00: And having that amazing lawyer who helped me to experience divorce as as painless as possible and fast in Germany.
- 1:55SPEAKER_00: So all of that and combination of interviewing a bunch of lawyers before I became an attorney to realize that divorce attorneys are actually the the type of lawyers who connect with clients most of the time.
- 2:06SPEAKER_00: Corporate attorneys don't, entertainment attorneys don't.
- 2:10SPEAKER_00: They they sit at their desk most of the time.
- 2:12SPEAKER_00: I can say that 50% of my time I speak to clients, and that's the part I like the most.
- 2:17SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 2:18SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's awesome.
- 2:19SPEAKER_01: I love that you're trying to take your pain like that you dealt with and try to like keep other people from kind of going through that same thing.
- 2:26SPEAKER_01: That's what I heard.
- 2:27SPEAKER_01: And so your whole brand is divorced like a boss, but you've said that the best divorce is the one that doesn't destroy the family financially.
- 2:34SPEAKER_01: So for a parent staring down the bar the barrel of divorce, what is a single big biggest myth about winning that that you have to break for them on day one?
- 2:43SPEAKER_00: When they have children, I prefer for them to mediate and and do co-parenting counseling because once certain things are set on the record and children's pictures of of their rashes and their butts are attached as exhibit A, it cannot be taken back.
- 2:59SPEAKER_00: And when the children grow up and they see the exhibits and they see they observe the parents' divorce, it affects them.
- 3:06SPEAKER_00: How many clients I had who said, My parents' divorce was so nasty, I don't want to get married.
- 3:12SPEAKER_00: But now that I'm, you know, my wife my my girlfriend is pregnant, I need this prenup, iron tied prenup, and I want everything to be mine.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: And and I see how that ripple effect of seeing nasty divorce affecting actually healthy relationships and creating trust issues, creating all kinds of issues, if not it could have been prevented if these type of parents had wisdom to hire the right type of attorneys, because some lawyers will suck the life out of the case to not hire these type of child, but actually hire attorneys who are minded, child child-minded, mediation-minded.
- 3:49SPEAKER_00: Of course, if the other side is unreasonable and the litigation is the only way to go, then that's that's the path.
- 3:55SPEAKER_00: But most of the time, 99% of the cases, the most sane cases are resolved in mediation.
- 4:01SPEAKER_00: So I think that 2% is when yeah, when clients cannot reach agreements.
- 4:06SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 4:07SPEAKER_01: And so in your videos, you talk about um custody being the single most contentious issue.
- 4:12SPEAKER_01: So from the thousands of families you've counseled, what do parents consistently get wrong about custody, legally and emotionally?
- 4:19SPEAKER_00: It's hard to say because on one hand, a parent is so attached to their child.
- 4:23SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I I have a six-year-old, I I know exactly.
- 4:27SPEAKER_00: And then the most single mistake I I I see is typically on the mother's side, when she thinks she knows best and she knows how to parent and he doesn't do it right, he doesn't use the right amount of diapers or doesn't do it correctly, or just micromanaging to the point where the father is so detached and cannot do it right ever, that father grows up or not grows up, the child grows up, and the father grows with the child thinking that he's not connecting because he cannot do it right.
- 5:00SPEAKER_00: And that creates disconnect.
- 5:02SPEAKER_00: And then when divorce happens, the father just doesn't fight, just walks away.
- 5:07SPEAKER_00: And and and and then that mother creates a story that the f your father doesn't like you, and and the child grows up with all kinds of issues, but the core issue began when the child was born and the mother was installing into father's thinking that he's incapable, which is sometimes true, but you gotta give an error and it it's it's every parent has the right to parent the way they want to parent, and they and the child sh should be.
- 5:31SPEAKER_00: It is in the best interest of a child to be consistently to have consistent continuous contact with both both parents.
- 5:39SPEAKER_00: So the most important mistake I see that one parent is sheltering their child so much where they come out of place of protection, but actually it hurts the child.
- 5:50SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about domestic violence cases.
- 5:52SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about these type of, you know, I'm not I'm I'm talking about micromanaging parenthood.
- 5:58SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I've dealt with that too, where it's like my wife and I have different uh opinions on how often they should be babed, how often, you know, they they need to be changed on their diapers, am I doing the diaper right?
- 6:08SPEAKER_01: Like all that stuff.
- 6:09SPEAKER_01: And so I totally understand what you're saying and how that can make, you know, I I feel like I as a father, I didn't really develop a bond for my kids until I was about you were about two and a two, two and a half, something like that.
- 6:20SPEAKER_01: But before that stage, I really didn't have much of a bond.
- 6:23SPEAKER_01: And then my wife from day one, she had this bond with my kids too.
- 6:26SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of that you just talked about that I can relate to.
- 6:29SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you're licensed in California and Germany and fluent in three languages, which is crazy.
- 6:34SPEAKER_01: I'm not even fluent in English.
- 6:36SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um can you ex describe the cultural differences between America, Germany, and in Russia?
- 6:44SPEAKER_01: And you know, maybe like how they how do they go through the divorce process differently?
- 6:49SPEAKER_00: For example, in Russia and Ukraine, the presumption is that the child should be with the mother.
- 6:54SPEAKER_00: That's not that's not something Germany or California does.
- 6:58SPEAKER_00: In California, the presumption, I wouldn't say presumption, but it's considered in the best interest of the child to have continuous and constant contact to both parents and not by default to one parent, unless there is domestic violence or some sort of unfitness of one parent.
- 7:14SPEAKER_00: In in Germany, same thing.
- 7:16SPEAKER_00: Prenups, German, European prenups, I would say German and and French prenups because I've tried them all, they're not in they're not valid in California.
- 7:24SPEAKER_00: So in in in France and Germany, in order to have a prenup, it's okay to sign off wealth by sign off wealth but without knowing what the other spouse has.
- 7:34SPEAKER_00: It's just a blank sign off without attaching all the assets.
- 7:38SPEAKER_00: In California, that's absolutely no go.
- 7:41SPEAKER_00: California regulates it strictly that if the prenuptial agreement doesn't have assets and debt attached, then there is no financial disclosure.
- 7:48SPEAKER_00: It has to be part of Exhibit A and B of the prenup.
- 7:51SPEAKER_00: So in terms of cultural differences, in in Russia, it's culturally that mother spends more time with the children.
- 7:59SPEAKER_00: I don't know why and how it came about, but that's what I observed while growing up in Ukraine as part of Russia and Soviet Union.
- 8:07SPEAKER_00: So it's was one.
- 8:08SPEAKER_00: And in in Germany, I I've seen closely to what I what I see in California, that both parents are involved, that father can take time off as well, not just mother.
- 8:19SPEAKER_00: And in Germany, a company cannot fire someone if mother takes three years off.
- 8:25SPEAKER_00: Three years.
- 8:26SPEAKER_00: Three years.
- 8:27SPEAKER_00: Yeah, three three years, not six weeks.
- 8:30SPEAKER_00: Not not American three six weeks.
- 8:33SPEAKER_00: So needless to say that there is a problem hiring women in Germany, probably because partially of of this uh generous and uh time off and other privileges.
- 8:43SPEAKER_00: But so that's some some noti some some cultural differences I notice.
- 8:48SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there are many more.
- 8:49SPEAKER_01: Wow, three years versus six weeks yellows.
- 8:52SPEAKER_01: That's that's quite the the difference there.
- 8:54SPEAKER_01: Let's say somebody's going through a like they it realizing they're going through a divorce, like they want to protect themselves though.
- 9:00SPEAKER_01: Before they even start calling the lawyer, what do you in terms of financial protection, what should they do from that from that instance on before they even call the lawyer?
- 9:10SPEAKER_00: Be the best detective you can be of your own financial destiny and get as much as as possible in terms of records from the other side as legally as possible.
- 9:20SPEAKER_00: You know, if you have quicken, download the quicken account with screenshots and if you have access to bank accounts, download seven years of bank records, just do as much work as possible before before the other side locks it all and makes it unavailable, and then the client has to spend a lot of money in discovery to get the documents they are entitled to get anyway.
- 9:43SPEAKER_00: And the other side maybe produces and then they miss one statement or two statements, and then you have to pay attorney's fees a stupid amount of money just to get the statement that you're entitled to anyway, and then they don't provide it.
- 9:55SPEAKER_00: And then you have to think about should I file a motion for contempt to pay$5,000 in attorney's fees for the for the few statements that I think could show where you know some clients I discovered, and in those missing statements, there's a transfer to another bank that ended up not being disclosed.
- 10:13SPEAKER_00: It's not just missing one month of statement, it's it's for a reason sometimes.
- 10:17SPEAKER_00: And then we subpoena, and so all of that can be avoided with getting the records upfront, creating a parenting plan, creating an amicable environment before it gets too late.
- 10:28SPEAKER_00: You know, people grow apart and and then something happens, someone cheated or financial financially cheated or something, and then they get so upset, so emotional that they don't want to talk to each other, but it costs money.
- 10:41SPEAKER_00: Then then they pay a stupid amount of money to talk to each other's sort of attorneys to exchange emails about uh personal belongings that don't cost as much as attorneys charging for sending that email in the first place.
- 10:53SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, that's that's I could see how that adds up real quick.
- 10:57SPEAKER_01: Five thousand dollars.
- 10:58SPEAKER_01: My gosh, I'm gonna have to get a quicker or a cheaper deal since we know each other now if I ever go through that process.
- 11:05SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm talking California, California, right?
- 11:07SPEAKER_00: So Bay Area California is uh is is a is a bubble.
- 11:13SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about other areas of United States.
- 11:17SPEAKER_01: You know, what what is it's you know, what is its stance or how does it play in Sioux family law right now?
- 11:22SPEAKER_01: Like what should a parent know about it?
- 11:23SPEAKER_01: To to use it or to not use it?
- 11:25SPEAKER_01: Because like I know there's only so much you can do with it, right?
- 11:28SPEAKER_01: Because it's not it's not a lawyer, right?
- 11:30SPEAKER_00: AI is a tool, as it used to be Google or you know, Westlaw.
- 11:36SPEAKER_00: AI is now installed in ver in various softwares, like Cook Council, for example, uses AI.
- 11:43SPEAKER_00: And it's uh closed AI, meaning if we drop bank records, it doesn't get leaked.
- 11:48SPEAKER_00: It has a type of HIPAA protection.
- 11:51SPEAKER_00: So for example, the way I use it, before I used to call a CPA and say, hey, if I drop uh 10 accounts, five years worth of statements, can you find a hidden account that wasn't disclosed?
- 12:04SPEAKER_00: And then I wait a month or two.
- 12:06SPEAKER_00: Now I drop it into AI, so I drop thousand statements into co-counsel and I say, find a transfer from from the same person to a different bank account that's not included in this in in this disclosure.
- 12:19SPEAKER_00: And then within 10 minutes I find the answer.
- 12:21SPEAKER_00: And I charge client for 10 minutes.
- 12:23SPEAKER_00: So how is that for saving?
- 12:25SPEAKER_01: AI.
- 12:26SPEAKER_00: And then I sent AI summary to the client as confidential report and say this is what AI found.
- 12:32SPEAKER_01: That's great.
- 12:32SPEAKER_01: What about the the the client that does like all the like for instance myself?
- 12:36SPEAKER_01: I just got laid off.
- 12:37SPEAKER_01: So I did all this research under AI, and I was like, oh, I have a solid, like ironclad case locked down for for you know unfair firings or whatever.
- 12:46SPEAKER_01: So I did that, and then I actually called an attorney and I got them on the line for like 400 bucks an hour, and they were like, not really.
- 12:52SPEAKER_01: So would you see that too where like people are doing their own research?
- 12:55SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, this is this is for sure what it's gonna be, and then they go to you and they're like, they're finding out it's not actually accurate, like just from the per the consumer's perspective of AI.
- 13:05SPEAKER_00: Yeah, back to my 10 minutes before I answered this.
- 13:08SPEAKER_00: So the 10 minutes is not for AI work, but to check AI's work.
- 13:12SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
- 13:13SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 13:13SPEAKER_00: So that's a very important distinction because AI I don't trust.
- 13:17SPEAKER_00: I always check, and that's what I charge for to check.
- 13:21SPEAKER_00: So when I see the answers and I'm like, nah, that's not the law.
- 13:24SPEAKER_00: That's not the law.
- 13:25SPEAKER_00: And AI hallucinates more than we think.
- 13:28SPEAKER_00: It creates citations that don't exist.
- 13:31SPEAKER_00: It creates I have a lot of clients who send me emails through AI.
- 13:35SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate the love of clients because they're progressive, they they don't send me raw emotional emails, they run it through AI, and AI starts with, thank you very much for being so patient with me.
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: You know, they have this nice upfront thing, and then the problem and then the ask.
- 13:52SPEAKER_00: So the the AI uses the format I always use, sandwich format.
- 13:56SPEAKER_00: So appreciation, problem, ask.
- 13:59SPEAKER_00: And then that's that's that's much better than I used to get from clients who are emotional, which is a lot.
- 14:06SPEAKER_00: Another challenge, clients when they check my work, they use AI, and then it creates more work.
- 14:12SPEAKER_00: So unnecessary billable work.
- 14:14SPEAKER_00: So let's say I drafted a declaration, they run it through AI, and then they send me the notes from AI, and I'm looking at the notes, and they're useless.
- 14:22SPEAKER_00: They're not even true, not applicable, irrelevant, whatever, useless.
- 14:27SPEAKER_00: So I s I send the I I review it briefly, and I already know, A, it's AI because it's recognizable by the font, by the lines in between, the way it's written, by the puff and fa fluff it it has, and and by the length.
- 14:42SPEAKER_00: So it's it's I got an eye for AI already.
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: I'm sure everyone does nowadays.
- 14:47SPEAKER_00: But it's okay.
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: Everyone is using AI.
- 14:49SPEAKER_00: It's fine, it's fine.
- 14:50SPEAKER_00: As long as it's as it's used as a tool to help and not as a tool to create problems.
- 14:56SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 14:56SPEAKER_01: Don't do what I did.
- 14:57SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's four hundred dollars because you're getting you have an ironclad case, it wasn't divorced, but you know, it was still like an employment issue.
- 15:05SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I was like, damn.
- 15:06SPEAKER_01: I I thought like it convinced me I was like a hundred percent right.
- 15:10SPEAKER_01: And then so I go and get into it.
- 15:12SPEAKER_00: Well, AI is biased, you know?
- 15:14SPEAKER_00: This this this is the prompting.
- 15:17SPEAKER_00: The prompting, I would never ask a biased leading question to AI.
- 15:21SPEAKER_00: I would give first an AI a role.
- 15:24SPEAKER_00: You are a top-notch employment attorney, and now this is the situation.
- 15:28SPEAKER_00: Tell me honestly the strength and weaknesses of this situation, and then AI will blurb it out.
- 15:35SPEAKER_00: But if I write, am I right about this AI and and tends to please?
- 15:40SPEAKER_01: It does.
- 15:41SPEAKER_01: I felt good for a couple days and then I felt really bad and stupid.
- 15:44SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I guess uh you know, that can be kind of used on your situation too, where people are always like used at checking your work or they come into a situation thinking like they're gonna get this much because of an AI.
- 15:56SPEAKER_01: It just it's just yeah.
- 15:57SPEAKER_01: So trust the experts here, trust trust Diana.
- 16:00SPEAKER_01: When you talk about mediation rather than a courtroom battle with kids, like how does that work?
- 16:06SPEAKER_01: You know, is that is that the smarter kind of path for a divorce separation so there's not that nastiness that's kind of associated with divorce?
- 16:14SPEAKER_00: People tend to be more pleasant to deal with when they're in mediation mode, because when they make decisions for themselves without having someone a stranger in the rope, the judge make that for them, they tend to follow it more and tend to be more pleasing and appeasing in what they're doing because even if they don't like it, they feel they agree to it and they should stick to it.
- 16:37SPEAKER_00: When we have a court ordered something custody related, it tends to end up in a situation where a parent is so resentful that that parent alienates the child or is so upset if that if it's someone who is on the other side, let's say someone got ordered supervised visitation, they just drop the whole supervised and don't even show up.
- 16:58SPEAKER_00: They just give up.
- 16:59SPEAKER_00: It it depends on the situation, but it's it's hard to generalize all the cases, but I I I can say that mediation is more more peaceful than litigation.
- 17:08SPEAKER_00: It's not as stressful to prepare because nobody knows what the judge is gonna order.
- 17:12SPEAKER_00: Yes, there is law, but there is the judge.
- 17:15SPEAKER_00: And the judge can has mood, has opinions, and and yes, there is a law, but it's still there is this wild card that I as a controller don't like.
- 17:27SPEAKER_00: I don't like to go to court because as much as I like to litigate, it's it's kind of contradictory, but I don't like the judge to make a decision at the end.
- 17:36SPEAKER_00: It's the process is enjoyable, but not the part where I don't know what the judge is going to do at the end.
- 17:41SPEAKER_00: And that's the part I I would like people to be more understanding and take charge of their own situation and not let come to that point.
- 17:51SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- 17:52SPEAKER_01: What do you tell like a parent right now who's listening that they're going through the divorce and they're they're worried like no matter what they do, stay together, divorce, they're gonna ruin their kids.
- 18:02SPEAKER_01: What do you say in that situation?
- 18:03SPEAKER_01: What would you like what advice do you have for that situation?
- 18:06SPEAKER_00: Well, I would I would channel channel challenge the question because I I I think it's not true that divorce is automatically ruining the kids.
- 18:14SPEAKER_00: I know some therapists have that opinion and I have heard it many times, but I personally think that unhappy marriage ruin ruins the kids more than happy divorce.
- 18:24SPEAKER_00: When Kiran's observ when kids observe parents being unhappy, cheating on each other, hitting each other, yelling at each other, over the over time they develop a pattern of assuming that this is how love looks like and they will pick they will pick partners like that.
- 18:40SPEAKER_00: And that's more damaging for them long term than divorce, remarriage or not remarriage, but actually respect and not allowing that insanity sink in to the children's mind and rather be in different households, but each parent caring for them as much as they can and not talking bad about that parent and and actually be neutral and genuinely neutral, not and and work with a separate therapist about their personal issues about that appearan instead of venting to the child?
- 19:12SPEAKER_00: I think a child should stay a child for as long as possible.
- 19:15SPEAKER_00: And a a good divorce can can bring more good than bad than a bad marriage.
- 19:21SPEAKER_01: And that's so true.
- 19:22SPEAKER_01: And Diana, like how did you was your child still like was your child born when you went through the divorce?
- 19:28SPEAKER_01: And if so, how did you talk to your child about going through those emotions?
- 19:32SPEAKER_01: Because you again, you don't want them to grow up too quickly, but you don't want to like lie to them and keep them in the dark, right?
- 19:39SPEAKER_00: The the ideal way to do it is to be honest.
- 19:42SPEAKER_00: The child is a human being, that's what I assumed as I was six years old.
- 19:46SPEAKER_00: This is not something a child should be.
- 19:48SPEAKER_00: And and then also get into therapy.
- 19:50SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love the example of what not to do, because it's like, well, if we don't do that, then I guess we're on a we're on a better path to talking about it with our kids.
- 19:59SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that that makes total sense.
- 20:01SPEAKER_01: And Diana, did you want to to mention where we can find you, where people can give that consultation?
- 20:07SPEAKER_01: And just kind of where to follow you on the internet.
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: Yes, I made it so easy by saying this.
- 20:14SPEAKER_00: Just dive into Google or Chat GPT.
- 20:17SPEAKER_00: Divorce like a boss with Diana.
- 20:20SPEAKER_00: Or Diana, as I like to call myself, is the Ukrainian version of Diana.
- 20:24SPEAKER_00: And you will find YouTube video YouTube channel called Divorce Like a Boss, and my website is linked in every video.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: I have two books as you can see in the background: Divorce Like a Boss, both and the other one Good Together.
- 20:39SPEAKER_00: I had to double check the title because I changed it so many times.
- 20:42SPEAKER_00: So both are available on Amazon.
- 20:45SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
- 20:45SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
- 20:46SPEAKER_01: And I'll definitely put that all in the show notes.
- 20:48SPEAKER_00: I created over 600 videos about divorce-related topics, information that people can find about how to find an attorney, how to fire an attorney, how to do it yourself, how how is uh spousal support working?
- 21:01SPEAKER_00: 17 minute long video about California spousal support.
- 21:04SPEAKER_00: All you need to know.
- 21:04SPEAKER_00: So people who are searching for information, they will find it on my YouTube channel.
- 21:09SPEAKER_00: Everything divorce related will be probably there because I'm starting to run out of topics.
- 21:14SPEAKER_00: That's why I do podcasts now.