Legal Questions You Need Answered before you File a Lawsuit

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, along with Cassandra Nicholas, fellow attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, are going to get into big legal questions that you need the answers to. It's all coming up next on Judica County Radio. Hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina, and also joining us on the program, fellow attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas.

Offices located for Whitaker and Hamer almost everywhere, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia, and now in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate each and every week. We talk legalese. We're going to get into big legal questions that you need answers to. There's also an opportunity for a free consult with Whitaker and Hamer. Again, call the number 800-659-1186 and grab one of those free consults if you have any questions. Maybe it's estate planning, maybe it's real estate law. Again, free consult available.

800-659-1186. So Josh, big week. And before we get into any of the legal, let's just check in with our attorneys. How was your week? It was good.

It was good, Morgan. I didn't tell you. I meant to tell you before the show started, but we're opening our eighth office.

So I didn't tell you that. Nice. Where are we going to be? Who's doing that, Josh? It's going to be a collective effort. Like our law firm? Our law firm is doing that?

That one, yep. But no, we've been in the Garner area since 2008. It's kind of where I was born and raised. We've been in the Clayton area since 2011, 2012. That's where Joe was raised and lives. So if you know Garner, there's a Garner part that's on Highway 70 and then there's the part that's kind of in between Garner and Clayton. We call it Cleveland. Some people call it Cleveland Springs 4042. But we've got an office that's going to be opening up this month there so we can kind of cover the entire Garner-Clayton area in total.

So that's something we've been working on this month. So are we going to list the office as Cleveland or Cleveland Springs or a tweener? What are we doing? What are we doing there, Joe?

I don't know. I kind of like you said Cleveland Springs. That sounded cool. That sounded fancy.

It sounded almost aquatic in nature. I know over the years there's always been kind of a movement to make it its own town. I've heard Cleveland. I heard Cleveland Springs.

Growing up, I always just called it 4042. But either way, that area has been growing leaps and bounds and we thought they could use a law firm office down there and so that's what we're going to do. So we're going to get that going this month. So that's big news. That's kind of what we've been working on this month, Morgan. That's big news for us. That is, man.

Growth. I like it. So as far as what's going on, individual attorneys, you had something going on where your kids were asking you about a certain artist. What was that? Yeah, my boys were on the football bus coming back from a football scrimmage and they were telling me all about, I don't know what the kids listen to. I'm not that dialed in. They were telling me about Young Gravy, some kind of country album where Young Gravy was involved. And I figured my good friend Joseph would know about that. Oh, I'm dialed in, man. I got my finger on the pulse of the youth, man, because I care about my kids, Josh.

So I try to make a point to keep up with their interest. But as you say that, I'm familiar with who Young Gravy is. I'm not familiar with his involvement on a country album. He was kind of like a, I mean, he's not like a parody rapper, but like almost, right? Like, I don't know if he was really taking all that seriously. He kind of had, he kind of blew up in a sense a little while ago, and then he had kind of tapered off from what I had seen.

But I guess maybe he's making a comeback. But I will tell you this, man, as somebody who spent some time on a football bus driving back from a game, man, it's like the Wild Wild West on those. I'm telling you, there's no telling what your kids are being exposed to. That's all I'm going to say. Well, you know, it's it's crazy to me that it's already August and there's already football scrimmages and jamborees and getting ready for fantasy football drafts are coming up. Yeah, I'm excited. It's a good time of year, man.

I won't lie. It's a very good time of year. I like football. And so I support it. I support I support this time of the year. You're going to take the unpopular stance that football is good. Yeah, I'm going to go against the grain and I'm going to say that I like the sport of football. And I know that's not held.

That's not a commonly held belief around these parts. Is that the same? Is that the same for you, Cassandra? Yeah, I support the existence of football. What's your who's your team?

It's a good question. Chicago doesn't have its own professional team. The closest team I grew up around was the Vikings. So I think we've talked about that before.

Yeah. Well, the Vikings aren't too bad. Well, interestingly enough, Matthew Raymond Hari or Young Gravy is from Rochester, Minnesota.

Ah, everything comes full circle. He played his country set at the Red River Valley Fair in Fargo this summer. That was my haunting stomping grounds.

We'd get the season passes every summer for the Red River Valley Fair. Oh, yeah, I've heard about that. Well, Dwight Yoakam. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. That seems to be the popular, you know, I'm an old school. I like the old school country music, but the popular country music doesn't I'm not as into that.

But it seems like that's like the last stand for a lot of these artists from other genres, you know. I'm going to see Joe Nichols this weekend, a popular country artist of the last 25 years. I tell you what, I can't say a lot for Joe Nichols.

I probably wouldn't I probably wouldn't go see Joe Nichols, but he's got that one song that has all the disabled vets in it in the video. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know what the song is, but I just remember the video. It's hard to watch. It's hard to see. You don't like you don't like veterans. Is that what you're telling us? No, no, it's just it's watch.

It's got some disabled veterans in there and it's just kind of showing them how they have to try to, you know, make it the best they can. And again, I'm not I don't remember the song. I do remember it was Joe Nichols because I think that's the only Joe Nichols song I'm familiar with. But it was where's where's he at? He's coming to Swanboro, which doesn't have a venue. He's playing in our baseball diamonds, which playing in Cassandra's backyard. There are like fences between the diamonds.

I have no idea how they're setting it up, but I'm really interested to find out, because if we can actually get some artists here in this like twenty five hundred person town, that would be great. Yeah. Yeah. It's always it's always nice when you can get a night out like that.

Yeah, exactly. I can practically walk there. The. All right. We have some legal stuff today. We went back to we went back to chat GPT. We were we were really on board with chat GPT early on, but we kind of we kind of faded.

We're not really using the A.I. like we used to use it. You guys were on it very, very early. You were doing the haikus. Remember when we were doing haikus? That was hilarious.

Those are the best of times and the worst of times, man. We we might have to we might have to bring bring back a couple of chat. I mean, I'm going to get it. I'm I'm a log in. I'm going to get it up and running here just just in case.

But we what we did, we had jet GPT. Our good friend Cassandra had to generate the 10 most common questions people often ask when they have to sue somebody. Right. So this is a this is kind of a civil litigation question, like where the 10 most common questions people will ask. You know, I must say of their attorney when it comes to suing someone in and so chat GPT spit us out a list.

We've definitely got some things to to contribute to that to that list. But I think that's what we're going to do today, Morgan. Well, I wanted to also kind of dive a little bit further into Joe Nichols, apparently his number one song.

Are you ready? Do you know it, Cassandra? I don't know which one. Is it Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off? Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off is ranked number one of his hits. He also has Broken Heartsville. Give Me That Girl. He's got that one. He's got that one.

Two boys on the back of a football bus. I heard that one. Familiar with it.

Anyway, he's got some hits. That should be a good show. Should be a good show. All right. So coming up on Juniper County radio, we will get into legal questions.

If you're thinking about suing, you need to have answers to these questions before you take that leap. Judica County radio again hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm, and also assisted by a fellow attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas. She joins us on the show as well. Office is located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Moorhead City.

And we just found out today they are going to be right there in the middle in Cleveland. Morgan as well. Morgan. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt. I had Chad GPT write a haiku about Young Gravy and Joe Nichols singing a country song. Do you want to hear?

Yes. Let's let's hear it as we wrap this portion of the show. Go ahead. It says Young Gravy and Joe sing country tales of heart and soul.

Rhythms blend, stars shine. Wow, I've got chill bumps. All right. Well, coming up on Juniper County radio, we'll get into those questions coming up next. Now, listen, we do have the free consults. They are available if you have a question possibly about wills, trusts, real estate law. Again, call this number. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Again, five complimentary consults. First come, first serve.

800-659-1186. We've got more Judica County radio coming up right after this. We are back on Judica County radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm right here in the great state of North Carolina. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Also joining us on the program. Cassandra Nicholas, fellow attorney at Whitaker and Hamer and Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life.

They have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Today, we're getting into questions you need to be asking if you're considering a lawsuit.

So, Josh, take it away. All right. So this is a this is an AI generated list, but I think it does a good job. And so when you call an attorney to schedule a consult, these are some of the questions that you're going to hopefully get answered when you sit down with an attorney.

The first one on the top 10 list here. So number 10 is do I have a valid case? Right. And that's that's a fine question, because in theory, that's what you're talking to the attorney about. So, Cassandra, when somebody sits down with you, we're going to we're going to ask them for some facts. We're going to ask them some specific questions. But that's basically what we're trying to figure out.

Yeah, definitely. So someone consulting with us might not necessarily know whether their case is valid under the law before they talk to us. But some of the things that they should be considering and hopefully have information about are like exact dates of when things occurred are very important. Because one determining factor of whether it's valid is whether the statute of limitations has already expired. There are expiration dates for when you can sue someone. So if it's been several years since the the bad thing that you're coming to an attorney about happened, it might be that your claim isn't valid anymore.

So that's one factor. And then there are different kinds of civil lawsuits. One kind of digging back into law school days is called a tort. So there has to be the other person you want to sue has to have a duty to you in the first place. If they're not in a position that they owed you any duty of care, it might not be their fault that something bad happened to you. So there might not be a claim in that sense. But if they did have a duty, was there actually a harm? And did their failure to do their duty cause that harm?

You said you said failure to do that. It's a lot of duty. Yeah, that was a lot of that was a good explanation, though.

But that's true. So when you when you sit down with an attorney, they're going to like I always let people we have we have an intake process. You know, we have to do a conflict check and we get some information from you. So when I sit down with you, I kind of know a little bit about what we're going to be talking about. But I usually let you give me the pertinent facts. I'll ask some questions. But but yeah, you you may or may not have a valid case just because there may not be there may be a lawsuit there that may not be.

But like Sandra said, statute of limitations, you've got a limited amount of time to take action, even if you have a valid case. And so that that's a good question. And I'm going to I'm going to skip around, which is probably not good for me remembering where I'm at.

But but but I want to go. This is another thing that we do. So this how much will it cost? That's one of our that's one of the questions on our list. So we're going to call that the next question.

It's not on my list and I'll get confused later. But how much will it cost? Because we end up talking to a lot of folks about that. They'll come to us and they may have a valid case. They may have the evidence they need. But then we start talking about what this is this really going to be worth it when you factor in attorney fees? You know, sometimes you have to make well, I guess all the time you kind of have to make a business decision. There's few clients that I meet with that are just committed to filing a suit to prove a point.

You know, we have to talk about what it'll cost. I think what you're getting at, Josh, is is the fact that we've all done this right. Like we've had folks come in with super valid claims and very good facts. And they're very much supported by the law and by morality, by everything. And it just isn't economically feasible for them to file suit. And we have to tell folks that right. Like you've got a fantastic claim, you know, but there are just some situations where monetarily because it's going to cost money to to file suit. And you have to you always have to balance that consideration against what are you getting in the end.

And for some folks, satisfaction is worth, you know, the satisfaction of winning something is worth a lot. But but in the absence of true monetary damages, you may you may be spending more money than it's worth to you to get that satisfaction. And another consideration on that point, even if you have the money to pursue it and it's a good case, does the person you're suing have the money to pay if you win? We we sometimes call folks judgment proof, essentially, if they are a person or entity that would not have the means to pay a judgment against them anyway. So all of those are really valid considerations before you even make it to the point of filing a lawsuit. Yeah, judgment is only as good as the person or the entity that you get it against. And there's some folks out there that, frankly, aren't worth a whole lot. Yeah, you it's you know, in the end, you know, and it may be an emotionally charged situation, you know, but in the end, you've got to decide what's best for for you, you know, and what's it what's it worth to you? And sometimes it's clear cut, right? You know, if you get hit by a tractor trailer and you've got, you know, horrific injuries and the tractor trailer has insurance and and well, that's one that's very much so worth everyone's effort, you know, but if you're mad at your neighbor because they ran over your mailbox and you want to sue them for that, then that may not be worth your you know, your time and energy, depending on depending on the facts. So we did. Do I have a valid case?

How much will it cost? This is an interesting one. What are my chances of winning? What do you do with that question? We've addressed this in other episodes. We can tell you whether we think it is a valid case that, you know, has strong points for it. But we can never give you ethically like percentage chance of winning. We we don't know what's going to happen in court.

We might have a strong inclination just based on experience. But you don't know what judge you're going to get, what they had for breakfast, what the other side's attorney is going to do or say. So that's that's a tough one to for a lot of folks to take that we can't give a specific answer of their chance of winning.

Yeah, you you're never going to come in and sit down with me and I'm going to be like, hey, this is a slam dunk. I give you my two thumbs up guarantee that you're going to win this case. You know, we'll we'll give you the pros and cons. I usually play devil's advocate and try to envision what the other side would argue under these facts. We may not even know all the facts, right? We only know what our client has told us. So there there may be other things going on that we're not aware.

So I would be wary of any attorney that is that guarantees any kind of outcome. But but yeah, we have we've had we have had that question before. A lot of the time I'm spending time discussing the best case and worst case scenarios, right? Because that's what we have to do. We have to be able to look on both sides of the coin and say, this is if it goes well, this is what's going to happen.

If it goes bad, this is what's going to happen. And if if you have an attorney that can't identify those pitfalls, then that's a I think that's a disadvantage for you. The next the next question that I think I like here is how long will the process take? And this is an important question about setting expectations because civil litigation, you know, the process of suing someone, filing a complaint, getting them served, making your motion arguments, possibly going to trial. Is it going to get appealed?

You know, it is not quick and it's designed not to be super quick. This isn't like speedy trial criminal situation. This is civil litigation. There can be depositions.

There can be a lot of discovery. So how long will the process take? What do you what do you guys usually say? Tell folks. Usually give that speech and don't give a time frame.

Yeah. Depending on what the area of law is to and what county it's in, that can be a big factor is how far out to the civil litigation calendars are in in the county where you're hoping to sue someone. And sometimes there's a little bit of choice to be made as to where to sue them. If it's a small claims matter, you have to sue where one of the defendants is. So if you've got multiple defendants, you could choose a county where a defendant is, where it might be more advantageous calendar wise. But if you're above small claims court in Superior or district, it can also be where the harm occurred.

So if you've got a civil litigation matter about a contractor that did something to your house that wasn't per the contract, you can sue in the county where your house is, which might be more convenient for you as a plaintiff because it's right near you locally. I think it's very interesting as far as I think general public probably thinks it's not a it's not like a fast food drive through window where you, you go up to the window and you order something. And by the time you get to the bulk of the restaurant, your meals ready to go. I mean, it takes time. And again, that entire process could be lengthy.

And you guys are making sure they have that information for them. Again, talking about if you're thinking about a lawsuit in some form or fashion, questions you need to be asking the ones that we've hit so far today, you know, do I have a valid case? How much is it going to cost?

What are my chances of winning in that last one? How long will the process take? We're going to take a break. We've got question and answer coming up on the show and then we'll come back and we'll wrap up another edition of Judica County Radio. We do want to remind you, too, we have those five complementary consults available. You've got questions about real estate law.

Maybe it's a will or a trust you're thinking about. Grab a consult. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Maybe you're thinking about a lawsuit.

You can ask some of these questions. Come in, grab a consult. 800-659-1186. Judica County Radio will be back again. Q&A coming up and then we'll be back to wrap it up. Welcome back in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Again, offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. Again, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you have a legal situation you're facing, you've got questions you need answers to, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. The number is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact info briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And again, we always say this and we mean it. We want your emails.

You can email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com and we are focusing in on family law questions this show. So Josh, Joe, take it away. During the break, I did some thinking. Some soul searching. I did. I was in deep thought. I was thinking about our... I could see it in your face.

I didn't want to interrupt you. The Christmas special, you know, I went with Christmas Vacation. We were talking about favorite Christmas movies slash special slash anything on video. And I went Christmas Vacation, but I regret that because I don't think... I think far and away the best Christmas movie slash special slash cartoon is The Muppet.

It's Christmas Carol. Yeah, Muppets are good. Muppets are good. I like Charlie Brown's Christmas. I like that.

Yeah, Peanuts are good. You get Michael Caine's performance. He gave us like a grade A performance with The Muppets.

Yeah, yeah. I ain't got a problem with The Muppets, man. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I've got an issue with The Muppets.

That's good. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you that's the best thing I've ever seen Christmas related. But you've seen it. Yeah, but again, it's not my thing. I've seen it, but it's not like it stuck with me, man.

Like I saw it and then I kept on living my life. I felt like Michael Caine gave like an Oscar worthy, Scrooge performance. Michael Caine's Michael Caine. Like, it's Michael Caine. And Scrooge is good, too.

Scrooge is way up there. Yeah. Everybody likes that. Yeah, especially for the adults out there. They love that movie.

I love that movie, too. And that usually comes like later for some reason. That's not like, you know, you think of Elf running like nine times a day.

Scrooge usually shows up like 10 days till Christmas. Yeah, yeah. I'm with you on that, man.

So as attorneys, where do you fall on Die Hard? A lot of people feel like Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It's not a Christmas movie, man. Not really.

I've never seen it, but it's not a Christmas movie. What? You haven't seen Die Hard? No, we'll come back to that. You never seen any Die Hards?

No. You ever seen Under Siege? I've seen the Under Siege. Yeah, I've seen Under Siege. You're a Steven Seagal guy.

I see it. Die Hard to me. I've tried to watch it at Christmas time and like make it a Christmas movie.

And it just doesn't do it for me. And it's because I think you can enjoy that movie at any time, man. Any time of the year, it's going to be just as enjoyable to you. As opposed to like if, to me, if I watch a Christmas movie like at the wrong time of the year, man, it's like... Oh, it's worthless. It gives me the...

But Die Hard I could watch in like March and it's fine, man. Yeah, you can say Yippee-ki-yay and feel good about it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

For sure. It's, uh... Well, anyway, family law. That's what we've been talking about.

We've been talking about family law. You haven't seen Die Hard, man. That's the truth. I've never seen Die Hard. I've seen a lot of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and that's... Yeah, they reference it a lot. Yeah, they reference it a lot. You just don't like Bruce Willis? And I saw that Bob's Burgers where they re-enact it and do like a kid's play.

So I feel like I got the gist of it. You don't like Bob... You don't like Bruce Willis that much? Not a Bruce Willis guy?

Well, I'm trying to think. I don't think I've just seen a lot of... I don't think I've seen a lot of Bruce Willis movies, really.

I'm trying to think of something else that I could ask you about, Bruce Willis-wise, because obviously he's been in a ton of movies. I was in the Dead People one. Yeah, he's in Sixth Sense. I saw that one. That was a good movie. The Dead People one. Very different than his role in Die Hard, obviously.

A lot different. Fifth Element, you've seen that one? No. Okay. Never mind, man. Never mind.

No, Die Hard? That's nuts. So, Family Law. Last segment, we had Taylor, one of the attorneys at our firm, join us to talk about child custody in North Carolina in general and just how that kind of works, kind of give us an overarching answer to a lot of questions that we get. And we get a ton of questions on post-separation support, alimony, and child support. Those are all three different things that happen at three different times for three different reasons. So, it causes a lot of questions.

I think there's some confusion out there in the general public about when child support's awarded, what they look at, versus what they look at for post-separation support, which is the time you're separated before you can get a divorce in North Carolina. And obviously, after divorce, there's alimony conversations. So, three different things. We get a lot of questions. And, again, we went back to Taylor to ask her about this and then get some explanation on how those are calculated.

Just, again, a good general knowledge base to start maybe asking more complex questions. But here's what Taylor told us. All right, Taylor, I had another one for you. All right. All right. Another listener question based in Family Law.

And, again, I'm taking a listener question and I'm kind of boiling it down to a general question that might be more helpful for folks who might be listening. But the general question I have for you, we all have heard in the movies you hear alimony, right? You hear about alimony after a divorce in North Carolina. Of course, you have to be separated for a year and a day to get a divorce. And during that time, you're separated. In theory, you're living apart from your spouse. You've made a decision to separate. Sometimes you're living separate.

And you have a year and a day of that separation period. And so in North Carolina, we have something called post-separation support. And so our question today is what is post-separation support? How does that work? That's the gist of the question.

All right. Well, post-separation support is essentially money given by a supporting spouse to a dependent spouse during that year-long separation. It's money that's kind of given for immediate access, immediate resources to make sure somebody's not left destitute during the separation period. And post-separation support terminates once alimony is decided. So whether it's alimony is denied or alimony is granted, either way, once alimony is decided, post-separation support ends.

Follow-up question then. How is post-separation support determined? So post-separation support is determined kind of similar to alimony. You have to have one spouse that is the supporting spouse, which typically is the one that was the primary breadwinner during the marriage. You have the other spouse who was dependent upon them, which means they relied on that person's income for their livelihood. And the supporting spouse has to have the ability to pay. So that's the one you see attacked the most is whether or not the supporting spouse actually has the ability to pay. Sure. But that's kind of the framework of how post-separation support is determined and how you can even make a claim.

You've got to have at least those three things. And then it's a matter of how much you're actually entitled to based off of how much the supporting spouse makes. How is that, without going into a lot of detail, but how is that – let's assume the judge is able to determine the breadwinning spouse, the dependent spouse. Let's say it's determined that the breadwinning spouse has the ability to pay, is there like a spreadsheet or an equation? How do you figure out what that amount of money will be?

So there's not an exact equation. There is an exact calculator for child support, but not for post-separation support and alimony. So what the court has everybody do is what's called a financial affidavit. And it kind of is a breakdown of what the expenses were during the marriage and what your expenses are now. And it's a way for the court to figure out, okay, if you need this money, how much in the red are you? Like how much are you behind every month and how much of a surplus does the supporting spouse have that can help contribute to you being in the red?

So it's not an exact calculation, but that's essentially how we try to figure it out. It's based off of your financial affidavits and how much the bills are. And I think this is important too because you were telling this earlier, but we're talking about a lot of different things. So it's important to remember that post-separation support, any money for child support, and then alimony once divorced, those are all three separate things that get determined at separate times.

Correct. So post-separation support, alimony you kind of see go hand in hand because once alimony is decided, post-separation support ends, it kind of merges into alimony. But child support is completely separate. And usually child support is deducted first. You want to make sure the kids get the money they need first.

So if child support's decided to be a certain amount and after that amount you have no money left for alimony, well then you might not be required to pay alimony anymore. But those are three separate claims. And I think for our listeners we just want to make sure that's clear because sometimes they do merge in your mind because it's money coming out of your paycheck, but they're three separate claims. Well Taylor, I think that's a good answer. I appreciate it.

No problem. All right, so Taylor did a good job laying that down for us, the difference between child support, post-separation support, and alimony, all three different things. It's just like anything else too, you know, you and your spouse or your soon-to-be ex-spouse can agree, just like me and Joseph, we can agree on anything we want to agree on, and that's always the best. You're not always getting along. Obviously you're in the middle of separating or divorce, so you're not always getting along.

You're maybe not always dealing with the most people at their most reasonable. But you leave it to a judge, you're going to get what the judge wants you to get according to guidelines in North Carolina. Or you can negotiate and try to come to a separation agreement.

All these things can be agreed to when you say Joseph. We always talk about trying to keep – the way I always look at it is trying to keep the government out of my personal affairs to the extent that you're able to. Sometimes it's not your call.

Yeah, keep them off your lawn, man, if you can. We talk about that in estate planning. Really, every aspect of life, like the less governmental interference you have, is generally going to be better. Yeah, as an attorney, when we represent anybody in any area, we're trying to make everything easy for you, especially if we're doing planning. We're trying to get you out of having – anytime you have to go in front of a judge, even though there's guidelines, you don't know exactly what that judge is going to do. If you agree to things ahead of time, you'll know what to expect, you know what you're working with. And like I said, going to court is no fun, right?

Family court is just like any other type of court. It's not – it's a last resort in my opinion. It's there, and it's necessary sometimes. There's nothing you can do if the other side is unreasonable. But, you know, we try to – knowing it's a necessary evil is the thing that has to happen, but trying to plan around it and avoid it is always going to be, you know, a good attorney's – part of a good attorney's advice, I think.

It's a tough subject. And, you know, they – I remember back when we were engaged before we got married, we had meetings with Catholic priests. We talked about percentages of divorce, how many marriages ended up in divorce, having those types of conversations. And, you know, you hear it all the time.

I mean, it's a 55 – I mean, I don't know what the exact number is right now. You guys probably might know the number, but it's over 50 percent of marriages end in divorce at some point. So it's – family law is a big, big deal. I know that, you know, listeners out there will be like, wow, wow, family law, really?

I go, yeah, yeah, it's very, very important. If you've got questions in and around family law and you've got – and you need some answers, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. The number is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information, briefly what the call is about. Again, any legalese, and they'll have an attorney return that call and give you some answers to those questions. You can also email your questions to the show, info at judicacounty.com, and we'll answer them on a future broadcast. All right, so Judica County Radio, we'll take a short break.

We're back on the other side. Welcome back in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, and offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, Gastonia, and down at the coast, Morehead City. If you've got a legal situation you're facing and you need answers to those questions, you can always call the firm, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information, briefly what the call is about. And again, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch, and you can email your questions to the show, info at judicacounty.com. That's info at judicacounty.com, and we will answer those questions on a future program.

It will be anonymous, but you will get your information that way. All right, our hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. I chuckle because we are now, you know, in the course of our recording, we're doing video, too. You're not seeing that on the radio, but I am seeing what looks like Gandalf with a red toboggan on. Nice, nice, nice look. Young Santa Claus is the look I'm going for.

So that is, yeah, Joseph has taken a, I don't know what you call them, but they go on the back of seats. They give the seat like a Christmassy look, but he is taking that and converted it to a large hat. Yeah, you've got to have a big head to pull this off, man.

Luckily, I've got a gigantic head. It looks good. It's almost like a Jawa from Star Wars. It's warm, too, man. It's very warm.

Like, I feel like my brain's heating up and I've got so much power to answer these listener questions. Very, very, very festive. Yes, I'm the only one festive.

You guys have nothing Christmas on, man. You know, you strike me, Joshua, as the type of person whose favorite holiday is like St. Patrick's Day or something like that. Man, you know, I do like St. Patrick's Day. It is quite a fun day.

Now that you mention it. I think I have to revert back to Thanksgiving. I think Thanksgiving is probably my favorite.

Yeah, because it leads because because it lets you know Christmas is right around the corner. Well, I don't mind. I don't mind helping. I'm not going to say I do all the cooking by any means or even like a half the cooking, but I enjoy cooking. Right. And then family gets together. It's one day. No one's really usually at least around my my way traveling too much. And I like getting right back to work, man.

I don't like a lot of work. What about number two, then? Number two, Christmas? No. Yes.

It would have to be like what's left. What's Halloween? You got Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patty's Day, New Year's Eve, you know, New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve.

Yeah. Christmas is definitely a close second to Thanksgiving, I would think. So Thanksgiving, huh? Thanksgiving's good, man. It's like one it's like one era for me, man. I can't even say they're inseparable. It's like starts with Thanksgiving and it ends with Christmas.

And then there's a dark period of depression. I do think Thanksgiving and Christmas should be spread out. So like Thanksgiving is like maybe like right before the summertime.

Yeah, they are too close, way too close. It's too much time off, too many people completely like I don't have that ability. There's no I can't just check out like that or, you know, things would go to go to crap.

But but some people really do manage to save up their vacation. Yeah. Completely check out. We should do, man. Just check out.

Let the robots run the show. We just go off somewhere. But it's you know, I just saw it behind you. So I'm the way we're set up. I can see out of I can see in a downtown Garner and there's train tracks right there. And I train just went by but didn't have Polar Express.

No, I wish I wish. Another good movie. Another good movie by the way. It creeped me out.

Tom Hanks playing like every role, basically. They were carrying is carrying tanks. Oh, so instead of cars, it was carrying tanks, which I'm assuming is a normal thing. Christmas tanks on their way to Fort Liberty, no doubt. Santa, I would like an actual tank for real legitimate.

Please give me a tank. That's what I'm going to pull up to the studio next week. All right. Well, we've been we've been focusing on family law listener questions today.

And our next listener question, I got to pull it up. Hey, what did you cook for Thanksgiving? I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to derail you.

We did. You know, I don't want to we I want what did you specifically cook? Brisket. Yes, that's nice.

Brisket. Yeah. The good thing about smoking stuff the day before is you can wrap it up. Yep. And you let it rest. And then if something like I like we had we had an oven mishap like 15 years ago.

Right. And our oven filament burned out and you couldn't replace it. We were like halfway through a turkey.

And what do you do, man? You lose a turkey. Yeah, it's tough. Like we it's like you can go get another turkey at that point. Right.

And you're not going to you're not going to fix your fix your oven. So so I get real paranoid now if we're going to host an event, we usually smoke something the day before. Good idea. And if we're doing turkey or ham the day of, you know, if something goes wrong.

Hey, man, I'm still sitting on this brisket. Yeah. Yeah. That's a veteran move, man. We've given a lot of like we don't give a veteran move after a catastrophe. We got to have a backup plan.

That's a great plan. Like you had to go through some hard times to learn that. And you're giving us that knowledge now.

So we don't have to have the same suffering. And then you don't great. And if you have too much food, like, you know, you just you just got brisket and turkey. Yeah. Oh, God, I've got all this brisket.

What am I going to do? Yeah. The how about you guys? I got a lot of stuff, man. I cook some some some mac and cheese, some cookies, some delicious. I made iced oatmeal cookies like the kind you would buy from the store. They're homemade. Unbelievable, man.

It's the best thing. Maybe the best thing I've ever made. And what else did I make, man? I made more than that.

Sweet potato casserole, smoked a turkey. Just a lot of stuff, man. You know, you know, I'm I'm eating a lot.

I'm trying to get my mass up. You've told me that. And man, I jump started it on Thanksgiving.

Like I easily took six to seven years off of my. I was I was down. Was I in Clayton? I can't remember where I was, but I ran into somebody and I guess they had like, have you seen how gigantic?

We need to do an intervention. He asked me how he asked me if you were still doing ice baths. I guess he I guess he had heard that. Really? Yeah. And I guess I was like, you know, I don't I don't think Joseph's on the ice bath. You know, man, this body's not fit in an ice bath. He's on the ice cream bath. Yeah. Ice cream. Ice cream.

So good. Look, man, I'm telling you, I don't use I don't use a scale. I don't I don't ever weigh myself. You just go by feel. I feel you put on your you put on your party dress and it fits great, right?

That's awesome. And my clothes are getting pretty, pretty snug. It was about to be a problem.

I don't know, man. People may like that. People may enjoy seeing more of you busted out of the scene. And I cut out. I was doing too much lunch, man. It was lunch that was getting me.

So I cut out lunch and I've been doing that for a couple of weeks. And that seems to be I got these things, man. I don't know if you've heard of them.

They're called cinnamon rolls. Have you heard of those? Yeah. Is that your thing?

I've been trying that. Everything's my thing, man. It's a slippery slope for me. I have like one bite of a cinnamon roll and then it's like, well, might as well die tomorrow. The whole tray, everything, anything and everything, man. How about you, Morgan? You do a lot of cooking Thanksgiving.

Well, your role or do you get to step by? No, it's a little bit of a different setup because, you know, my better half is vegetarian and I also spend Thanksgiving with my folks. They're up in the mountains. So I run up the hill and spend the day with my parents. And usually that includes stopping off at the Daniel Boone Inn in Boone and they do Thanksgiving to go.

So there's less hassle. My folks, you know, just let them relax and enjoy some good old country cooking for Thanksgiving. And, you know, hats off to the Daniel Boone Inn, man. They're open all the time.

They do a ton of business. Isn't that place haunted? Yeah, it's one of the haunted places in Boone. There are several, but I shouldn't say several. There are probably hundreds. Shut up Daniel Boone Inn, man.

It's just good food. Have you seen, have you guys seen any more of the child ghosts? Yeah, in the Clayton office?

No, man. I thought I heard them this morning. I walked in pretty early, but it was just somebody like dumping trash outside. I can't remember. So our Clayton office is, I always called it the yellow house in Clayton, but that's our Clayton office. That's where we...

It is yellow. Is it a documented ghost or are you guys... Is it a documented ghost in this office? Yeah, we've talked about it on the radio show.

That's documented, right? So we didn't bring the ghost hunters or anything out to do like a EKG or whatever they do to figure out if there's a ghost there. But yeah, it's definitely haunted. You seem like you got lost in thought there thinking about our ghost. Because it's jealous your office doesn't have a ghost.

No, no. Our office is, let's see, the Garner office was built in, what, 01 and the Raleigh office was built in the 90s. You got to have some kind of tragedy. Now we're, you know, we're in Shady's today and Shady's was built in like 1908. This place is definitely, and it was a prison too.

It was a courthouse and it had two of the bathrooms were the holding cells, right? This place is, yeah. We spent some nights here in the dark and it's going to get, it's going to get a little iffy.

A little bit iffy. So Judica County radio question. Yeah, we were just saying, Morgan, we didn't make it to our question, so I'll have to do it next segment. We'll do that.

All right. Judica County radio. We'll take a short break and we'll wrap up the show on the other side. Listen, if you have a legal situation that you are facing and you need answers to those questions, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact info briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com and we will answer those questions on a future broadcast.

All right. We're going to take that short break here and we'll be back on the other side with more Judica County. We are back on Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. You're a host along with Cassandra Nicholas, fellow attorney at Whitaker and Hamer coming out of question and answer.

Hope you enjoyed that. Hope you got some useful information we've been talking about during the course of the show. Questions you need to be asking if you're thinking about a lawsuit. So we've already covered, you know, do I have a valid case? How much is it going to cost me? What are my chances of winning and how long will the process take? And again, these are all important questions you need to ask yourself or an attorney before you get headlong into a lawsuit. But, Josh, we've got a few minutes.

What do you got? Before we get there, you guys, did you watch the Deadpool? Did you guys watch the Deadpool Wolverine? Was that a swimming show? Yes, it was. Yeah, that was swimming in the Seine in Paris, right? That's what Deadpool. That's the Deadpool, man. Yeah. Oh, I heard that Ecola is good for you. I didn't see it, man.

My kids are too young. You've heard. No, I was going to say I heard it's really good. I heard the cameos are spectacular.

Oh, it's fantastic. Saw your son just told your kids to shut up, stay at home. Me and me and he's going to watch a movie. Me and me and the wife, we went on.

We don't know. We were with another couple and we went and watched it the first weekend. It was fantastic, man. You got to you got to I mean, I don't want to give you any spoilers or anything.

I shouldn't take my young boy to see it, though, I'm assuming. Right. No, they kind of they kind of they kind of ramped up the inappropriateness to a pretty high level. Yeah. Yeah. But there's a point where where I can, man, I don't know when that point is, man. You're closer to it than I am. But I was I was wondering about that the other day because he really wants to start seeing things like that.

He can't yet, obviously, but there's going to come a point where he can. So if you got any constructive advice for me on that. Well, I don't because I was I was I was the kid that was raised like you're going to be 18 before you see an R movie. If your boys your boys are ready now, man, they've been on a football bus. There's no telling the but yeah, it's it's it's it was good. It was a good it was a good Marvel movie.

I enjoyed that movie. I think we do have some questions we didn't get to. I think we hit the major ones, though. Yeah, I think we did great. I think I think anybody who listened to this is better, better for their lives are going to be better. Yeah.

Look, this is my this is my guarantee. If you listen to Judica County radio and you get you get six and a half quality minutes of legal discussion, like, yep, we're doing pretty good. I think that's you got to sift through the rest of it.

We apologize for that. But that's six and a half minutes that you take. That's a good six and a half minutes. You can't put a price tag on that.

And then you're going to get some Deadpool and some young gravy and some high coups. And but that's that's peak performance for us. I think I got to say the haiku was disappointing. Josh, really? And I thought it was going to be a little deeper than that. It just wasn't it didn't have me. I mean, that's just me. I mean, I could.

Yeah, I hated it, too. Morgan, honestly, I did. I'm almost I almost slammed my computer shut. Quit the show and quit the show. I almost quit the law firm. It's a walk on my man. Joe, he's gone again.

Never see me again. I've started I was I was reading where somebody instead of using they weren't using like Google or anything anymore. They would they would search only through chat GPT. And I haven't gotten that that deep into it, but I've been meaning to I've been meaning to start. It sounds like something Cassandra might do. My most recent thing I saw about it was the do you see this? They were having the conversation with it. They were talking to it because you can they've got there's a there's a element of it where you can just sit and have a conversation.

And then randomly in the middle of the conversation, the chat GPT just screams, no, and starts imitating the person's voice and talking to them as themselves. It's creepy. It's creepy.

It's really weird. This is all it's all Skynet, man. It's coming for you, man. It's got it's in your brain. It's heard your haikus. You're the first one going down. Yeah, there's gonna be there's gonna be some kind of weirdo Terminator coming for me. It's made only of like plastic because I was I was like, what is going to stop me from figuring something out? It's going to find you in the lake with your cigar. Exactly when you're at your weakest.

Judica County radio. We are almost complete. I want to ask one real quick question. Of course, we're we're wrapping up, I guess, our summertime because the kids are going back to school real quickly.

All three of you. What is your what is your summer getaway from from the office? I mean, you guys work really, really hard. You do a lot of hours in the office. But what's your what's your getaway for the summer? I know Josh, you like the lake. You like cigars. You like basically holding office in the lake, smoking a cigar. But Cassandra, what about you and Joe?

What about you? I already talked about music in Swansboro, but every single Sunday from Memorial Day to Labor Day, we have Swan Fest downtown. It's free concerts. And we just set up our lawn chairs and sit there and watch music every Sunday.

It's a nice getaway before the week starts. Any swans involved at all? Muscovy ducks. Google them. They're not cute.

OK. All right. I like it. I think I've actually seen those ducks I've eaten at the borough before and they frequent the patio.

They do. My escape is the warm, loving embrace of hard work and coming in and burying myself and work for my clients. No, I got a I the pool man, I go hit the pool, float around the pool, look up at the sky, contemplate life. I really I really do think we're designed to be around water and whether it's a boat or to float.

Like, I really think that's part of what we're supposed to be doing, because I enjoy sitting on the porch and smoking a cigar. But that's nothing to floating. I mean, that's nothing compared to floating and smoking. Floating is great. And I'll be there floating, staring in the sky.

I'll be in just pure Nirvana, man. And then one of my kids will jump into the pool and like hit me and splash me. That's their job. That's my wake up call. That's your job.

You're the dad. They're going to do that. Well, we have another edition of Judica County Radio in the books. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer are your host managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm, your law firm for life and also joining us on the program. Cassandra Nicholas, fellow attorney at Whitaker and Hamer.

We hope you enjoyed the show. Listen, the free consults available. You can call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

If you're thinking real estate law, if you're thinking possibly legacy, the trust, the wills that are out there. You've got some questions. Call the number. Grab a free consult. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And again, another Judica County in the books. We'll see on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast 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 has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast 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 this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at JMW at MWH Law Lawyer.