Outlaw Lawyer Steve Austin Style, Bigger Stronger Faster

Coming up next on the Outlaw Lawyer, it's all about the listener questions.

We hear the questions all the time. Now we're going to answer them right here on the Outlaw Lawyer. That's coming up next. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. Welcome in to the Outlaw Lawyer's. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the power behind the program. Also joining us from the Moorhead City office, Cassandra Nicholas. Office is also located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton Beach.

And we get into legalese each and every week. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you've got your own situation you're facing on the legal side, you've got questions, you can always contact Whitaker and Hamer. Call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

And again, leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always e-mail your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. Questions at Whitaker and Hamer.

And you can always e-mail your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. Questions at Whitaker and Hamer. Jo Hamer, a defense attorney with a passion for justice, armed with quick wit, dogged determination, he has it. We've equipped him with the latest legal strategies, made him faster in courtroom battles, stronger in cross-examination, and better prepared to face the challenges of the modern legal system. Cassandra Nicholas, a legal mind with unbreakable spirit. We have transformed this typical lawyer. She's better, more perceptive, more tenacious, using advanced understanding of the law. She's faster to spot a loophole, stronger when advocating for her clients, and better at fighting for what's right. Together, they are the Outlaw Lawyers. With their combined strength, speed, and intellect, they stand for justice. They are ready to take on your toughest legal questions, to guide you through this maze of the law and to fight for your rights.

Outlaw Lawyer, the radio show where justice meets the wild west of law. Stay tuned because they're just getting started. All right, Josh, that's your cue, babe.

You take it from there. Well, that was a fantastic intro. That was a great intro. That's our show for this week.

It's definitely the best target. Explain the thought process and also that we've got a little bit of assistance on the opens. Yeah, yeah. What we've been trying to do here is the past couple of weeks is use our good old friend chat GPT to write our intro for us with a style in mind. So we've done the Dukes of Hazzard, we've done the Love Boat, and this week we did the Six Million Dollar Man.

So if you're old enough to remember the Six Million Dollar Man and the intro, that was pretty spot on. So that was a good job by chat GPT and... Shout out to Morgan. Yeah, really putting it together. I read it, right? And I read it. I was pretty cool reading it, but then he did it. That's about how it went in my mind, though, when I was reading it.

That's like your baby coming to life. So we might have to use that more often. That one might have to be on the rotation. We should reach out to chat GPT for a brand deal because we give them so much promotion. Not that they're not getting plenty of promotion. Well, it was interesting.

There's an opportunity. It was interesting doing the research on the Six Million Dollar Man because that's a show that I do remember, did watch, and it was a lot of fun to watch. But it was kind of reminiscent going back and getting into some of the clips.

But the original open, there's a whole bunch of talk. And he's in this spacecraft and it's one that you launch from another aircraft. And he had a crash and obviously had injuries and they built him back better than before. And he became obviously that special agent, the Six Million Dollar Man.

But yeah, a number of seasons, very popular show. And it was a lot of fun to do. I'm trying to remember when that.

I'm trying to remember when that ran through 1978, 1978. I don't know anything about it, so I'd love for you to explain it to me like a newborn infant baby. Why is he the Six Million Dollar Man? Because they spent six million dollars building him back.

All right. So he gets hurt. OK, so he's like it's like a Robocop situation. He had one arm replaced, both legs and one eye. And I think those scary robo dogs cost more than six million dollars.

And you got to adjust that for inflation. Yeah. They had an action figure. They had a whole series. But the the action figure was also it was it was big enough where you could literally you could look through the back of his head, through his bionic eye.

And it was basically a magnifying glass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a cousin.

I had a hand-me-down. So I didn't I remember the TV specials because like Andre the Giant was in a TV special. It was like Sasquatch. Nah, he was. Now you're talking. Now you got me, man. That's all I remember. I remember the intro. I remember I had a hand-me-down action figure.

And I remember Andre the Giant was like Sasquatch. Just a heads up, adjusted for inflation. He would be the twenty eight billion dollar man. Twenty eight billion. Twenty eight. I don't think you're too far off. I don't think you're too far off.

That number's probably correct. Take a pair of pliers. You can take a pair of pliers. Start taking me apart. And we got a twenty eight bill worth of new parts for me, man. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be like I was in the intro in court defending the people as a robot. Yeah. I think we're gonna have to make some sort of crudely put together video, you know, like a black and white video. Definitely grainy.

Definitely grainy. Yeah. That would never that would add. I agree.

But you're right. It's kind of like a Robocop. I recently rewatched Robocop, which I don't do very often, but it was on.

It was on something. But I rewatched Robocop with my youngest son. It holds up OK. It's not too bad. They remade it. You see the remake?

No, I'm sure. I don't think it's good. I haven't seen it, but I don't think it's good. Like they remade it like the past five years. They remade it in 2014.

Oh, yep. Was it? And you didn't see it. It's got a got a banger of a cast. I don't think I saw it, man.

I'm like you. What do you don't need a new Robocop, really? It's got a but it looks like it's got Gary Oldman's in it. Michael Keaton. So, yeah. Yeah. I just saw they're doing Beetlejuice, too. You see, that was how they do it.

I said, Michael, I said, Michael, you did that. And you'll see the connection. Look, Michael Keaton is the best actor of our generation. Well, I think that's safe to say. You think so?

Of our generation? Oh, he's really good. He's good.

Don't go there. I mean, he's good. He what? He's funny.

Really good, man. He's funny. He's got the action chops. He's got the drama.

I think he can be minutes. Ah, he's name one thing Tom Hanks did that was good besides possibly Top Gun. The first one. Do you think Tom Hanks has that same that same range? You guys are confusing Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.

Tom Hanks is amazing. Yeah. OK. All right.

Well, that's great, man. And Michael Keaton is fine as long as he's not playing Batman. I mean, you know, come on, man.

OK, that was on me. I really did think you said Tom Cruise. And I thought that was laughable that you said Tom Cruise.

That's why I was I was trying to be nice about it. But yeah, Tom Hanks, I guess. I guess you could you know, he's got a lot of stuff out there. He can't play the villain.

Well, man, he can't do it because he's just such a affable fellow. I mean, as you guys a question, I think I already know the answer. So Tom Hanks was in the Mr. Rogers. And was it Mr. Rogers and me? What they call it? It was something about the neighborhood. Yeah.

Yeah. We know the movie. We don't know the title.

Go ahead. Well, it's based on a book and the book's very, very good. You should read it. I know no one's read it, but me. But yeah, I don't want to either. I don't know why anyone else would have read that. But I read that.

I still want to hear you talk about it. But that movie, not nearly as good as the book, but that movie I could finish was one of those movies where I had to turn off. Oh, I couldn't. I couldn't finish.

Oh, I liked it. It was the last movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic hit. Are you into the theaters to see that? I can see going to theaters to see some things, but like that movie? It was it was I was winding down at one job before I was going to start another job.

So I definitely went like during the work day. The theaters have changed to the stuff you go to see. Yeah, that's true. I mean, speaking of Tom Cruise, that's the last movie I saw in a theater that was top gun to a new top gun. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, I just watched a new top gun. Good man. Yeah, it was good, man. Pretty good.

I always thought when they. So I wanted them to name top men to top men to Revenge of Goose. But it can't be Revenge of Goose. Goose is no longer with us. I know. But his son, I didn't say, you know, spoiler alert. Top Gun 2.

I thought it should have been a name Revenge of Goose. That's all. That's all I had. Yeah. All right. Let's write a letter to the producer.

This movie has already been released in theaters. I well, we got legal questions today. That's what we're doing today.

We've got questions that our first question is one that got sent in by a listener. And so we've changed it a little bit. Of course, we don't use names. We don't do anything like that.

We take away any identifying features of the question. I've actually changed it a little bit legally to kind of provoke more discussion to kind of broach more legal subjects. So we've got that. I know we've got a big trust question coming up. You know, we as attorneys, we deal with trust all the time and there's a million different ways and a million different trust.

You can use to protect assets, save some money, avoid probate. And so we talk about we're talking about trust a lot. But but today is just all listener questions. Now, Josh, do we want to inform the listeners that we kind of have a change of venue going on? And occasionally you guys are in studio with me, but we're doing things a little bit differently. And we kind of have you guys out and about. Yeah.

Yeah. So we changed it up a little bit. We're usually you know, Cassandra usually joins us from Moorhead City.

It's a long drive from the studio over in APEX, so she doesn't make it into the studio very much anymore. Joe and I are usually there with Morgan in the studio. But today we're over at Shady's in Garner. It's a little closer to me and me and Joseph. And so we're we're changing it up a little bit.

Rated top bar in the world bar magazine. And you guys didn't invite Morgan. I was going to say it's not nice. No, no, it's not a lot of room in here. A whole lot of room.

OK. But yeah, just just so our listeners know, you know, we we pre tape these shows, they run on the weekends. So there's going to be points in time where you guys are going to be in the middle of a crowded bar. So that'll be some ambiance.

We'll explain it when it happens. But I think it's really cool that you guys are going to be setting up at Shady's. And also, obviously, we have Cassandra in from Moorhead City now. We're going to get into legal questions that's coming up next on The Outlaw Lawyer. Again, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer, your hosts. And again, the power behind this show, the law firm Whitaker and Hamer and attorney Cassandra Nicholas with Whitaker and Hamer joining us from the Moorhead City office. If you're facing a legal situation, you've got some questions you can always call the firm and you can get answers. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions. We're doing questions today on the show.

You can email your questions to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. We're back right after this. Welcome back in to the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia. And joining us from the Moorhead City office, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas. It is always legalese. We get into these different discussions.

We kind of go off track on and have some fun in certain areas, but very serious stuff. If you've got legal situations you're facing, you've got questions, you can always contact Whitaker and Hamer. Call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and we'll answer them on a future program. So, Josh, we're going to go listener questions. Start us off. Yeah.

Yeah. Our first listener question this week. And again, I always give this qualification here that these these questions, you know, we have permission to share these.

We don't identify anybody. We're talking about these in general. We usually change some of the facts, but it gives us a lot of things. It kind of gives us a jumping off point to talk about some things that, you know, I always figure if one person asks this question, then other people have asked similar questions or maybe have similar situations on air.

So this question is designed for us to talk about a couple of things today, but I'll go and kind of read it out here and I've kind of jotted it down and changed a little bit. But our our listener question is basically I bought a house with a boyfriend. The boyfriend was separated from his wife.

Right. So we have a a single woman and she's in a relationship with a man who is separated from his wife. And they bought a house together. They're both on the mortgage. They're both on the deed.

So they own it. You know, we'll give the woman a name. Let's do Jane are our boyfriend's name. We're going to go with a good old John.

We'll keep it very simple. John Catsopolis. So Jane and John. John has a wife. We'll call her wife and they're separated.

All right. So Jane and John decide they're going to start a life together. John has gotten separated from his wife and they don't want to pay rent.

They buy a house, they get a mortgage. So they own this house together. And so in this situation, which is very unfortunate, John dies. Right. So John passes away and he passes away before he ever gets divorced from his wife.

All right. So that's very important fact pattern. So John is John and his wife are separated. They're going to live apart. They're still married. That's what separated means in North Carolina. If you're separated from your spouse, you're still a married person.

So they're separated. John and Jane are together. Jane is single. So John is a separated man and Jane buy a house together, get a mortgage, start a life together. He is still married, albeit separated from his wife. And after they purchase a house, John dies. And so in this situation, our client are for the purposes of our question, our client is Jane. And the status of the real property, the status of the house is what's up for debate. We're going to assume John just recently being separated has not changed his will, has not updated anything, doesn't have a will, didn't draft one, was a young man.

This was a very unfortunate death. So that's our fact pattern. What a winding road you just took us on, man. Does that feel like law school? And I'm about to be cold called. This was not reviewed with me.

I grew a beard during that. That was OK. I have additional questions about the fact. Yeah, that's yeah. OK, so Jane and John purchased the house together. So their names are both on the deed. Does it specify whether they are joint tenants with right of survivorship or is it just a default to tenants in common? Right. So that's a good question.

And so let's let's review that with our with our listeners. When you buy a piece of property, when you buy a piece of real property with another person, if you buy it with your spouse, you can you can own it in North Carolina. We call this tenants by the entirety. So if you own a piece of property, your spouse is on the deed. It's obvious from the deed that you're married. When you when you take title to the property, that's a special way you can you can hold property. They did not. Obviously, Jane and John were not married, so they didn't own his tenants by the entirety because Sanders questions was then there's two other ways you can own property.

All right. So you can own it as joint tenants with right of survivorship, which is a great way to own property. If you own property with a girlfriend or a boyfriend or it would be the better way for Jane. It would have helped Jane out here. That is that is not a pattern because they are our folks did not talk about that with their closing attorney.

It didn't come up. It wasn't something they were interested in and learning at the time. So they took title as Jane, an unmarried woman and John, a separated man. So they did not take title as joint tenants, the right of survivorship.

They took title as North Carolina. The last way you can hold property together is as tenants in common. I think it's important and you may have touched on this, but I was recovering from that fact pattern.

So I'm in a daze. But I think it's important to note, like, you know, that's the default legal position in the absence of it being stated or in the absence of a couple being married is going to be that tenants in common. That's what it's going to be. So unless you explicitly state if you're two individuals that are not married to one another, unless you explicitly state that you want to own as joint tenants with with right of survivorship, then it's going to default to that that tenants tenants in common classification. And when you have tenants in common, the parties own their separate ownership rights essentially separately. If either one of them passes, their ownership rights and go to their heirs follow the standard, whether that's through their will or the the default intestacy rules, if there is no will. There's a lot of ways in this back pattern. Jane and John could have saved themselves some trouble, right?

So I do have a follow up question regarding that. I assume they also were not thinking ahead and did not have wife sign like a free trader agreement to disclose her rights. Take it easy on Jane.

She's lost the love of her life. Now, these John and Jane did not get any attorney advice at all during this whole process. And they have just leapt into a situation that that in a perfect world wouldn't happen. But but no, they they do take us tenants in common. And in this situation, John has not updated his will. In North Carolina, separated spouses sometimes enter into a separation agreement where free trader rights are bestowed, basically meaning they can go buy another house and the surviving spouse doesn't have any interest, because in North Carolina, a spouse has an interest in a lot of things you own unless you take care of it in other ways.

Right. So the default is even if you and your spouse can't stand each other, even if you've been separated for 19 years and you've never gotten a divorce, that spouse is still your spouse. You're still a married person and they're still have rights under the North Carolina statutes that you're not going to be able to get rid of. And so here it's going to hit us really hard because John did not have a will and they didn't own the properties, joint tests or writer survivorship. So John's wife is going to inherit. I mean, there's no children here, thankfully. Thankfully, there's no children.

Thank goodness. Because John's passed away. And if I had to deal with the children going through this theoretical loss, man, that would be too much for me. So now Jane is on a mortgage. She owns 50 percent of the house and John's wife owns the other 50 percent of the house. So they are 50 50. And you know, they get along, man.

You know that they're basically best friends, man, because every it isn't that how most situations are with the ex-husband, the soon to be ex-husband and the live in girlfriend that you bought a house with before you got divorced. I think this is how Laverne and Shirley started. Yeah. I think it's our happy days, maybe happy days started that way. I can't remember. I think at the end of the day, we've got some bad news for Jane.

It's not a good it's not a good console. No, Jane. Jane is 100 percent responsible for a mortgage on property. She is a 50 percent owner.

And to make this worse, arguably the mortgage company is going to have a cause to foreclose. Man, you just said it, dude. That's the that's it right there. So Jane loses John.

Sad, sad. And then Jane finds out that she's no, no, no, no. She she she owns the property with John's ex-wife, who she obviously hates because she's a terrible person. Then she has to pay the mortgage solely for the house that John's ex-wife is a co-owner on.

It's the triple threat. So probably what's going to happen is is Jane and the wife are probably going to sell this house. I mean, that's probably realistically what's going to happen because the wife I wish I'd given the wife a name now because now she's just wife. But, you know, the wife we talk we've talked about on the show before petition to partition, you have two owners to a piece of property. One wants to sell, one doesn't. Well, the one who wants to sell can file a petition to partition and get a judge's order.

A court order ordering the other owner to sell. So this property is probably going to get sold whether Jane likes it or not. And Jane's going to have a hard time. She's going to have to start over. That's what Jane's going to have to do. I think she's going to have to start from scratch and buy out wipes half. But that's a bummer. But a bigger bummer. Jane doesn't want to give wife any money.

Let's let's add to the fact pattern. Cassandra, let's say they let's say this was a V.A. loan. They borrowed more than the house was worth. And so there's no equity in the house.

It's fully maxed out. So well, then, Jane, I don't like that. That's not as cool. I got a better if we're going to put a twist on it. Let's say let's say wife killed John. And John's will has a slayer provision in it.

Let's get deep on it. So there's no will. That's right. Sorry, man.

I got lost halfway through your. Even as the default. Air under intestacy rules, the the slayer provision, the slayer, there's a slayer statute. So it doesn't have to be written into your will. You cannot inherit from someone you killed. I like to put it in there just in case, just to remind the person who's inheriting from me not to murder me.

The you can never you can never be too safe about that. That's an important statute that you can't inherit from someone that you've murdered. But then she needs to be charged and convicted of the murder, because if you just accuse her of murdering her, of murdering John, that's not enough to take away her inheritance. It's wife, man. Come on, you know, you know, wife, you know enough about wife Wanda. She probably does. She probably did it in a really sneaky way to Wanda Wanda, the wife. Well, hopefully sneaky so that she can inherit half of that house. Who's whose side are you on?

You monster. All right. The outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. The power behind the program offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and Morehead City.

And speaking of Morehead City, that's where Cassandra Nicholas is joining us, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, get questions you need answers to. You can always call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email questions to the show.

That's what we're doing today. We're doing listener questions and questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Again, questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. And of course, the firm is the power behind the program. And they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and Morehead City. And joining us from the Morehead City office, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas. She is a regular. She is part of that three headed monster.

We do it each and every week. And it's always legalese. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate and kind of kind of guide the show and keep it out of the ditches and have some fun with the guys.

And of course, Cassandra as well. A number to call if you've got a legal situation you're facing. We we give you an opportunity for action. You can call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Get an answer to those legal questions you're facing. And an attorney leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And as we are doing today, we are doing listener questions. You can email your questions to the show and we'll answer them on a future program.

It's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Josh, where are we going next? All right. We're going to lighten it up a bit. We're going to lighten it up a bit. So we're going to go. We've got someone Hamering next door.

I love it, man. I like I like hearing that while we're doing this construction. Yeah. All right, guys. So we this is when we get a lot.

Again, this is going to be a combination of a couple of different types of consults questions we get. But we're going to have many of these people names, right? So we got we got Jack and we got these are talking about names.

We got Jack and we got dying. All right. I'm going to do this as a listener question. I'm going to do this as like a straight up law school fight pattern.

This is what law school test. You just hear. So let me make some Jack and Diane and is Mellencamp involved in any of this? No, not yet. OK. Not yet.

But but that's their dog to take your time. All right. Jack is a 70 year old man, right? Jack's a 70 year old man. Diane is a 68 year old woman. How does that sound?

Sounds pretty daggone good, man. Sounds like Jack was a rabbit in the cradle. Jack has three adult children, A, B and C. What is their name? All right. Diane has three adult children.

D E F. All right. They get married today. They just got married.

So just happened. Were they both divorced first? Yeah. Yeah.

John and wife. Yeah. Great. Jack, calm down over there. They are there.

Let's just say this. They are single 70 year old single Jack, 70 year old single Diane. They have decided they meet at the beach music festival. They do. That's where they met.

Carolina Beach. They met their names. They were like, oh, you're like, it's like the like that song. Yeah.

And anyway, Sparks flew. They got married today. They just got married. And so one of the things they're doing is they're looking at their old wills.

They're saying, hey, we just got married. We need to do some do some do. We need to do some estate planning. And we got some things we got to think about because we have we call this I call this I don't know. We all might call it something else. I call this a blended family.

Right. We've got two folks who are not having any young kids. They've already had their kids. Their kids are all adults. They're getting married and they got to do some estate planning. And we have a lot of goals in this situation as an attorney. You know, we've got folks who are if they haven't retired, they're getting close to retirement age. They've got assets that they've worked their whole life for.

We don't really have a lot of marital assets. And we've got adult children galore. Big happy family. Pretty much style. They get along really well and they have big dinners at Jack's house and he cooks mashed potatoes and they listen to Baroque music.

All right. So what are we gonna do for these guys? I actually talk about what we're going to do. They come in like theorizing about their personal life. They come in.

They're all tired from their beach music festival. They're telling you what happened. They're going through their assets. They've got substantial assets and their and their personal names.

They don't have any trust yet. Their old wheels name. They've got really old wheels.

They're outdated. They name their ex spouses as beneficiaries. So we got that working against us. We need an estate plan and we need it quick.

We need a stat. We're going to put these guys on this stat estate plan. The plan. Yeah. The fast track.

Fast track. Yeah. All right.

So what are we gonna do for these first things first? Let's get rid of those old wheels, brother. And generally speaking, how we would do that is in your new estate plan, you're going to explicitly state that you're revoking all prior wheels and such things. Now, that's complicated.

That's a fantastic one of the best I've had today. And it can be complicated a little bit by the fact like if you've you know, it's not as simple as drafting a new a new will if you've got a trust that's in existence. If you've got a trust that's in existence, you're looking at more substantial reformation than that potentially. But I think we're going to start with is giving them some rock solid legal advice.

And step one, we got to get rid of those old ones because like it or not, man, even though he's in love with Diane and they do a mouth kiss every day and and they're just very in love and they love beach music. None of that matters to the courts. That's right.

None of that matters to the courts. And when he dances too hard at next year's beach music festival and collapses, which is the way he wants to go. So we were lightening up this segment. Now, Jack's dead. Yeah, Jack's dead, but he's dead in a hilarious way.

Dancing too hard. That's actually not that funny, but none of that matters. And the courts don't care about that. And what they're going to do is they're going to look at those wills and they're going to look at what you had previously. And they don't care that you've been divorced.

They don't care that your ex. It's whatever was stated on that. They're not just going to reform it just because of these other circumstances. So step one, we've got to take care of those old wills through the drafting of the new materials. And so my recommendation for them, we're going to have to sit down. We're going to have to meet. We're going to have to gather a lot of information.

What you what you don't what you want to avoid. So Jack and Diane here, they've got adult children, so they want to provide for one another. Right. So if something happens to Jack, when I have these consoles, I always kill the guy off first.

He's slightly older in our fact patterns. That makes more sense. But we can we kill Jack off and we're like, well, what does Diane need need to live?

Right. What do you want to get to Diane? What do you want to get to your children? Because the difference, the opposite side of this is not blended family where it's a little bit more straightforward, where you might just want to leave everything outright to your spouse because then when they die, they have the same heirs as you and everything would go to the kids. Whereas with a blended family, that's not going to happen the same way if you leave it all to Diane and then she dies. Everything is going to go to D, E and F and A, B and C aren't going to get anything. Yeah.

What you don't want to do in this blended family situation is you don't want to do something that accidentally disinherits your heirs, your children. Right. You know, you don't want if Jack passes away and leaves everything to Diane, Diane gets remarried, lives her life and then passes away. And all those assets leave Jack's estate, go to her and ABC, Jack's kids, they're all there.

They're just they're just accidentally disinherited. Right. And that's that's what you want to be careful about. And so we talk to people about what their assets are. You can create a trust. There's all kinds of trust.

Man, we use trust for a lot of different things. Estate planning is is an area where we see a lot of them. So you can have a trust that leaves certain assets to the kids, certain things to to Diane. You can have non probate assets.

Right. So you can have life insurance policies that will fund an inheritance for the kid when kids when Jack passes away. But that's the big thing.

The big thing is making sure anytime you get remarried, making sure that you're updating your estate planning docs, you're not leaving anything to an ex spouse or you have in-laws maybe in positions like executor, trustee, that kind of thing. And you want to make sure you don't accidentally not take care of your children, your adult children here. I mean, they're adults.

They're all doing good. Yeah. And, you know, there's pitfalls all around this. Right.

So one of the potentially unforeseen pitfalls you talked about accidentally disinheriting your kids. Right. Well, you also got to consider the fact that in this in this scenario, Jack passes away. Right. And with with certain types of estate plans, assuming that, you know, say his everything he owns goes to Diane potentially. Diane in reality is a lady that he met at a concert.

Right. So how well does Jack really know Diane? And Diane could blow through every bit of his assets potentially if there if if he didn't have an intelligent estate plan in place to preserve those assets for his kids potentially. So if you don't set it up to where, you know, Jack's Jack's interest passes directly to those kids, you could look at a situation where there's nothing for his kids eventually. So it all comes back to intelligent drafting, understanding what you want to accomplish and understanding the things you need to safeguard against and what you want to do.

I met with a young couple today. There's a lot of latitude within that. Like you can set that up in a lot of ways to provide for Diane while she's still living. And that's the benefit of the trust. Right. Yeah.

Very flexible. That's the benefit of the trust is because Jack doesn't want Diane to be destitute. Right. You know, so just like you said, you can trust you can appoint a trustee that's got a fiduciary duty to the beneficiaries in that. And he basically that that person, he or she or a corporate entity is going to they're going to administer the trust and make distributions to Diane based on the parameters established in the trust and keep her afloat. Right.

Without expending and using up all that trust principle so that, you know, there is still something there for the kids potentially, depending on how the distribution is designed. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, where you can find them. They're the managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Also joining us on the program from the Moorhead City office.

I want to thank you for joining us today. We're going to take a look at what's going on here. We're going to take a look at what's going on in the office. Cassandra Nicholas, also an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer offices conveniently located Raleigh Garner, Clayton, goalsboro, Fuqua, Farina and Gastonia and the aforementioned Moorhead City. If you've got a situation you're facing gotten a question. You need an answer. You can always call Whitaker and Hamer.

The number is 800 6, 5, 9, 1, 1, 8, 6. Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And as we are doing today, we are taking listener questions and putting them out there for you. You can email your question to the show and we'll use them on a future broadcast. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. The outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Cassandra, Nicholas, all attorneys, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, Josh and Joe managing partners at the firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, as is Cassandra, Nicholas. And we talk legalese each and every week. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Quick reminder, their offices located pretty much everywhere for Whitaker and Hamer, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, goalsboro, Fuqua, Farina, Gastonia and Moorhead City.

Cassandra joins us from that Moorhead City office. If you are facing something and you have a legal question about it, you can always contact the firm, 800 6, 5, 9, 1, 1, 8, 6, 800 6, 5, 9, 11, 86. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. An attorney with Whitaker Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And we'll answer those on a future broadcast. Gentlemen and lady, we continue with questions. We are.

We are. We've had two listener questions. Well, the first one was a listener question.

The second one was a fact pattern that we see a lot as we do our estate planning consults. And now it's time for a robot question. That's right.

We're going back to chat GPT site unforeseen. Plug it in and we're going to get a robot question for better or for worse. I was telling Joseph earlier today, there's a guy on Twitter and I always hate when I can't remember people's like Twitter. I like to give him credit when I can when I find it.

You tell me what he does. So he takes he takes all these headlines from like the Wall Street Wall Street Journal just had on the other day where they said A.I. Right.

Artificial intelligence or place eight hundred jobs in some sector. And like every day there's multiple things talking about what A.I. is going to do. Right.

That's what everybody talks about right now. And so he takes the headline and whatever the picture is, because the picture is usually something stupid, right? Like a robot or something. It takes the picture out. He puts a picture of Allen Iverson in there, the basketball player. And he's doing this like shrug, like he just got called for a foul. He's like shrugging it off. But so, you know, Allen Iverson's nickname was A.I., right? So any time there's an article that says A.I. is doing something, he puts that picture in there. It doesn't sound like much, I guess, now that I'm saying it out loud.

I'm with you, man. But it makes me laugh like little things. It makes me laugh out loud like three times a day.

I don't know who it is. Three times a day, man. I like I like those things that you can just like they just pop into your head and you just chuckle and everyone thinks you're a crazy person. I was going to say, what's the reaction of your office mates when you just laugh randomly like that?

I don't know. They're too afraid to say anything, man. Yeah, my office is on the third floor. I'm kind of sequestered away. So it's just me laughing like a crazy person up there.

Josh is Josh has taken that robo-tussin again. But this is this is what we like to do. We like chat GPT to fire up some North Carolina specific legal questions because me and Joseph and Cassandra are only licensed to practice law.

And that's not true. Me and Joe are only licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Cassandra, where are you practiced? Where are you licensed to practice? In the District of Columbia.

And space. In North Carolina. In North Carolina. Yes, yes. I hope so. Did you try? What a bummer that would be. I know for a fact that you didn't. I'm going to plug this. Oh, please. All right. Just dial it. Just dialing up a question from from chat. You know, chat GPT. Yeah, you go. You go.

What did you say? It's a very impressive system. They go into operation there. They got. Yeah, very impressive. So people.

Yeah, I was going to say show prep. I love it. You're just doing it on the fly. I think it shows our adaptability. No, your confidence. That's your confidence.

And our confidence. That's right. You know what? This show is not ignorant. You know, the show and not laziness either. Yeah. No, no. What this show needs is more sound effects. Yeah.

And two, I get that. We get that all the time. We need some we need some kind of jingles or like an intro. We need like a contest for some musically talented people. Because I'm not.

Even if you're not. If you send us some music, we will play. We'll put it on the air.

We'll put it out there to the billions of listen. But we need like a chat GPT thinking. Yeah. Yeah.

I just did the people. That's good. That's a good start. That is pretty top notch.

But I would invite anybody to do better than that. All right. I've got the results are in. And this is a terrible question.

Just skip it. We're we're doing it. We promise the people and we're all about integrity. And the question is, is can a pet cat be appointed as a legal guardian for a minor child? But what was the prompt? Would you prompt it? I said, give me a legal question. I agree with you. We should not answer that question.

A legal question, man. You know, there was a Simpsons. I did it again. Would you like do it again? I didn't get it.

That's another cat question. There was a Simpsons episode. Do you remember the Simpsons where Marge becomes a real estate agent? It's a classic episode.

No, I don't remember. I know it's a thing. You know, you know, a classic Simpsons episode is any episode in the first 11 seasons. And this is a classic episode.

It's been on TV billions of times. But there's an episode where Marge decides she's going to go out and get a job. I can't remember what Homer did, how he wasted money. But Marge is going to get a job. She becomes a real estate agent and she's showing houses. And there's this one house that's got like all these cats in it and technically cat house. The cats own the house, right? It's in some kind of trust. The cats own the house. A cat trust. So technically, technically you'd be leasing from the cats is what she said.

I love that, man. That question's stupid. Yeah. Well, the next one it gave me was was I also think this is a stupid question, but I think this is one we can actually answer. And it goes, you know what, man?

Sometimes these things, the moon and the sun align and they come together. And so the question is, and it ties right into your Simpsons episode. Can a pet be named as a beneficiary in a will or trust?

Yeah, I mean, it's a legitimate question, according to the Simpsons. Yes. According to God and the laws, you do a lot of estate administration. Cassandra, you see a lot of pet beneficiaries. So the pet themselves can't be the beneficiary, but you can have funds set to a specific person for the care of a pet. So they have to use the funds in a specific way. So it's not that the pet is directly the beneficiary, but they are going to benefit from it. Do you love your animals enough to do that or do you hate them? I'm asking Cassandra, is she going to put a pet provision in her will?

Should I? Maybe. I mean, what else is going to what else is going to happen to the poor things, man? I'm trying to come through and I'm trying to get an exam.

I'm trying to look at one of those. You want another question? It's going to be another pet question, most likely. Why? I didn't put a pet prompt in, brother.

I didn't design the software. Well, I mean, I'm just I'm just spitballing here, guys. So have you been searching cats or anything? Jokers, obviously. And you got me.

I have the musical, the musical cats, the soundtrack 24 seven just blast them. OK, no, I've done nothing cat related. Let's see if we get another cat question. If it's a cat question, I'm breaking this computer in a world where animals could see humans. What a hilarious case could an animal bring against its owner? This is terrible. I swear to you, I didn't put anything in about cats.

This is the worst example. You come up with a better robot question than me. This is a squirrel for trespassing in my neighbor's yard. I tell you what we're going to do. We're going to take a short break. We are going to come back with a non-animal legal question from change the prop. We're going to have some time for it. The allies, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

Again, Wicker name of the power behind the outlaw liars and joining us from the Morehead City office, Cassandra Nicholas. We've got time for one more segment, one more set of legal questions that's coming up. If you've got your own situation, you've got a question. You need some answers. You can always call the firm.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly. What the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email your questions to the program will answer them on a future show. It's questions at the hour lawyer dot com. Welcome back into the outlaw lawyers final segment of the program, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer. They are your hosts. And again, the power behind the program is Whitaker and Hamer law firm and Josh and Joe pricing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And we learned something this week. Cassandra Nicholas, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, a licensed attorney here in North Carolina and also District of Columbia, correct? That's correct.

All right. I just I'm just making sure I've got it in my show notes. If you've got a legal situation that you are facing and you have questions, you can always call the firm eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave that contact information briefly. What the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show.

Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Got time for a couple more questions, guys. What you got? Don't brag, Cassandra. We're proud of you, but yes. Very fancy with my single membership. You're not going to like these questions.

Dues each year. Yeah. You guys are really disappointed in these robot questions and they get much better.

You know, I remember we did a show where we asked Chad GPT for like 20 questions. And I felt like they were there were some there were some bad ones. There were some more. You're good. Yeah, they weren't. Yeah.

But see, here's the here's the difference, brother. I put light hearted because we already talk about all this death. I wanted to be light hearted. Got it.

Like a funny like a funny side of the law. Yeah, I mean, everybody, everybody has pets. I mean, you know, so put the animals in there. That's what did it. Yeah.

All right. Just like a parade magazine. Does that still is that still a thing? Parade magazine. Is that like one of the ones that's in your grandma's past? Yeah, the insert in the paper, which no one ever gets. So probably what am I thinking of? Good housekeeping.

I'm sure there's a digital version of it. All right. Anyways, these questions are terrible, too, but we're going to we're going to throw them away to sell it. Josh, Josh is you should see the depressed look on his face right now. And he's mad at me like I'm the robot, like I designed the algorithm.

Is it legal to challenge someone to a dance off as a form of settling a dispute? Josh, you know, you know, I'm going to answer that question by saying that I have never seen the movie. I mean, I can't remember the name of the movie. What's the movie for loose cats, baby in the corner? And that's that movie. Yeah, Dirty Dancing. You haven't seen it. Wait, nice footloose.

What's the photo? No one's in the corner and footloose. Everyone's out in the footloose. That was one of Dan. Dirty Dancing is Kevin is Patrick Swayze. Probably someone named Kevin in it, too. It's Patrick Swayze. Yeah.

The late. So what's the one where Kevin Bacon gets real angry and dances? Yeah, you know, they're doing a new roadhouse. That's Footloose and it's been made twice.

The original was Kevin Bacon. Yes. Sorry, guys. I already told you what I thought the sequel to Top Gun should be.

I told you that in an earlier segment. I thought it should be Top Gun 2 Revenge of Goose. Yeah. OK. All right. So I thought there should be a sequel to Footloose. All right.

It should be. It should be a sequel to Footloose. I'm very proud of this. I've never written. I've never written a script.

I can't wait. But it should be. It should be a young man who moves to a town where all they do is dance. They dance all the time. And they and he hates it. He hates it. Yeah.

And he gets a law pass where you can't dance. Yeah. And it's called Tight Foot. Tight Foot. I like that. So that's my big that's that's what's going to be that movie or it could be a movie about gout. Tight Foot. The whole point of this. Have you seen Dirty Dancing or have you not seen Footloose?

I've not seen either one of them. Wow. How do you know the quote from it? It's just because it's popular. I just saw it in a Simpsons episode.

I saw it in Simpsons and Mad magazine. I knew it. All right. All right.

What's this question? You said we go. I wasn't paying attention. OK. It wasn't a very good question.

We'll go to the next one. All right. Is it illegal to sing off key in the shower loud enough for my neighbors to hear you shaking your head like you like this? Well, there's a noise ordinance, right?

I'm just I'm just guessing from the change. And nuisance. You have a right to enjoy this of your property. You do have a right to quietly enjoy your property. That is true.

That's a very true statement. So you can sue someone for the tort of nuisance. Yeah. I think there's like a decibel level. But you never know how loud this person could sing, man.

You don't know that. I would think it'd have to be amplified. Hey. On their microphone in their shower. Yes. Can I sue my neighbor for stealing my Wi-Fi password and using it to stream their favorite TV shows?

Cassandra, maybe you should consider just changing your password first. That's how you got all the answers to that in the Washington legal school. I am not getting us enough money because I always start like, have you tried talking to the person? People come in and it's like, look, have you tried? We do. We do that a lot. We have a lot of people who come in and there's other options besides litigations.

Yeah. We like to bring in people who have disputes and tell them to hold hands. And we put on soft music.

Light candles works every time. It's called mediation. We're experts. I'm trying to look. These are all terrible questions. So the G.A.I.

I Googled most commonly asked legal questions in North Carolina. And they're just as bad. It's not me. It's not a reflection on the state of North Carolina.

How bad are they or a high? I mean, OK, if I've been involved in an auto accident, should I go to the doctor? Maybe.

What is the reality? Yeah, you should get what is bankruptcy. Yeah, that's the whole question. Are you required to go to court if you breach a contract?

Well, only if someone sues you for that breach. Then, yes, you should go. These have been just amazingly poor attempts at questions.

Disappointed in all of your co-workers. Yeah, we're going we're going back to like real listener questions. Like I was really on this chat GPT train hardcore. And it helps us with stuff like intros. Yeah. And you're high. When you guys did that, I thought that was very entertaining because it was kind of new and fresh.

And it was amazing how quickly they could spit them out. I'm alerting. It's just the questions. Let's finish with a haiku. Let's finish.

What do you want to haiku about the. That's the question. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The I enjoyed that.

I did that for a while and I got out of it. I got I got some new hobbies and got out of the chat GPT haikus. All right. Let's see.

I'm working on what other hobbies. Yeah. Oh, yes. Well, that's that's tough. Yeah. Where are you focused now, Josh? Let's focus on that. Not a while back.

I pulled out I pulled out my old Nintendo and started playing EA sports games. It's in the game. That's what they see. That's one thing. You get to watch normal kid shows like you always know as kids go into the dungeon right when they get home. My youngest. No, they do that on their own time.

They're all they're all YouTube on their own time. The kids get home and he just starts yelling. Be quiet. It's been a long day.

Robo cop time. Here's your haiku. It's terrible. All right. We're going to end on this.

All right. Josh's joy takes flight. Simpsons grace his darkest days.

Life finds light through them. I think if anybody ever makes a podcast, there's a Simpsons podcast where they rate the worst episodes of The Simpsons. It's a very good podcast.

You know, my problem was for that. I said, give me a haiku about how Josh Whitaker loves The Simpsons. And it's the only good thing in his life. It's good. Somebody ever rates the segments on this show from beginning to end.

This has got to come up as one of the lowest. This was going to be as Morgan's intro. We have a good intro like that. The rest is just we can't we can't reach that peak. It's all it's all downhill from there. Well, I will do less of an intro next week.

All right. So the allies, we have another one in the books for you. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They are your hosts. They are the managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Also joining us from the Moorhead City office, Cassandra Nicholas. She's a practicing attorney here in North Carolina. And as Joe is lamenting, she also is licensed up in Washington, D.C. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you can always call the firm.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave the contact information briefly what the call is about. And of course, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can always email those questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com for Josh and Joe and Cassandra.

I'm Morgan Patrick. Another show in the books we'll see on the radio next week. Lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, contact us directly.