Dan: 0:00

Lucy Stewart-Gould is a divorce lawyer in London. She handles cases involving high net worth individuals, people with tens of millions of British pounds at stake. She recently worked on a case that ended up in the Supreme Court in the UK over how to fairly divvy up a huge fortune. It took years to resolve. Years! Which kind of boggles my mind. Like, how could there not have been a number where it was just like, let's just live with £28,000,000 and get on with our lives?

Lucy: 0:30

Maybe this is why you and I don't have a 130,000,000 in the bank. I don't know.

Dan: 0:34

Good point. There's a causal relationship there.

Lucy: 0:37

It's that kind of attitude that's going to get us nowhere.

Dan: 0:41

But of course, money is not the only thing divorcing couples squabble over.

Lucy: 0:45

Oh, I had a case once years ago and actually it was very consensual. We we never had to go to court. It was tens of millions of pounds. So, you know, there wasn't nothing to talk about, but we kinda sorted out all the money. And then at the very end, we couldn't get the deal over the line because, we couldn't decide who was gonna keep the cat. And it wasn't that they both wanted to keep the cat, it was that neither of them wanted the cat. And I felt I said, you know what? Please, we're talking tens of millions of thousands of dollars. I'll have to

Dan: 1:14

Can't we find a home for this cat?

Lucy: 1:15

I'm like, I will take your cat. Can we, you know, can we just sign the deal? We got it done in the end.

Dan: 1:23

So who ended up with the cat?

Lucy: 1:24

My client did the magnanimous thing and took the cat.

Dan: 1:38

I'm Dan Heath, and this is What It's Like To Be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession, a hairstylist, a forensic accountant, an Olympic bobsledder. We wanna know what they do all day at work. Today, we'll ask Lucy Stewart-Gould what it's like to be a divorce lawyer. We'll talk about why it matters where you file for divorce, how she tracks hidden yachts, and what questions she relies on to unlock tough negotiations. Stay with us. There's a lot that happens in Lucy's first meeting with a prospective client.

Lucy: 2:24

People will come to you at different places in their lives, and so they'll have different concerns. Some people's major concern will be about their children.

Dan: 2:33

Mhmm.

Lucy: 2:33

Some people's major concern will be about their housing situation or, broader financial things. But the first thing to do is I always say, why have you come to see me today? And then you've got to let them start to tell their story. And usually, people start in the middle or at the end. And so while listening to them and making sure they feel like they are conveying to you what is important to them that you hear. You also have to guide them into some kind of chronology. So you can start in your own mind to understand a framework for the position that this person is in. And then you can ask some very general questions about what they hope to achieve because from how they tell their story, you should be able to pick up whether they need to go now because there's some kind of jurisdiction race.

Dan: 3:21

What does that mean? Jurisdiction race?

Lucy: 3:23

So a jurisdiction race is where there could be two different places in which someone would legitimately have the right to get divorced.

Dan: 3:31

Mhmm.

Lucy: 3:32

So I'm a lawyer in qualified in England and Wales. Most of my work is done here in London. But because of the population here in London, the amount of wealth here, you have a lot of international families with international connections. So it wouldn't at all be unusual for them to have jurisdiction to get divorced here because this is where they're living, but also have jurisdiction to get divorced in New York, for example, because maybe they have some resident status there or, in some other country because of their nationality in different countries and in the US different states have different jurisdictional bases to be able to deal with your divorce in that country or state.

Dan: 4:11

Oh, I see. And so one spouse might think that their interests were better served in one place versus another. And then if you're worried your spouse might file first, there's sort of like this arms race.

Lucy: 4:20

Exactly. You've got it. So what you need to do very quickly, if you have someone sitting in your office and you can see and you get this with experience. Right? You can see they have connections with these other jurisdictions, and you have a rough feel because maybe you've interacted with that jurisdiction before as to where they would be better or or less well served. You need very quickly to get the advice in that other jurisdiction, and you need to decide very quickly where they need to be commencing proceedings.

Dan: 4:50

And so if you have 10 initial meetings, how many of those roughly will decide to move forward with a divorce?

Lucy: 4:58

The vast majority of them eventually.

Dan: 5:00

Okay.

Lucy: 5:01

But some sooner than others. I think the longest I've had someone sort of coming for really sort of initial chats, maybe once a year or once every six months before they finally decided to do something would probably be about four or five years.

Dan: 5:17

Wow. That's a long reflection period.

Lucy: 5:21

Sure. And and that tells... people... all this sort of divorce is too easy or people take it lightly. My experience as a divorce lawyer is that when people decide to do it, it is really their last point of decision. It is not something that any of my clients that I have ever had take lightly

Dan: 5:40

Mhmm.

Lucy: 5:41

Or a sort of snap decision. And so it always really annoys me when I sort of read comments like that.

Dan: 5:48

Until 2022, England didn't have no fault divorces, which meant that to get divorced, couples had to prove that their marriage had irretrievably broken down. And the way couples prove that was by listing out each other's unreasonable behavior in the marriage.

Lucy: 6:08

That behavior, unless it was really of a particularly sort of egregious nature, that conduct didn't feed into the financial outcome in the marriage. So it didn't really go to anything other than getting you divorced, i.e. changing your legal status. So it was a hugely damaging process that we made people go through at the outset when their relationship was already in the most terrible state. And then we say, oh, but we still expect you to co-parent and we still expect you to. Right. Lucy: expect you to. Right. Try and reach a deal. And you think, but first, I want you to write the list of all the terrible things they've done.

Dan: 6:40

The worst things they've ever done.

Lucy: 6:41

Yeah. Exactly. So we can get you divorced. And so the practice that had actually developed in many cases, because divorce lawyers knew this was bad for families and bad for getting financial deals done, is you would draft the sort of list, the particulars, and then you would send it to the lawyer on the other side. And you would ask for their client to sort of approve the list of bad things about them. Okay? Then they'd be drafted in a the most sort of innocuous you could make them while still sort of meeting the thresh it was a total farce.

Dan: 7:12

Mhmm.

Lucy: 7:12

And it needed to be changed and it was changed long overdue. What had happened actually was a case had gone all the way up to the Supreme Court. And because the husband had denied the facts that the wife had listed.

Dan: 7:28

Mhmm.

Lucy: 7:28

It was a from the outside, it appears to have been quite a controlling relationship and he basically was able to use the challenge to those factors to stop her divorcing him. And the court basically said, it's terrible, but as a matter of law, he's right. And then the law was changed. So that in the and it's like so many things. A practitioner in any field can know there's a problem with the system they're operating in, but what you need for the wider public and for political change is usually something that grabs the attention that just feels wrong to the general public, and then something's done about it.

Dan: 8:05

So that shift has made your work better, it sounds like.

Lucy: 8:09

Definitely. It has removed a whole point of contention at the outset of the case. It allows you I mean, now you can file jointly. Isn't that amazing?

Dan: 8:18

Mhmm.

Lucy: 8:18

You know, you went into a marriage jointly. The best thing is to come out of it jointly. It was a joint decision to go in. It's a joint decision to go out. And, like, so much better messaging for your children. Right? Not mom's divorcing me or dad's divorcing me, but we have decided that we're divorcing. Now listen, the vast majority of applications that I make are still on a sole basis, but you make a fair few on a joint basis, and that's a really positive thing.

Dan: 8:44

Let's talk about the kids side of things. Are those some of the hardest conversations you have with clients, the the custody related decisions?

Lucy: 8:55

Not necessarily, actually. You can find that people can be really get quite embedded and litigate for, you know, a couple of years about the money, but find a way through arrangements for their children. So it wouldn't be unusual for me to be litigating the money, but then to be kind of arranging, you know, where kids are Monday to Thursday or whatever.

Dan: 9:22

Now that's interesting. What do you attribute that to? That difference in tenor.

Lucy: 9:26

I mean, maybe it should give us hope for humanity that at least people can put their children first. I don't know.

Dan: 9:31

Well, is that what's happening? I hope.

Lucy: 9:34

There are a fair few that definitely the children is the thing that causes the biggest issue. And yes, those are really difficult situations because it must be extraordinarily difficult as a parent to have to think that maybe what you want is not what is in your children's best interests.

Dan: 9:59

Oh.

Lucy: 10:00

That is a hard thing to get your head around. Okay?

Dan: 10:02

What what would be an example of that situation?

Lucy: 10:05

Okay. So the law here is they want the parents to agree. Right? So they don't enforce an order about children when you get divorced. Lots of people get divorced with children without having any specific orders made about their care arrangements. That's the law here. We it's a policy decision. We have this "no order" principle because we think you want to entrust parents to make the best decision for their kids. K? Now if parents can't agree, whether by themselves or through a mediator or with the help of their lawyers, then you have to make an application to the court. And if you have to make that application, it's going to be judged on what is in the child's best interests and their welfare and that's based on the age of the children, any specific needs they have. But their welfare is at the center And what you want might not necessarily align. So for example, you might think your former spouse is a terrible parent because they take them to McDonald's. Okay?

Dan: 10:59

Mhmm.

Lucy: 11:00

They they don't put them to bed on time. Yeah?

Dan: 11:03

Mhmm.

Lucy: 11:04

They always forget they never finish the reading. Yes? And any number of things like that. Generally, the court is going to say well, in fact, entirely in those situations, the court is going to say, that's just a different parenting style. Okay. You don't want them having dinner at their house because they're gonna give them chips, but it's more important that they have dinner at their house.

Dan: 11:25

Mhmm.

Lucy: 11:26

Okay. What's in their interest actually of their welfare is not that they never eat chips, it's that they have dinner two nights a week with their dad.

Dan: 11:34

Right.

Lucy: 11:34

Okay?

Dan: 11:34

Right.

Lucy: 11:35

So that's a sort of facetious example in a way, but you can see how that might get more pronounced quite quickly. I don't like the way they discipline them. I don't like the way they talk to them about this particular issue, you know, and you've gotta work through that.

Dan: 11:48

Lucy works mostly with couples who are rich. And when the divorce prompts them to divvy things up, it can be tempting for one person to hide assets from the other. But Lucy has developed a keen sense for when an opposing spouse is concealing assets.

Lucy: 12:04

Because even if you can't see the asset, you can see the footprints in the sand. Okay? Because someone could say, okay, my annual income is this. Okay. You're like, okay, well, that's very interesting because, you know, if that's the case, then who's paying for the second yacht? You know?

Dan: 12:22

Right.

Lucy: 12:22

Do know what I mean? You know what lifestyle these people have been living. Equally, you know, if I'm dealing with someone in business or finance or something, there's a certain degree of public information out there in terms of company's house filings or reporting on profits or that sort of thing that you can think, okay, well, I don't know what they would have got out of it because I don't have that underlying partnership deeds or whatever. But I know that that was a big year and that does, like, kind of that doesn't tally that there's only this much here. Or you know might know that there was an asset at some point, sort of five years ago that got sold, but you can't see where the proceeds went. You know, there's a lot set around the kitchen table. So that's what I mean by the footprints. Even if I can't see it, you can see the footprints. The problem isn't so much hidden assets as enforcement. Because, of course, even if I can see the footprints and I can follow the footprints and eventually I think, okay, well, I'm pretty sure what happened to that pot of money is x. If that is in a jurisdiction that is going to be hard for me to enforce an English court order against, then you've got to have those quite honest conversations with clients about, you know, what are we doing here. Right? So you sort of have to have an eye to enforcement from the outset.

Dan: 13:39

And what levers do you have on your side in those cases where where you can't, you know, properly enforce an order?

Lucy: 13:46

Well, you want to be thinking about what other assets there are that you can enforce against. Okay? And they don't necessarily have to be in England. They just might be in, like, friendlier jurisdictions than the jurisdiction where that asset is, and then you would structure your case appropriately. Right? To focus on the stuff that is tangible. It doesn't mean you pretend the other stuff doesn't exist. But when you're explaining the situation to a judge, you say, this is sort of the quantum of my overall share. And so to make up my share, I want these assets that I know I can enforce against.

Dan: 14:20

Oh, I see. I see.

Lucy: 14:21

Because you know that's over there, judge, but you you know, I we can't you know, they're hiding it, but we know it must be there logically. So why don't you give me all of the stuff you can see and know I can get my hands on?

Dan: 14:32

That makes sense. So they might get like a disproportionate share of the assets in London or in England

Lucy: 14:38

Sure.

Dan: 14:38

You know, knowing that you can't get to the ones in The Bahamas.

Lucy: 14:41

Because you need exactly. Because you need the security for your reward. Yeah.

Dan: 14:46

Is this kind of forensic detective work, is that a big part of the job or not so much?

Lucy: 14:53

It's a it's a reasonable part of the job. But if it is very complex, one of the things I like about my job is you've gotta be a really good family lawyer, but you've also got to be a bit of a jack of all trades. Because you've got to understand enough about property law, enough about business law, enough about tax law, and enough about sort of different classes of assets to know when you need to get the help in. And then you become a bit of a project manager. Right? So it's not unusual on my cases that I might have a forensic accountant over here doing something and a property valuer over there doing something and an art valuer over there doing something else. And I'm kinda, like, overseeing it all so that ultimately, I can make the best choices within the matrimonial litigation. So there's lots that I wouldn't do myself, but I would know enough to give the instruction to the person who's the expert in it.

Dan: 15:46

Hey, folks. Dan here. So if you're enjoying this episode, let me point you to some other adjacent episodes. If you wanna hear from other attorneys, check out the criminal defense attorney. If you want to hear more about delving into people's finances to discover suspicious activity, check out the forensic accountant. And if you want to hear how to stay out of a divorce lawyer's office, check out the couples therapist episode. Weirdly, all three of those were among our first 10 episodes on the show, though they're still some of my favorites. And for now, let's get back to the show. What are the hardest conversations you have to have with clients?

Lucy: 16:36

The hardest conversations are where even if it is something that really matters to them, it is not something that is achievable legally.

Dan: 16:47

Mm.

Lucy: 16:48

Where you're having to explain to a client that they feel very strongly about something on a principal basis, maybe because of something that's happened in their marriage or because of how, you know, they've been treated. They feel very passionately that a certain outcome is the only just and reasonable thing to happen, and you have to explain to them why from a legal perspective, that's not how things are gonna play out.

Dan: 17:10

Lucy says those difficult conversations are just part of the job.

Lucy: 17:14

And if you don't wanna have difficult conversations with people, number one tip, don't be a divorce lawyer. But, I

Dan: 17:21

That like good advice.

Lucy: 17:22

I can tell you that for free. You don't get into the job for the easy conversations. But, you know, we're all human beings. Right? And and so you've got to find a way to convey a message sensitively, but clearly. Right? You know, there's no point doing the sort of, you know, dog's gone off to live on a farm routine. You've gotta kinda tell them the dog's dead. You know? I just I mean because people hear what they want to hear. If they're in a distressed situation or they're clinging onto hope for something or that, you know, you're not dealing with people who are, in a sort of calm, happy place in their life. Right? So you you gotta tell it to people straight and make sure they understand.

Dan: 18:00

Gosh. I hadn't I hadn't thought about that aspect of just you're dealing with people at their worst and, you know, these bad things have happened to them, and and like your your human instinct is to empathize and soften. But, you know, as a legal adviser, you also have to kind of make things black and white for them. Is that a hard tension to navigate?

Lucy: 18:19

I think at the beginning of my career, and I think anyone who tells you otherwise in my job, I'm sure is lying, it was difficult and I definitely didn't get it right all the time. But, you know, you get it wrong a couple of times or think actually, you know, I saved up a problem down the line for myself there or, you know, maybe I empathized a bit too much and you don't do it again. Because what you've got to realise is you're their lawyer and that's what they're paying you to do and you are doing a worse job if you are not giving them clear legal advice, whether it is what they want to hear or not. They have a best friend or a mother or a sibling to tell them what they wanna hear. Right? They have a therapist to make them reflect on how they feel about everything they're hearing. They have you to give them legal advice.

Dan: 19:13

It seems like your job forces you to confront, you know, some of the worst of people, you know, the kind of vindictive behavior and conflict and, you know, rich people arguing about who's gonna get the yacht? And, I mean, does it make you cynical about human behavior?

Lucy: 19:35

I think I was always quite a realist. I was never particularly Pollyanna about life.

Dan: 19:41

Mhmm.

Lucy: 19:42

But I would say I'm an optimist, and nothing about my job makes me not optimistic.

Dan: 19:48

Mm.

Lucy: 19:49

People recover and it's amazing. You can see people go through the worst possible divorce. And all divorce is horrible. Right? It really it's just a a horrible thing to go through. But you they can go through the worst possible litigation, really grim stuff, real sort of in the trenches with them for a long time. And then you see them and they are a different person from the person who walked into your office that first day, and they are ready to step into the next phase of their life. I don't wanna say their new life because your life is a continuation. Right? But but the next phase, the phase that is hopefully gonna be much more positive for them than what they've just gone through. And they go from not being able to see kind of how they get to next Tuesday to thinking, okay, well, now I'm gonna buy this new home and the arrangements for the kids are settled and actually, I can focus on my work again properly and I have more time for my friends now and I have a bit of time for me and I can see I'm a different person than I was when I went into this marriage and even when I first decided to come out of this marriage, and it's hopeful. It's a hopeful thing to do. Like, if you think about it, getting divorced is a sort of act of hope in a way. I know that sounds kinda crazy, but it's it's saying, like, no, there is something better. This isn't how I have to live my life, you know. And people come out of it and you set them up for what I hope is a happier phase of their life and it's feel so it feels like a a hopeful thing.

Dan: 21:16

That's really interesting. Yeah.

Lucy: 21:18

You know? And the the capacity of human beings to recover

Dan: 21:21

Mhmm.

Lucy: 21:22

Our capacity to survive something and keep going and to make something new, like, it's inspiring.

Dan: 21:28

So it's almost like you're you're not in the business of of relationship warfare. It it's more like a a life reset.

Lucy: 21:37

Yeah. I mean, that's ultimately the headspace you want to get your client into. Right? Because that is the sort of headspace where you can do a deal. Okay? But, a lot of the time, of course, you know, it takes people a long time to get there, you know. There's a lot you gotta go through before you come out the other side.

Dan: 21:56

Have you ever been in a case defending one side And and the more you learn about the case, the more you feel like you're defending the wrong person?

Lucy: 22:09

That's not really how I engage with my cases. And I I think that a good lawyer shouldn't engage with their cases that way, i.e. By making value judgments about their own client. What I love about the law is the sort of intellectual clarity of it. Right? The moral judgment has been made by the elected politicians in parliament here in, you know, in the UK. They've made the moral decision. Okay? Because that is set out in our laws, you know, what we value, what we think is important. My job is just to advise my client on their rights. Doesn't really matter whether I agree with the law or not. Doesn't really matter whether I agree with my client or not. I have to just advise them on what their rights are. And it's not doesn't serve my client for me to be making judgments about who's the baddie or the goodie. And I think usually, the picture is mixed in most cases. You know, there are obviously the outliers, you know, sort of the really the abusive relationships and so forth. But for most people, there's, you know, stuff on both sides and I'm not a better lawyer by judging. I I like not having to. Right? The only judgment calls I have to make are about the quality of my client's case and the likely outcome. That's not a moral judgment. That's a legal judgment. And that and that's what I like about it. It doesn't really matter how I feel.

Dan: 23:33

We've probably all seen divorce lawyers on TV. What do you what do you think, TV shows get most egregiously wrong?

Lucy: 23:42

They get most egregiously wrong, making it seem like all you do is walk into a meeting, say or court, say something pithy and sharp and, you know, the husband's put in his box and everybody walks out happy. You know? Actually, the job is hours and hours of consideration of documents, thinking about arguments, analyzing the figures, talking to your client about the likely parameters so that their expectations are sort of appropriately pitched. So, actually, I just spend a lot of time at my desk, on the phone, reading documents, drafting letters and witness statements and submissions, and but that's not very exciting TV.

Dan: 24:28

What is the most boring part of the job?

Lucy: 24:33

Checking my bills. So before a bill goes out to a client, obviously, you have the time recording on it for me, for the associates that are working on the case, the paralegals that are working on the case, but you double check everything like that. You you know, it's all recorded on on software and so forth, but I'm not going to send a bill to someone that I haven't checked and don't think is correct. And so, you know, every month for every client, I go through every line and and and check it. That's pretty boring.

Dan: 25:04

That does sound boring.

Lucy: 25:05

It's essential, but boring.

Dan: 25:07

Yeah. I I think that's gotta be one of the biggest differences. I mean, I there's nothing specific to divorce law here, but just one of the biggest differences between the lives of lawyers and the lives of nonlawyers is just, you know, the the focus on hours and billing. What what is that like week to week?

Lucy: 25:25

I don't know. The effect on me, I suppose, my husband says that I could he can ask me at any given time of day what time it is. And because I now have developed over so many years this sort of inbuilt clock of sort of six minute time units.

Dan: 25:38

Six minutes time units. Why six minutes?

Lucy: 25:41

Well, because the you know, that breaks down 10 in an hour. You know? So

Dan: 25:45

Oh, so you're billing, like, on a tenth of an hour basis? That's, like, the increment?

Lucy: 25:49

Yeah. Exactly. So you this is how most lawyer I mean, I I would include in in the States. I think, you know, they they have an hourly rate, and so it's split down into ten six minute units in an hour. Right? So something that takes me ten, twelve minutes is two units.

Dan: 26:06

That's so interesting.

Lucy: 26:07

My husband says it's so funny, you know, we could know that we got on the train at, I don't know, 1 o'clock because it was the 1 o'clock train. And then he'll say, god, we must be almost there. And I'll say, yeah, god, it must be about I expect it's about ten, two, and he'll be like, you're always just a minute, maybe two minutes out. You just have this sort of sense of the passage of time. It's just sort of a ridiculous thing to have developed, but it's what happens.

Dan: 26:29

So, Lucy, we always end our episodes with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go.

Lucy: 26:34

Okay.

Dan: 26:35

What is a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know, and what does it mean?

Lucy: 26:42

I'm going to say bundles.

Dan: 26:46

Bundles?

Lucy: 26:47

Bundles. Okay. Do the bundles where's my bundle? Has that bundle been sent out? Has the judge got their bundle? A bundle and it's maybe not just divorce lawyers, but certainly English litigators. A bundle is the extracted documents from the whole file. So in a whole file, I will have piles of correspondence with the other side, with my client, with experts, with people providing me with disclosure, maybe they're a banker or something. I will have, obviously, witness statements. I'll have court applications. I'll have written submissions to the judge. The bundle is the condensed file of the key documents in a case. So you might have a court bundle, which are the documents that go to the judge. I will always keep a working bundle, which is sort of my key documents in the case I always turn back to. There'll be the asset schedule or key witness statements, stuff like that.

Dan: 27:43

Mhmm.

Lucy: 27:43

We will have council's bundles, which will be, a more complete set of the papers in the case, but not every single administrative piece of paper. So, yeah, doing the bundles, that's my word.

Dan: 27:55

I love that. What phrase or sentence strikes fear in the heart of a divorce lawyer?

Lucy: 28:01

"It's about the principle."

Dan: 28:03

It's about the principle. Oh gosh.

Lucy: 28:06

Yeah. Well, then I'll see you at a final trial. Okay. I mean, like, this comes back to my point is that, you know, people because they're in have gone through horrendous emotional turmoil to end up in your office, and they will have friends and family who are in their corner and saying, you gotta stay firm on, you know, and all this sort of stuff. And they'll say, I know, but it's about the principle.

Dan: 28:34

Mhmm.

Lucy: 28:34

And I'm sitting there thinking, oh, man, this bit of the law doesn't care about your principle. The the this so, yeah, it's about the principle. You know you're gonna be in it for a while.

Dan: 28:47

What's a tool specific to your profession that you really like using?

Lucy: 28:52

I'm going to say my ears. It's not really specific to my profession, but it's the most important one. Because otherwise, it's just like, you know, my iPad, my mobile phone. Like, you know, it's it's not very interesting. Yeah, my ears. It's my job is to listen, actually. If I'm not listening, I'm not picking up on what the other side are really saying. I'm not picking up on what my client is saying. I'm not picking up on what the judge is really interested in. You've got to be able to listen.

Dan: 29:22

This may be a hard question to answer, but is there a moment you could remember where you heard something that led you to probe for more and kind of unlocked something in a case? Like, you know, maybe you heard something because of your experience that other people didn't?

Lucy: 29:37

Yeah. You can. It's as much listening to for what people don't say as what they do say. Particularly if you're in a negotiation, the best question you can ask is why. Because often, I have found that if you ask someone why, what you get is maybe they might not have thought about the why. But if they have, it may be that what they're asking for is just one of a number of things that could solve that why. So one of the things I like best in my job is the negotiation. It's just something I enjoy and why is really powerful tool in that. And and and you gotta be listening to what people are and aren't telling you in order to ask that question because it could be that someone's saying, I have to have this house. This is a simple example. It's obviously usually a lot more complex than this, but I have to have this house and it's the complete roadblock to settlement. And you can spend hours going, oh, well, maybe if I give them this instead, that might unlock it. I'll give them I'll trade with them on this. Why don't you just ask them why they want that house? Because the answer might be something to do with, you know, the area it's in or or the facility it has or just some kind of emotional connection and it can help you unlock, you know, where you're going. Or they might have some anxiety about, I don't know, the tax treatment. And you can say, okay, well, why don't we just go and ask someone about that? And then it's not an issue at all. So why is really powerful.

Dan: 31:02

How has this job affected your views on relationships?

Lucy: 31:09

I think they're very precious, is what I would say, if you have a good one. I'm lucky I'm married to someone I really like, but I I I got married, I suppose, bit not late late, but late thirties, so maybe a bit later than the average. I don't know whether that was just to do with the job or to do with timing in my own life, but I think it does inform how I am in my own relationship. Definitely, I'm not a perfect wife. My husband's not here, but I can say that for him. But I try not to sweat the small stuff because ultimately, you've got to remember this is the person you chose and and you chose them for good reason. And and if you have something good, and lots of people marry absolutely the wrong person and that's what's happened. But if you've married someone who at the one time was the right person for you, no matter how much work it is, and it is work, I would recommend doing the work to look after it rather than the divorce because divorce is miserable.

Dan: 32:13

If you had to write a a book of marriage advice, like, what would be a couple of the tips you would include?

Lucy: 32:21

Listen to each other, like, really listen. There is nothing worse than feeling lonely while in the presence of your spouse or your partner or the person you're living with or whatever. Most people go into a marriage planning for it to last forever with the best of intentions. And what happens is people become disconnected from each other for all manner of reasons. And so you've gotta find a way to stay connected. And to know that sometimes you're gonna take more of the weight and sometimes they're gonna take more of the weight and to kind of judge them at their best rather than at their worst. And to apologize. When you need to apologize, just apologize. You know? I think it's probably made easier if you're able to be honest about yourself and your own failings and sort of hold your hands up to them. But really, to be able to communicate honestly with each other and stay connected to each other, and that's gonna take you a long way.

Dan: 33:25

Lucy Stewart-Gould is a divorce lawyer in London. She's a partner at the law firm Stewarts. I want to zoom out and talk about the interplay between professionals and the systems they're part of. So Lucy talked about how in the days before no fault divorce, the law required this insane thing where couples had to list out their partners' unreasonable behaviors to prove that divorce was warranted. That was the rule and it was nuts. But smart lawyers figured out how to soften the impact of that rule by using bland language. So you wouldn't put on the list that your partner is a narcissistic workaholic. Instead, you would say they prioritized work over home life. You might even get their partner's lawyer to sign off on your language. So professionals learn to work around the broken aspects of a system. Your doctor makes a creative diagnosis to get you that drug you need or prosecutors massage the charge on a first time drug offender to get to an outcome that feels more just. But we've got to be careful. We shouldn't get so good at compensating for the flaws in a system that we forget to fix the flaws. And professionals should be at the forefront of that push to change the system for the next generation so that it's better than we found it. And that's what happened in the UK. They fixed it. They're not doing the unreasonable behaviors list anymore, and that change has made the very painful situation of divorce a little more tolerable for the couples involved and for lawyers such as Lucy. Balancing empathy with the duty to give unvarnished advice, asking why to unlock a stuck negotiation, measuring time in six minute increments, and helping clients see that at the end of an intolerable process might be a new start. Folks, that's what it's like to be a divorce lawyer. This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. I'm Dan Heath. Thanks for listening.