Latest / Divorce Dialogues / The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Behind High-Conflict Divorce | Erin Levine
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- Erin Levine (00:00): A lot of people know now and come to us saying, "Listen, I'm afraid that if I lawyer up that my spouse is going to panic and this will turn into a war, but I also want to be able to protect myself." And those two things are not mutually exclusive. You can have a lawyer or another type of expert to consult with along the way before you ever make the big decisions that need to get done. Katherine Miller (00:28): Welcome to Divorce Dialogues. I'm Katherine Miller. This is where we have honest, thoughtful conversations about divorce, the emotional, financial, legal, and family questions no one prepares you for. From deciding whether to separate, to navigating the process with dignity, to rebuilding what comes next, Divorce Dialogues is here to help you find clarity, perspective, and a better way forward. One of the things that can make divorce so overwhelming is the feeling that once you enter the legal system, you have to hand the whole thing over to someone else and you're on the train and you just can't get off and you're not sure where the stations are either. You hire a lawyer, the lawyer takes over, and suddenly something that's going to profoundly affect your life can begin to feel as though it's happening around you rather than with you. But the alternative can feel equally daunting trying to figure out an unfamiliar legal and financial process entirely on your own. (01:31): The truth is that those are not the only two choices. Different divorces need different kinds of help, and you may need a lawyer for one part of the process, a financial professional for another, and simply just good information somewhere else. Getting the right level of support can mean understanding not only when you need an expert, when also when you don't. My guest today is Erin Levine. She's a certified family law specialist and the founder and CEO of Hello Divorce, a platform that combines technology, self-service tools, and access to professional guidance. After years of practicing family law, Erin set out to create a more accessible and less adversarial way for people to navigate divorce. So today we're talking about how to figure out what kind of help you actually need, which parts of your divorce you can and should remain responsible for and how to use lawyers, other professionals and technology strategically without giving up ownership of the process. (02:31): Welcome, Erin Levine. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Erin Levine (02:34): Thank you so much, Katherine. I am so, so thrilled that we were connected because when I started learning more about you and your show and how you practice and how you think of divorce is so much more than a legal transaction, but really a life transition that we need to support in many different ways, it echoed what I've been thinking and talking about for so long. So it's great. Katherine Miller (02:59): Well, the analogy I like to use is that I think that divorce is like a knitting basket that a kitten got into. And so all of the different threads, the yellow, the green, the blue, the teal, are all tangled up together. And so if you translate that to what life is like, it's a parenting relationship, it's a love relationship, it's a family relationship, it's a business partnership and all these things are part of it and they're all connected and how to try to sort those out so that you can weave something or knit something, I guess I'm not a knitter, but that it actually works, I think really does help people move through in the most efficient way. Erin Levine (03:40): So well said. And while all of this is happening, you still have the rest of your life. You might have a job, you have family, you have all the self-work, maybe grief, maybe joy, maybe relief, and all of that is happening at the same time, which is why it's so important that we look at it from beyond just a legal transaction. Katherine Miller (04:02): Yeah. And I think, and maybe we're a little ahead of ourselves here, I think that people really worry that somehow or other they look like a fool when they're getting divorced. No one wants to be dumped. That sense of being left and bereft and abandoned is a fear that many people really, really have. And so dealing with your own sense of hurt and betrayal, even if you're the one leaving and reestablishing your identity, I think has people up late at night and doing a lot of Googling at a time that they're not calling their lawyers. And now they're ChatGPTing and clawing. And so I love that you're so prescient and you're thinking about introducing technology into the divorce process because everybody's using it anyway. But before we get into that, after all these years of practicing law, what was it that convinced you, because I have my story, but I'd like to hear your story, that the traditional divorce model wasn't serving many of the people who were in it. Erin Levine (05:06): Yeah, so it was really three big themes that kept presenting themselves over and over and over again. The first is the cost, right? The average cost of divorce can be somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 if it's contested or more per person. And I saw that the vast majority of people either couldn't afford that or spending that, especially with the uncertainty of knowing how much they would actually spend, was really overwhelming. The second big piece was conflict. In most states, we set divorce up as a fight to be won. There's X versus Y on the pleadings. Sometimes they're called a complaint. We serve people when they are at work or with their kids. None of that sets us up to feel like we can be in a position where we can work to transition our lives. And it brings in a ton of fear and fear makes us do sometimes some really irrational things. (06:13): The third big issue is what you constantly bring up in a really positive way, which is that divorce is so much more than the law. And everything is changing from where you live to maybe what your health insurance policy looks like, to how and when you parent, to what money you have available for retirement. And to me, it felt like we can't do this in a vacuum. Even if you have the best lawyer on the planet, you still need to understand these other pieces in order to control the damage, in order to make good choices and to set yourself up for a strong foundation for that next chapter. Katherine Miller (06:54): Totally true. You can't really just hand your divorce over to your lawyer, which people sometimes think, I'm just going to let my lawyer handle it because I'm not going to have to think about it. But that isn't really true because you're the person who has to live your life after the divorce. It's your money, it's your kids, it's your house, it's your retirement, literally down to the stuff, your couch, your bed frame, all of that sort of stuff that is really involved. So for people who are thinking, well, I either have to hire an attorney to do it for me or I have to DIY it, do it myself, which I'm telling you when I got divorced, I do this for a living and I couldn't do it myself. It was just too emotionally charged to do that. How do you see, Erin, what's actually available in between those two ends of the spectrum? Erin Levine (07:39): That was a big reason why I started this is because I saw that those were the two choices that many people thought they had and they did to a certain extent. Lawyer up and fight where you actually have a lot more control over your relationship with your lawyer, but people don't necessarily know that, or DIY. And as you said, even if you have the most uncontested, easy, amicable divorce on the planet, every state has different rules, every county handles things a little bit different, sometimes courthouse to courthouse. So I don't care how wonderful you are at prompting ChatGPT. ChatGPT actually doesn't know a lot of what Judge Smith at X courthouse wants to see to sign off on your divorce. Katherine Miller (08:23): I think that AI in general tends to be much more adversarial than most people need. Erin Levine (08:28): Yes. I haven't heard a lot of people say that, but it's so true. Absolutely. It's trained to agree with you and to continue fostering your narrative and get you to continue to use it. So absolutely, we could have a huge conversation of that in and of itself. Maybe it's helpful to just share a little bit about what Hello Divorce is, how it works. So what we've done is we look at divorce as if there's almost two separate paths. They meet and they need to coordinate, but they still are a little bit different. One is the procedural stuff, all of the forms you have to do, all the filing, all of the financial disclosures, and that's the part that we automate for the most part. Try to get that as easy and streamlined as possible so you always know where you are in the process. The second piece, which is the most important, is understanding what you have and working towards that ultimate agreement. (09:30): And that's where we bring in experts as necessary and depending on the part. So as an example, I would say about 75% of the people that come to us, their largest asset might be their home and they are not sure what they can afford, what the options are, whether it makes sense to sell or refinance, whether a loan assumption might be on the table where they can keep the loan at the existing mortgage rate. And in that scenario, we want people to be speaking with a real estate expert. You also might not know if you have all of the financial data you need to make a good decision or not understand what that financial information in front of you actually is. And that's a great opportunity to speak with a certified divorce financial analyst. But I'll tell you the two most popular experts on our platform outside of those are mediators to help broker a deal, get people to an agreement. (10:32): And then you also have the opportunity to, if you'd like, meet with a lawyer so that that lawyer can guide you, review your documents before you file them, help you understand if you might need more comprehensive representation, that kind of thing. Katherine Miller (10:47): Well, that sounds really comprehensive. And I'm wondering for people listening thinking, "Well, this might really work for me." How do people figure out which parts they're going to really need help with and which parts they might be able to handle themselves? Erin Levine (11:00): So first off, we have obviously our site, hellodivorce.com that anyone can look at, but most people start with a 15-minute phone call just to understand what it is that we offer and see if it might even be a good fit for them. Because clearly, if there's any domestic violence, if the case is already in litigation, Hello Divorce might be helpful, our resources, but it might not be the path that you take all the way through your divorce, number one. Number two is we have different plans. So we have a, depending on what state you're in, a DIY only, so that's software only plan. We have the PRO plan, which gets your forms and your filings done with the court. But if you are on a plus plan, that plan includes, in addition to all the other stuff, five hours with experts, and you have a divorce navigator. (11:59): This is not a lawyer, this is not someone who can give you legal advice, but this is somebody who can help you identify what support you might need and when. So as an example, some people come to us and they want to start immediately with mediation, but there's nothing urgent and neither party really knows what's happening financially. So in that scenario, a divorce navigator might say to them, "It might be helpful to get your financials on the table and then schedule a call with a mediator." Katherine Miller (12:33): I think that's really interesting. I do a lot of mediation myself, and the first thing that we do once people decide on mediation, of course, is to get a shared understanding of the economic reality. And so that doesn't mean that they have to agree on every last little expense. Some people are like, "Well, we spent $5 on vacations. Are you kidding? We spent $15." Fine. You don't know, but at least until you know, have some sort of sense of the facts, I think it's really hard to start to talk about things because it's like standing on quicksand. But I think that people are very anxious and afraid as they go through the divorce process, and it is anxiety provoking and scary. And because of that, they feel vulnerable. They worry a lot about not knowing what they don't know. And so I think that there is, and tell me what you think about this, a sort of sense as I better lawyer up, I better get someone in or get a financial professional or somebody in to protect me. (13:29): Sometimes bringing someone in to protect you actually destroys the working relationship, and so it's sort of like a two-edged sword. What are your thoughts about that? Erin Levine (13:38): And when you say working relationship, you mean between spouses? Katherine Miller (13:41): Between the spouses, yes. So the negotiating relationship, thanks for that clarification. Okay, you've decided to divorce and sometimes that's a very acrimonious, it's already very hot, in which case maybe you do need a little bit more professional involvement than if it's just we've grown apart. We've raised our children, they've left the home, and one of us wants to travel and the other one wants to move to Florida to save taxes, whatever, something like that. And we're not looking at it. It's sad, but it's not really hot. In that situation, you want to maintain that cordiality ideally because you've raised these children together. It's not like your marriage has failed, it's just you have survived it and moved beyond that. And holding onto that working relationship ideally is going to help both of you going forward. That's what I mean. Erin Levine (14:35): Absolutely. Two things come to my mind right away. One is that movie, The Marriage Story, for people who have seen it, where both parties had the intention of keeping it amicable. Nobody wants a long, messy, ugly divorce, but it shows how quickly well-intentioned people, when they hand their divorce over to lawyers, how messy and ugly it can get. And so I think what's most important is that a lot of people think that, "Oh, if I go to a lawyer, I'm going to know exactly what's going on. They are going to keep me abreast of everything." And that's not what happens. Lawyers are busy. Lawyers have to prioritize really messy cases. And so a lot of people find themselves in a position where they don't know what's going on. And when they're not moving, then the other spouse is wondering, "Well, what are you up to? (15:32): Why aren't we moving this divorce along?" So even the silence, the silence can make things messier. And so what's most important is that you choose a process that has transparency, that you know where you are in the process and what's next, because there are so many decisions you're going to have to make. You mentioned a bunch of them early on, so many things that you're going to have to deal with, but you don't have to deal with them all now. And you have been able to learn and do hard things before you'll be able to do that now, but you have to trust that you are in a process where you will know what the next step is and how to obtain the information that you need when you get stuck. And you just don't get that with a lawyer. I know I litigated for 20 years. (16:25): I'm sure you litigated for a very long time too. Katherine Miller (16:28): Indeed. Erin Levine (16:28): The word is out, right? A lot of people know now and come to us saying, "Listen, I'm afraid that if I lawyer up that my spouse is going to panic and this will turn into a war, but I also want to be able to protect myself." And those two things are not mutually exclusive. You can have a lawyer or another type of expert to consult with along the way before you ever make the big decisions that need to get done. Katherine Miller (16:59): Divorce Dialogues is brought to you by Miller Law Group. We believe divorce isn't just a legal process, it's a human transition. At Miller Law Group, we help people navigate divorce with dignity, clarity, and respect, focusing on conversations that lead to better outcomes for families. Learn more at miller-law.com. And not all lawyers are the same. I mean, some lawyers come in extremely aggressively from the beginning and are only open to negotiation in the courthouse corridor, and others really focus on negotiation. So knowing who you're dealing with, I think makes a big difference. Erin Levine (17:39): That's true. But I would also say that most lawyers are somewhere in the middle and that can be damaging too. So as an example, I can't tell you how often we have people that have consulted with us that received a letter from their spouse's attorney that's on letterhead that says, "We filed this divorce. We hope to keep it amicable. We'd like to resolve this, but if you don't do X, Y, and Z, I've been authorized to take this matter to court." And so the lawyer thinks that maybe they're doing a good job by trying to let the other party know that we can work together, but it doesn't feel that way if you're on the other side. Katherine Miller (18:23): Well, Erin, I agree that most lawyers don't really understand tone. Erin Levine (18:27): Yeah, so exactly. Katherine Miller (18:28): Just as you receive a letter from a lawyer on letterhead, that is enough to imply the rest. When we have new clients come to the office and they haven't yet told their spouse that they want a divorce, that's always a question that who's going to tell your spouse that you want a divorce? You can tell them or I can tell them. I think it's better if you tell them because when I tell them, it's going to be like we just whacked them upside the head with a stick. Erin Levine (18:55): Yes. And we want to give them an opportunity to absorb that information because you may have been thinking about it and pondering it for, on average, I think people do for two to four years, and you think that your spouse should know it's coming based on how the relationship has gone, but it still always comes as a surprise. People still can't believe that it's actually here. Katherine Miller (19:18): I've had so many people say to me, "I knew it wasn't good, but I didn't think it was that bad." And how bad it has to be is something that people can differ about. So how have you seen that having this access to the clear, understandable information changes how people communicate and negotiate and actually make the decisions during the divorce? Erin Levine (19:40): My hypothesis was when we first launched, we're live in all 50 states now, but we started in California. I had a lot of hypotheses about how this would go, but the one that actually worked and came true is that when you start a divorce with this level of transparency, sharing each step as you go, not necessarily sharing your strategy or exactly what you want or how you're going to get there, but being clear about what everyone has to do to move on and to get divorced, it really takes down the level of animosity and it gets people more in the frame of mind of how can I make a decision that's going to be best for me and/or my kids versus how can I get back or how can I defend against my spouse or how can I win? It becomes less about that and more about how can I transition and control the damage and get through this in a way that's going to set me up with a solid foundation. (20:42): And it's not perfect and we all have moments and there's almost always conflict even in a somewhat amicable divorce, but it gets people to the finish line much quicker and feeling much better about the decisions that they made along the way. Katherine Miller (20:59): Let's talk about technology. At the top of the show, I mentioned that people Google things in the middle of the night. They Google things all the time. I get communications from clients all the time that sometimes they say Claude says this or Chat says that, but sometimes it's just obvious because there are a few tells. So how do you see technology actually helping people and where are you worried that it oversimplifies or creates a sense of maybe false confidence? Erin Levine (21:30): First of all, a couple of things. Something that's quite interesting is that we ran a poll not that long ago and 7% of the divorces that were currently happening on our platform were as a result of one spouse having a relationship with some type of AI, either romantic relationship or a relationship where AI said, "Okay, it's done. Now the marriage should be over." So clearly people are relying on AI not just for decisions around their divorce or how to do their divorce, but for much more intimate life decisions as well, which is a little bit concerning, maybe a lot concerning. We saw early on that technology was becoming a bigger and bigger draw for a lot of our customers. And so we couldn't say no technology, that's not going to be helpful. But what we have tried to do is introduce a couple things. Number one is that technology is very helpful and important in divorce, but there is a profoundly human aspect and virtually everyone who works with us at some point or another wants to connect with a human, wants to connect with an expert. (22:50): And I don't see that going away anytime soon, especially when it comes to mediation, when it comes to helping people get to an agreement. The second thing that we've done is understanding that people want answers at midnight when they're scrolling and they're panicked. We created our own free chatbot, Hallie, who's trained on hundreds of thousands of Q&As with experts on our platform and questions that clients have asked, as well as many of the local rules. And she's also trained to say, "Actually, I don't know the answer to that." Or actually that rule changes quite a bit where this form is sometimes optional, but in other cases mandatory so that we're giving as realistic of an answer as possible given the scenario. Katherine Miller (23:42): We talked a little bit earlier about lawyers taking over, the feeling that they're going to, and also you said something like the client's in control. Those weren't your exact words, but something like that, right? When somebody does need professional help, how do you think that they could think about it? If a listener is thinking, how do I control my lawyer? How do I remain the active decision maker rather than handing over the responsibility to somebody else or allowing somebody else to tell them what to do even when it doesn't feel right? Erin Levine (24:12): I always say start with what is most stressful, what's keeping you up at night, because if you don't have an answer to that, if you can't work through that, then that might drive your decision making across a whole host of other issues. So start with if it's, I have no idea what to expect with child support, will it be, what will I be paying or what will I be receiving? Starting with that. The best thing that you can do is slow down, take deep breaths and actually do the work. Sometimes that means working with a therapist. Sometimes that means working with a divorce coach. It has to be the right one, but somebody who can help you to understand what issues are in front of you that you have to make, what decisions and how to prioritize them. Katherine Miller (25:03): I think that remembering that you are the boss, you are paying and say to the lawyer from the beginning, I want your advice, but I also want to know that you understand that this is my decision. And how do you feel about that? Because if that's something you want, you want to be ultimately making your own decisions, you need to be working with a lawyer who's going to accept that because some won't. Erin Levine (25:28): Absolutely true. I mean, that was a huge part. It's hard to find the right lawyers to work with our platform, the right network, because we want lawyers that understand that and have the experience. So often I see a situation where the parties are working towards an agreement, things are going relatively well, and now a spouse makes a proposal that feels really hostile or really scary and the lawyer says, "Oh, we have to deal with this. Let's address it head on." And the most important thing is to take a step back and say, "How much does this issue actually matter to me?" Would it be worth giving them the win in exchange for something else? Only you know that. Only you know how important it is to have one extra overnight with your kids a month or getting or receiving 10 extra dollars of child support a month. (26:27): That might be really important to you. You might need that, but you might be willing to sit back and say, "Okay, I'm open to conceding on that if I can get something else that's really important to me." Katherine Miller (26:41): I agree with everything that you're saying, but I also think that there are lawyers who will tell their clients, "We can't do that because that's not how we do it." And yeah, if the two spouses can't agree to do something creative, then great. But otherwise, I think our job as lawyers is to figure out what will work for this family and then find a way to make that happen instead of like, "Oh, we can't do that because that's not how we do it." That's just bad lawyering and it's just bad. Erin Levine (27:08): Absolutely. An example is in most states, if you can't agree on one spouse keeping the house and you had to litigate, the court would say, "You have to sell it." So lawyers might give the advice, "Listen, you haven't been able to agree, and so you're going to have to sell it because they're thinking about it in those litigation sort of absolute terms." Well, why? There are plenty of other options that benefit both parties. Maybe having an actual valuation as opposed to leaving it to chance on the market is really interesting to that other spouse, or maybe not having to pay realtor commissions or capital gains. There's so many ways that we can help people get to an agreement that's more practical, but a lot of times we don't do it. We're lawyers, some lawyers. Katherine Miller (28:01): Erin, we only have a few minutes left on the show, but I do want to ask you, if there are lawyers out there listening, what would you tell them about what you've learned about what people actually want from them? That's Erin Levine (28:12): A good question. People want to feel heard. They don't want you to tell them what to do. They want to understand their options and they aren't necessarily there to get their spouse. Their number one goal is not to destroy their spouse. And if it is in the moment because they're angry, they're looking to you as the voice of reason, not to amp up that anger or fear and make things messier and uglier and more expensive. Katherine Miller (28:49): I think that's a great answer. All right, last question, and I like to call this one the reframe. What is the reframe you would offer to someone who thinks that protecting themself in divorce means preparing for a fight? Erin Levine (29:01): I would say there's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you are preparing for a fight, you will likely get a fight. Protecting yourself to me and to the vast majority of our clients is being able to make decisions from a place of knowledge, feeling confident about what your options are and making a choice from those. If you are making a decision about property or assets without knowing the terms of the contract, the marital contract or the assets themselves and how much they're worth, then you're not really making an informed decision. Katherine Miller (29:39): Erin, I have really enjoyed our conversation. I wish we had all day. Erin Levine (29:44): We'd have so much to talk about, that's for sure. Katherine Miller (29:46): Thanks for being my guest. Erin Levine (29:48): Thank you. Katherine Miller (29:51): If this conversation was helpful, share it with someone who might need it. And if you're navigating divorce yourself, you'll find more resources and episodes at miller-law.com. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.