Divorce Lawyer Jim Sexton: Why Marriages Fail, Prenups, Sex, Monogamy & Divorce | E192

I'm going to not have sex with other people in exchange for exclusively having sex with you. I feel like there is an obligation there. And as unromantic as that may sound, I'm a big believer in love, but I don't believe in fairy tales. But when you go through a relationship with rose-colored glasses, all the red flags look like flags.

If you just show up in your next marriage and you say, "Listen, I had a lot of resources when we met, so I want you to sign this prenup. It says that you get nothing." Don't marry that guy.

Great to be here. Always good to see you. So, I think it's great to be an expert at things before we get into it, especially my podcast. And divorce is a subject where unfortunately I am an expert. I'm going through my second divorce right now. I was married to my first wife for about eight and a half years, together for 11. I'm at the tail end of getting a divorce now, being with my soon-to-be ex-second wife for 12 and a half years, married for 11. So, this is a topic I know extremely well, all areas of a divorce.

Gosh, a divorce lawyer is a combination of a lot of different things. I mean, at a fundamental level, what we do is we help people from a legal standpoint untie the ties that occurred legally when two people decided to engage in the legal status of marriage as opposed to the religious or spiritual aspect of the union that we refer to as marriage. Because I like to separate those two concepts because I think that marriage is, you know, both a legal framework and it's also a religious sacrament in some religions. It's also a spiritual connection that two people make. But really what a divorce lawyer's role is fundamentally is to assist with the legal dissolution of marriage, to help you untie all the things that occurred legally when you got married. Getting married is the most legally significant thing a person can do other than dying. There's a lot of things that happen legally when a person dies tied to surrogacy law and estate law. But marriage is the most legally significant thing a person can do other than dying. But it's also something that very few people understand what happened when they got married legally. Like most people, like you buy a house, you get a lead paint disclosure, a HUD-1 form, all those kinds of things. You start a business, you get all kinds of disclosures and contracts. You get married, you didn't get a pamphlet. Like, it's just such a legally significant thing and no one explains to you, and most people only learn for the first time what happened legally when they got married when they're on the other end of it, when they're getting divorced. But that's the simple explanation of what divorce lawyers do. I see a divorce lawyer as a combination of a negotiator, a consigliere, an advisor, a quasi-therapist in some ways without a lot of training in mental health. We advise people during a really, really challenging moment in their life. I think the most rational thing a person could say to me when they were going through a divorce is, 'I really shouldn't make any big decisions right now because I'm going through a divorce,' and yet you have to make big decisions about your divorce while going through a divorce or you would just never get out of that cycle. So yeah, I mean, we're really kind of the front lines for a person in terms of there's a forward-facing aspect of the job, the one that you see at the negotiating table and in the courtroom. And then there's a non-forward-facing part that's really subject to attorney-client privilege where we're really behind closed doors having very pragmatic, practical, hopefully candid, and blunt conversations with our client. Because as you've probably seen even firsthand, you can spend $10,000 arguing over a $5,000 bank account in a divorce. And there's just no reason to do that. And so one of the things a responsible divorce lawyer does, because divorce lawyers live and die by their reputations, there's tremendous incentive to amplify conflict for a divorce lawyer because if we're successful in achieving our client's stated goals, we look brilliant, even if we had nothing to do with it, you know, even if it was just the nature of the facts and the law. But if we lose, we still get paid, you know, unlike personal injury lawyers who get, you know, a third of the recovery, you know, if they win and nothing if they lose. If I lose, I still get paid and I can go, 'Ah, this judge, I can't believe they got it wrong. Anyway, here's my invoice.' And so, I take that as a tremendous responsibility from the beginning to say to a client, you know, I'd rather you pay her than pay me. I would rather you put your children through college than mine.

I told you I'm proud of you for getting over the fence and making something of yourself.

You did. You did better than me. My starting salary as a lawyer was $50,000 a year, and I had to pay for my own health insurance.

Yeah. I mean, gosh, there's a lot there to unpack. So, what I'll say to you is as a trial lawyer who has a reputation as being a very effective sort of weapon in a courtroom. What I will tell you is it makes a lot of sense when you're a client and a consumer who's in need of the work that divorce lawyers do to think that the right way to approach it is to hire someone who has a reputation as being settlement-minded and more of a non-aggressive attorney. Unfortunately, in my experience, that often results in people ending up more in litigation than not. I think it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. Like it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it. And a trial lawyer is a weapon. What you said is absolutely accurate, which is you should never do something with a chainsaw that you could do with a scalpel. Mediation as a technology is doing it with a scalpel. And I always tell my clients at the beginning like you don't want to use my trial skills. Like don't under- like do everything. It's kind of what I told my sons when we were growing up, you know, when they were growing up. Like, don't use violence. Like, don't use violence. Like, vi- like I'm good at violence. I've been training Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, boxing for many, many years. Close. I know how to use firearms really well. I'm really good at violence. Don't use violence. Do everything you can to avoid avoid violence. All of the like highest-level jiu-jitsu guys, tactical military guys I've represented, you know, FBI SWAT guys, they would all do almost anything to avoid using violence even though they're great at it. Like Chris, you know, Petrus, you know, who's Navy SEAL, former Navy SEAL, amazing at violence. Jaco, amazing at violence, would do almost anything to avoid using it. You know, apologize when somebody scuffs your shoe and it's their fault, you know, like they just don't feel the need to flex because they're good at violence. Rorion Gracie, phenomenal at violence, you know, but and one of my dear friends, one of my teachers lives in La Jolla, would do almost anything to avoid the necessity of using violence, you know, but incredibly effective at violence. A good trial lawyer, it's the same thing. Sometimes the better you are at the art of tactical violence that is being a divorce trial lawyer, the less often you end up having to try cases very often. Like I said, I was talking in last time we spoke about John Titler, who's really, you know, one of my adversaries in court, but one of the people I respect most as a tactician and strategist. He does almost anything he can to avoid his clients having to litigate their case. But my god, is he an effective litigator if litigation's what's necessary. And sometimes the fact that he and I are both very good at litigation is exactly why we don't end up litigating a case. We just had a case together where, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars potentially in play, millions in counsel fees easily could have been spent. I think we both probably settled it, you know, we settled it in like two months and probably with $20,000 in legal fees on each side, which was a drop in the bucket for these people. I mean, the retainer they would have paid would have been $50,000 to $100,000. But John and I both as high-net-worth divorce lawyers, you know, meaning divorce lawyers who work with high-net-worth clients, we just, you know, we both realize, look, this is the argument you'd make. This is the argument I'd make. This is what the judge would probably do with it. Like what are we doing? Here's the delta between what our respective positions would be. Here's what the legal fees likely would be if we fought those positions and you got your blue sky scenario or I got my blue sky scenario. Here's the difference in our positions. So, let's just get there. Let's just get there. And we got there very fast. And that's what a good lawyer does. That's what a good mediator does. Mediators do it till everybody's satisfied, you know. And so, the goal should be to try to get there without the litigation. But sometimes the, you know, there's an old saying that cops carry guns so they don't have to use them. You know, good people going through divorce litigation. You see good people at their worst when you're going through divorce litigation. Even the friendliest divorce. Mine was, you know, my divorce personally was one of the friendliest divorces you could ever ask for. We went through mediation. We're both compromise-minded people. We both cared about each other. We had children together. We didn't want to hurt each other. We were never good at hurting each other. Never wanted to hurt each other. She's still one of my favorite people in the world. I still there's a lot of people I love I wouldn't want to be married to. Actually, all of them.

So, you know, I really never wanted to hurt her. And I said to her from the beginning, like, listen, you know, I have you ever seen me, you've been married to me for 10 years. We have two children together. Have you ever seen me screw anybody out of money ever? Like a contractor, a waiter, anyone in our entire time together? We've known each other since we were 19 years old. Have you ever seen me screw anybody out of money? She said, "Not once ever." I said, "Have you ever seen me get screwed out of money?" She's like, "Couple times a week." And I said, "Okay, do you think I'm going to start screwing people out of money and the first person I'm going to do it with is a person I have two children with and I'm going to have grandchildren with?" She was like, "No, I don't have any reason to think that." So, you know, that's why we went to mediation and we were successful in ending our marriage in a very amicable way, but it was still very painful. You know, it was still difficult. It's a transition. Change is good, but transitions are hard.

I'm familiar with Jeff's work and I've worked with people who had California issues and New York issues as many, many high-net-worth people have a place in California, a place in Florida, usually Miami, and then they have a place in New York City. And so there's a jurisdictional thing that happens. I'm familiar with his firm and his work as an attorney. And you know, he's got an impeccable reputation among the bar.

Yeah, great question and it's the right question to ask. You know, you can't believe people's marketing. You can't believe any of those like Super Lawyers or top lawyers things because those are all really paid marketing behind the scenes. You can't really trust what a Google search will tell you or what Claude or ChatGPT will tell you because they're really just taking aggregate information from a lot of marketing sources. I think you have to go to mental health professionals who work with high-net-worth individuals. You have to go to accountants and trust and estates attorneys who work with high-net-worth individuals. You know, high-net-worth individuals are not unfamiliar with working with lawyers. You know, they see lawyers as what they should see lawyers as, which is a service profession. There's an old joke that I hope won't offend you that, you know, you can't scare a prostitute with a dick. And I think that, you know, you can't scare a high-net-worth person with lawyers because they've if you're nobody till someone sued you. And all of my high-net-worth clients, athletes, celebrities, C-suite executives, you know, entrepreneurs, they've all worked with lawyers, they've all been sued. They've all had to sue someone. So, you go to the professionals who high-net-worth individuals trust and have earned their trust, good accountants, good financial managers. You ask them, you know, who have you seen your high-net-worth clients work with.

Yeah, you know, even if you are that person, even if you're the cop or the teacher or the, you know, the non-high-net-worth person, a person makes, you know, a couple hundred thousand, you're still putting you, by the way, in a fairly small percentage of Americans. You know, you still have an accountant probably who you've dealt with. You probably have a real estate attorney you've worked with. You probably have someone who did a will for you. We've all bumped into lawyers whether we like it or not. You know, we have somebody who helped us get out of a speeding ticket. You know, you go to those professionals and you say to them, who is trustworthy? I will tell you without divulging any attorney-client privilege, I had the attorney general of a state, not New York, who hired me when I was a young lawyer, a younger lawyer, to represent their son in connection with a custody proceeding. And I remember I was quite a green young lawyer. You know, I still had the price tag on me. I was still wet behind the ears. But I was very dedicated, very passionate, young, smart, and hungry, which is what I was when I was a young lawyer. And I'd like to think I still had the same level of talent, although I didn't have the same level of experience. I had the same level of skill, but I didn't have the level of experience I have now. And I remember getting a phone call from this person and he said, "Hi, I'm John Smith, a pseudonym, and I'm the attorney general of blah blah blah." And I went, "Okay." Like what did I do, you know? I don't think I've even been to that state. Like I can't have done much, you know. And he said, "No, my son has an issue. It's in New York State and I'd like you to, you know, do a consultation and maybe work with him." And at the end of the consultation or at the end of the conversation, I said to him, you know, I'm sorry. I really just am dying to know like how the hell did you hear of me? Like I'm nobody, you know? And he said, I'll tell you the truth. He said, "I called the clerk at the courthouse. I called the woman behind the glass who you see when you go into the information desk." And I said to her, who I said, "Could you tell me I'm from out of state, who's a lawyer who behind the glass the judges and the court staff speak favorably of?" And they said, "Oh, Jim Saxton. He's like a young lawyer, but like everyone really likes him and respects him and finds him to be like prepared and thoughtful and organized." And he said, "Great, I'll find his number." And then he, you know, Googled me or whatever and found my number and reached out to me. And really what she was talking about, she's retired now, that clerk name was Diane. She just had a unique perspective being behind the glass and like hearing, you know, what the court what the judges and their staff, their part clerks, their court officers, like what they had to say about me. And she said, "People say, 'Yeah, Jim's a nice guy, but he's also good in the courtroom and he's thoughtful and he's organized and he shows up prepared.'" And this guy as an experienced attorney, as an AG, he knew that that was, you know, that was what that was what the tool requires. That's the tool for the task, you know, is someone who's organized, thoughtful, and prepared.

Yeah. Well, so it's been going on forever.

Yeah. I mean, I actually think it's an ill-advised strategy. I think that it's a good strategy if you applied it to getting conflicted out the lawyers who are the lawyers who are ineffective and not good at family law. Some of my most tenacious, skilled adversaries are exactly who I would want on the other side of the case because like the story I said earlier with John Titler, who again I consider to be one of the most effective weapons available in a courtroom. He's also just he's effective, but he's not a jerk. He's not going to unnecessarily like you live and die by your reputation among your real peers and among like judges like not what court staff and judges and your adversaries, your skilled adversaries think of you is what matters. Like I will tell you as a longtime divorce lawyer now for almost three decades and also as someone who's represented a lot of celebrities and has a small measure of celebrity myself now as a function of my media work and my profession. I will tell you that, you know, one of the things about being a celebrity or quasi-celebrity and what I'll tell you from representing celebrities and spending a lot of time with celebrities is a lot of celebrities are really, really interested in the praise of strangers. The praise of strangers never meant that much to me. It's one of the reasons why celebrity or the modicum of celebrity that I enjoy and certainly representing celebrities, it's never really been that important to me. Like because the praise of strangers is lovely, don't get me wrong. Like any person who comes up to me on the street, like when I walk to my office, the three blocks I walk from my apartment to my office, I get stopped four or five times usually by people say, "You're the divorce lawyer. I know you from TikTok." Or, "I've seen your videos." Or, "I read your book. I really liked it." Thankfully, very few people ever say mean things to me. They usually say nice things to me. It's actually why I understand how some of my celebrity clients can be because you're just getting constant affirmation thrown at you all day long. Like imagine you walk down the street and people are like, "I love you, man. You're awesome." Like what a weird thing, you know? But they're strangers. They don't know you. And it's not a drug you should get like a need develop a need for like because it's a it's, you know, fame is the mask that eats into the wearer. So for me, being respected by the people I respect is important. You know, people that I hold in high regard holding me in high regard is important. People who I hold in high regard thinking poorly of me, that's something I'll feel. But what strangers think of me, what people in the comments section think of me, it's not. It's lovely. Like, but you know, if I believe the good reviews, I have to believe the bad ones, too. So, I really don't I just keep moving and try to do the job as best I can. What I will say is bumping out lawyers on the other side of your case who are ineffective and known to churn cases might be a fine idea. You want you do not want your spouse to hire Bob the real estate lawyer who has no idea how to do divorces because that's the only lawyer you haven't conflicted out. You want your spouse to hire an experienced, thoughtful, well-respected matrimonial attorney who knows what they're doing because we're going to save everybody a lot of time by not arguing over dumb things and we're going to understand like what's worth fighting about and what's not worth fighting about. I just literally right before we started this conversation just finished a court appearance and it's with an adversary who I've had many cases with. Larry Greenberg, very talented lawyer in New York City, high-net-worth divorce lawyer. We had a brutal case against each other, 13 days of trial, you know, $800 million marital estate. It concluded about a year ago and now we have another case with each other. It was a court appearance, but it was a very friendly court appearance because we both understand the assignment, which is to get these people through this thing and to accomplish our clients' goals, our respective clients' goals, identify what are the issues that aren't in dispute and identify what are the issues that are in dispute and then figure out a way to efficiently resolve those disputes, whether that's by negotiation or litigation. And if we're going to litigate it, litigate it efficiently. And that's what the assignment is. And that's exactly what we just showed up in court to do. It's not time to start fighting yet. Like when it starts to time to start throwing hands, we will throw hands. But it's not time to start throwing hands yet. So there's no reason to be discourteous. There's no reason to protract things. Like there's no re- people. Part of this job, a big part of this job is getting your client to start to view their divorce as a business transaction, not as a breakup and an emotional situation. I'm not suggesting it's not okay to be emotional when you're going through divorce. Everyone is emotional when you're going through a divorce. But the sooner that you realize that the outlet for your anger, your hurt, your frustration, the courtroom and the litigation process is not the best place to do that. In fact, it's one of the worst places you could try to do that.

Well, I think, you know, I think on the first date, you're interested and you're trying to be interesting and you're super mindful of the assignment, which is, you know, I want this person to like me and I want to be someone this person likes and I want to like them. I wouldn't be on a date with them if I didn't want to like them. So, we're both here with a genuinely shared purpose. Now, again, we might have a different endgame in mind. I might be looking to get laid. She might be looking to get married or vice versa, but we're both trying to, you know, connect to the other person in some fashion and for some end. When I say Spanx on your personality, what I mean is that Spanx isn't lying. Makeup isn't lying. It's accentuating the positive and accentuating the negative, you know? And really, that's what sales is, right? I mean, sales is not the worst salespeople lie. You know, the worst salespeople go in and represent that this product doesn't do something that it does or does something that it doesn't do. Like that's ineffective sales. Or you go in and pretend in a very, you know, tacit or real way that you're not looking to sell this person something. Of course you are. Let's be honest with each other. But again, it's the difference between going in and saying, "Hey, I would like to have sex with you, so I want to take you out to dinner." That's a little too honest to some degree, right? So, you wouldn't go in and say, "Listen, I want to separate you from your money in this sales call." That's not what you do. You're here to say, "Look, I want to understand what you need from me. I want to meet your needs." And you know what? I'd like you to meet my needs as well. I'd like to see if there's some accommodation that we can do something for each other that's mutually beneficial. And that is what a date is. It's a sales call to some degree. And I think, you know, when I say you have Spanx on your personality on a first date, what you're trying to do is you're trying to present the best version of yourself possible. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's part of the dance of dating and romantic love. And it's one of the most enjoyable parts. But of course, the goal is not to go on an endless succession of first dates. The goal is to find depth with another person. And depth and novelty are kind of at odds with each other. And I think that you have to early on in a process, I think, start giving this person a sense of where you are wearing Spanx, where you have on makeup. Like I would like to see a woman who I might be serious with. I'd like to see her without makeup or with less makeup fairly early in the relationship. Do I want her to show up on the first date without makeup on? Probably not. I think it's lovely that a person would try to present the best version of themselves. I know if I'm going on a date, I'm going to wear something nice. I'm going to wear a little cologne. I'm going to shave. You know, unless I want to do the oops, I didn't know I was sexy stubble thing. Like, I'm going to give some thought to it. You know, ideally, by the way, even at our 50th date, I'm going to give some thought to it, but I'm not going to be afraid at that point to let this person see me in a very natural state or vulnerable state because there's a lot of good reasons to do that, too.

Probably not effective. Yeah, it's probably not effective.