Family Law Attorney Kelly Scott Interviewed on the Talking About Kids Podcast
On a recent episode of the Talking About Kids podcast, Pullman & Comley family law attorney Kelly Scott talked to host R. Bradley Snyder about how she became a family law attorney, the biggest mistakes co-parents make during a divorce, postnuptial agreements, birdnesting and why what’s best for the child is always most important.
Here is some of what Kelly had to say during the discussion. Listen to the full episode here or wherever you get your podcasts.
On social media: If you are in the process of divorce or custody litigation, stay away from social media. That’s sort of the No. 1 rule. And I mean that not just in your personal use of it, but also in using it to then try to find information or stories or resources. … If you are going to use it: Do not post about your situation. At all.
On communications: One of the things that I tell clients regularly, in an adversarial situation or not, is assume that anything you say and do is going to go in front of a judge. You have to have that assumption. And if you have that assumption, the hope is that you're going to think twice as to the tone of something that you might send to your spouse or your co-parent. Because those things matter.
On wrestling for control: Trying to gain back control. That's a phenomenon that you see in divorces a lot. And it is a phenomenon, speaking of things that impact children, that tends to hurt children in the context of a divorce. … We see this dynamic where, in an intact family, there's different roles that people play and there's different divisions of labor and sometimes one parent takes on more of the parenting responsibility in certain ways than the other parent does. When they're together that works for them and that's fine. Then when they are now separating and they're no longer going to be an intact family, they start to wrestle over those old roles instead of realizing that they have to figure out what their new roles in their new dynamic are going to be. So for the parent who always did certain things, they are trying to keep that control. And for the parent who didn't, they're trying to wrestle control away from the other parent because they never did it. And if you're focusing on the control piece of it, you're losing the focus on what is best for your child.
On postnuptial agreements: [Postnuptial agreements] can benefit children because it can take out of their parents' relationship a source of tension that then might potentially lead to a divorce down the road. It is a tool that conceptually is utilized at times to actually keep marriages together. Because there is sometimes either a power imbalance or a financial imbalance where one party's feeling really vulnerable and saying, “I’m not sure if I can continue in this relationship with this dynamic,” whatever it might be. Postnups are a way that people can try to solve that problem.
On protecting your family of origin with postnuptial and prenuptial agreements: We see [prenups and postnups] a lot with people who either have family-owned businesses that they have an interest in, or expect to have an interest in, or people who expect inheritances, for example. And they say, “Look, anything we earn in our marriage together, fair game. But I don't want my hundred-plus-year-old family company's interest to then become a negotiating point in a divorce. Because that's not fair to the hundreds of other people in my family that have built that business.”
On co-parenting properly: I would always say to people, if it's a close call (whether a decision or action requires consent), then the right answer is tell your co-parent. Have a conversation. If you're not sure whether you can make a decision impacting your children without their permission, then have the conversation. There's the motto “Ask for forgiveness, not permission.” In a co-parenting context you want to do the opposite in most instances.
On birdnesting: In the family law context, birdnesting is [when] the children stay in the house. And mom stays in the house on mom's days, other mom stays in the house on other mom's days, or dad stays in the house on dad's days, and the children stay in the same place and the two parents come and go. … You have to have the right case in order to make birdnesting work. You have to have people who have pure motivations, who are very focused on their children. There are definitely financial ramifications to it so, generally speaking, there has to be a certain amount of means for people to be able to afford birdnesting. But there also has to be a lot of trust between the co-parents, and respect between the co-parents.
On what is most important: As lawyers, we aren't just advocates, we're counselors. And I take really seriously the counseling part of my job as a family lawyer. And that's going to mean sometimes you're not going to like what I'm going to tell you. And sometimes you may not like it because I'm trying to focus you on the child and not on the fight of the relationship. That really isn't what it should be about when it comes to parenting issues in a divorce. It should always be about what's best for your child. And sometimes that's going to mean the other parent's going to “win.” But really your child is winning if the other parent is winning too. And that's the most important thing.