Today's cross-examination is very, very special. Today I get cross-examined. That's right. The cross-examiner becomes the cross-examinee. I don't even know if that's a term, cross-examine, but that's what we're doing today. We asked you for questions. And did you show up? We got hundreds of questions within an hour worth of time. We're not going to get to all of them, but we're going to get to as many of them as we can. Let's get after it. But before we begin, like, subscribe, hit the notification bell. Really does help the channel. Remember to visit all of our sponsors, the best way you can support the work that we are doing here. But we are ready to rock and roll on this cross-examination of your star witness, James Sexton. Let's do it.
All right, Jim. Before we start, me and Matt were having a little pre-production meeting regarding cross-examination.
I was not aware of any meeting with...
Well, no. This was, you know, producers only. Talent was excluded because we've decided that for cross-examination, you might have to tighten it up a little bit. You know, some might even say that you're a little verbose, a little long-winded, maybe a little too...
A little too chatty, gregarious. How very well dare you. You first of all, if I was the strong silent type, you wouldn't be eating people. Okay, that is not like I... the only appeal of Sexton is the Sextonism of it. And you're telling me you... Okay, so what do you want? Brevity is the soul of wit. We're getting Shakespearean. Okay, I'll go. You want one-word answers? I'm going to bring my... I'm bringing my sports world into this. We're going to go...
Not much from you. This is coming.
I need a minute. I'm sorry. I need a minute.
We're going to start with people... people seem to really love your behind-the-scenes look, behind the curtain of your law career. We begin with the biggest amount of money your client ever got from a divorce.
Yeah. I had a client who got about $400 million ultimately, total package, when you add it all up. Yeah.
And that is straight cash to your account. How does that work?
Um, it was a combination of equity and real estate, invested funds, and, um, yeah, retirement accounts. You combine it all up. It was...
Has there ever been a just straight cash, homie? That's like a crazy number.
Yeah. I've had people that did like 20, 30 million in just a straight, you know, out of like, I'm going to keep all the real property. I'm going to keep all the, like, headaches that come with it. I'm just going to give you a buyout. I'll keep the retirement assets, all the deferred assets. I'm just going to give you a straight liquid. I think it was like 30 million. Here you go.
It was pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty... That was one of those like, I'll just pay whatever for you to go away kind of things.
I'm going to keep these anonymous because some of this stuff is sensitive. Going forward, if you'd like your name to be shouted out, you can specify that.
Also, because it's a lot of stuff you and Matt probably wrote just to embarrass me. That's great.
This one is short and sweet, but pretty heavy. Your take on having zero attraction to your husband, but he is great in all the other ways.
Um, only a minute. Okay. I would say probably get divorced or have a conversation with your spouse about that because it's got to be damaging this person's self-esteem that you're not attracted to them, and you got to figure out some mechanism because if they're still attracted to you and you're not attracted to them, there's a real disproportionate effect there. Unless you're capable of sort of pretending that you're attracted to this person still. See, that was under a minute.
Next up, what... next up? Take your time. I was about to be long-winded and bring up your book because I know in your book you talk about how you were destined to be a divorce lawyer. You chose it and did it. But this question says, what would you have become if you did not go to law school? Was there ever a plan B?
Uh, no, there wasn't a plan B. I probably would have stayed a professor. I was teaching at NYU when I decided to leave and go to law school. I had finished my master's degree. I was working on my PhD and I was a professor. I was Professor Sexton, and, um, yeah, I probably would have stayed teaching.
Well, that was still law-based.
No, I was teaching cultural anthropology. I was teaching propaganda studies, was what my master's degree was focused on. And I probably would have finished my PhD and I probably would have taught that. That was what I was doing when I decided to go to law school. I realized that, you know, you did not make much of a living as a professor and it felt like it was going to be a very difficult life. Publish or perish, like modern academia, even back then, 1997 is around when that was. I realized that the future for academia was much more challenging than it would be practicing law. And thank God I made the choices that I made. At the time, everyone thought I was insane.
I'm going to tweak this one a little bit because I know he's in a different field of law, but let's say if your son was also a divorce lawyer, you were going up against... Can you...
Oh, I saw this question. It was like, have you gone against your son in court? You could not legally go against your family member. You have what's called consanguinity, which is that you have a tie to each other, just like if he ever... he works in the court system now, so I could never appear in front of a judge that he works for or with in any way because the appearance of impropriety is the standard. Um, my son is a very different kind of lawyer than me. He is a very academic lawyer. Um, he is an appeals lawyer. He works in the appeals section primarily, and so we have very different areas of practice. He works in criminal law primarily and I work exclusively in family law. Um, I'm incredibly proud of him. He is very academic. Uh, he's got real brains.
He's smarter than me. He got his mother's brains. Thank God.
Would, if he was into divorce law, would you have... would you be open to working with him? Like...
I never want to work with family. I don't actually think that ends well. I think that, um, I don't see my sons clearly. Like, they're my sons. I love them, you know? I love them more than anything. So I just don't see them clearly. And I think it would be hard to work with people who I don't see clearly and can't relate to on that level. I think there should be a separation of business and personal. And I think having a family member work with you, I could see the appeal of it. It'd be really fun to see my sons that often. Um, but I just don't think it's the right thing for me.
Next up, I'm still married. Help me divorce this...
That was not me, by the way. That was a viewer. That was a viewer question. And actually, he misspelled... and said hole. Maybe he meant hole. I don't know. Either way, this guy needs help getting... I think he's going to need some help. And I feel like if you want to make a consult, you can call the office. I don't know that I can help you with the whole... I don't know what your she is, but I also assumed her gender. I don't know.
Do you have any heroes? And who is your favorite author now? And who was your favorite growing up?
Oh my god, that's three questions. Do I have any heroes? Um, I have a lot of people that...
