Speaker 1: Settling a case, settling it, fixing it, making what was broken, not put back together, but if it's broken, smooth out the edges on both sides. So my office deals with contested surrogate court cases, contested divorce cases, contested guardianship cases, and issues involving custody and dissertation. Fighting. We are a litigation law firm that resolves cases and settles cases. We're not afraid to go to trial. I've been on trial thousands of days, thousands in my career. My associate, I think he's over a thousand days at this point. So we are practiced in that field, and that assists us in trying to resolve issues up front. What are the issues? Well, there's a myriad of issues. People fight about money. Money's number one. Children, number one in some contexts. Two, number one, well, I am a lawyer, called doublespeak. Depends on what's important to the person and what they have. You might have children and a lot of monetary wealth, and for you, having custody of the children and directing their future is the most important for you. And someone else, possibly even in the same marriage, it's holding on to the money. We've seen that. I have seen that. There's a couple of ways to approach cases. We look at all of the financial issues. We look at all of the issues regarding family, family dynamic, ages of the children, number of children. That's just in the divorce. In a guardianship, we have to take into account most of those very same circumstances. What is the money? Alleged incapacitated person. What is the family dynamic? Married, single, divorce, partner. And then how many children does that person have, or any, or extended family? And then we look at that scenario. Surrogate court work. What is all of the money that's involved in this situation? What are the family dynamics? Is there a surviving spouse? Is there a partner? Are there children? Same calculus, same thought. Sometimes I analogize these situations to a game with a bat and a ball. Whiffle ball is similar to stick ball, which is similar to softball, which is similar to hardball. And out of left field, you have cricket. They all have, and even kickball. There are a lot of the same moving parts because this is the soft science. Interpersonal skills and how they bump into the law. How do we resolve it? Sometimes we use a mediator. Sometimes we take advantage of the law secretary or court attorney for the judge or the surrogate. And they can sometimes mediate a dispute, or at least narrow issues. You're looking for X dollars from this property. That property was bought prior to the marriage. How did you contribute? So it can narrow the issue. Or that property had been refinanced, and the deed was put in the other person's name, and money was pulled out, and now your joint accounts are paying for it. Maybe that weakens that argument. I have a case now where a contested guardianship siblings are arguing over who should be the guardian of their parent. Typical scenario. Two brothers fighting. Two sisters fighting. A brother and a sister fighting. Two siblings on one side, one on the other. Four siblings on one side, two on the other. All of those permutations exist because people go into—they retreat into camps. And in this circumstance, one person—and it's common, divulging state secrets—one person wants the alleged incapacitated person, because we're pre-determination of a hearing, wants the person to remain at home. The other group wants the alleged incapacitated person to go into a skilled-level nursing facility or an assisted-living facility, because both sides think that's what's in the best interest of their parent. The group that wants the parent to stay at home with caregivers and additional resources think that's the best way to stave off dementia. And then the other side—and there are circumstances against that, right? Perhaps the parent doesn't want a caregiver in the house and maybe is hesitant to do so, although there's a lot of family—not a lot of family reside in the same state with this person. And on the other side, the group of family members that want to have the parent go into a skilled-level facility, perhaps with a memory ward, because they think that that would be the best way to stave off dementia. I saw a compilation, a video montage of past presidential debates. And Reagan, there was Gore, there was Bush, there was Clinton, Obama—they took some of the most profound words of wisdom that each of them said in this montage. And it was—and I think even Kennedy and Nixon—the thrust of this was, our goal is the betterment of the United States of America. That's what we both want, both sides. You'll hear a difference as to how we will go about doing that. And that's what we have. We all want what's best for that alleged incapacitated person. We all want what's best for our children, but it's how we see fit in going to that.