Judica County Radio: The Fiduciary Relationship and the Role it Plays

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, will get into fiduciary relationship and the role that they play. That is coming up next on Judica County Radio. They're a practicing attorney here in the great state of North Carolina and they placed offices convenient to you.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, it's my pleasure to get on and talk legalese and basically just, I'm getting an education when it comes to the law. And if you've got a situation you're facing, we're going to give you an opportunity for a complimentary consult.

We'll tell you about those here in just a little bit. But first and foremost, gentlemen, Josh, we'll start with you. How was your week? So far so good. It's been a good week. I can't complain, Morgan. I did have a question for you guys.

I was thinking about this earlier in the day. I know everybody who's listening to us now and everybody on the show, we listen to Judica County Radio first and foremost in the week, right? We make sure we listen to that. But my question to you guys was, what do you normally listen to in the car when you're not listening to our show? For me, man, it's generally speaking, it's music, I'd say. Every now and again podcast, but normally I got the kids riding with me and they like to listen to the music, so that's what I do. They like to jam, so what do you jam to? It depends, man. My kids have eclectic musical taste, so it really runs the spectrum.

Not really, man. A lot of these kids these days, they get their musical influence from their peers. So a little bit of everything, we don't listen to a ton of country in my family.

That's one thing we don't do a ton of. You've always been anti-country, that's sure. Yeah, my sister, growing up, we would ride to school together and we took turns picking the music and she'd always pick the worst of the worst country. She'd sing it and I hated the way she sounded. I love her very much. She's a great singer. Personally, to me, I hate her. She's a great singer.

Yeah, if you heard her, you'd be like, wow, that's great. But me? Nails on a chalkboard, brother. What about you? So yeah, that's me, man. Every now and then I get a podcast, though.

Yeah, squeak it in. What about you, Morgan? Yeah, I kind of bounce between talk radio, usually sports.

I'll check in with the news. In my commute to work, depending on how traffic is going, harder rock if I'm caught in traffic and then a little bit more of a mellow. And sometimes I do country if traffic is moving quite well. But yeah, I like classic rock in the car. Anything from the 80s, I'm all in. I see Morgan listening to death metal stuff in traffic jam, just raging.

I don't know if you know this. Morgan, you're a little bit older than me, just a little bit younger than me. But there's a time where every man, I think, I've listened to a lot of stuff, right? I've listened to a lot of stuff from when I grew up.

I listen to country, I listen to rap, I listen to rock, I listen to some podcast, but I just get tired of listening to the same thing over and over again, even though I try to mix it up. And so I've turned hard into the blues. And so there's an age you hit where you just, I think you just, as a man, you just listen to the blues a lot. And so just this week, I've turned hardcore into the blues. I don't know why.

Just this week, this is a new development? No, no, I've listened to the blues before in passing or listened to certain people, but I went all blues this week. How's your marriage, Josh? It's all right. It's all right, man. Everything, nothing to be sad about.

Everything's been going good. But like, I just heard a couple of Taj Mahal songs. I was like, Oh, and then I was like, I've never listened, you know, I get the Spotify and I start listening to albums and just going through it and going through it. Because, you know, I love I love Lynyrd Skynyrd. I love a lot of rock. I love a lot of old Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. There's only so many times you can listen to those, right? Same thing with the blues, man. You're going to burn the blues out for yourself, too. You got to you need to have an even mix of every, you know, genres in your playlist, man.

So you don't get tired of anyone. I remember I remember growing up in high school, I interned high school college. I interned for attorneys, right? I wasn't in law school yet. I wasn't I was just an undergrad and I had a job. I worked for some attorneys and I would meet other attorneys, right?

They would get together with other attorneys. And I remember this attorney. I don't he seemed like super old at the time. He's probably my age now. Right.

But when I was when I was in college, he seemed like the oldest guy ever lived on death's door. And he was telling me about how like he got bored with what he you know, the same thing we're talking about now he got bored. But he was like a big this is back when you would go into like borders or something. Right. You buy CDs.

This is back in the city air. Yeah, back when they had some of the CDs on display where you could listen to the tracks. Yeah. So he was he was like, I'm really into world music, right? There was always that section of the CD store that was labeled world music. I don't know what was in there.

I guess. But he was like, that's what you need to do, Josh. You need to start listening to some world music. I was like, look, man, I'm never going to be you. I'm not going to turn into you.

And I haven't gone that far. Blues is the blues is the blues. I feel like I need to understand world music better, honestly. Well, it was it was a section in borders back in the day. And CD now what CD now? What was I can't remember the name of the store.

And I was over near Kerry Town Center, but music from non English speaking countries. Okay. Yeah, he's just a broad category. And he was telling me about it, too. But I was like, I can't I can't do that, man. I'm never going to be.

I like to listen to a lot of different things. That's never going to be me. Maybe you just don't want to broaden my horizons.

Come on. I don't want that. I don't want that.

I want to listen to Judica County 20. That's right. Well, that's what you should do. But I will grant you that sometimes you need breaks, right? Sometimes you need music.

And occasionally, I don't think you appreciate how good this show really. The I was going to do we're gonna do it. I think we're gonna do an upcoming show.

I was going to try to do it today and I didn't get it put together. I was gonna talk about baseball, baseball rules, the legality of baseball. Yeah. Yeah. And it made me throw in some football because they're always reviewing rules.

Seems like umpire at your kids Little League game. Yeah. What happens when you get hit by like a hockey puck? All right, what happens when you catch a ball?

Can you keep it? You know, that kind of thing. So we'll look at that, man. But today listen to a lot of world music coming up with top. I imagine world music has got a lot of bongos in it.

That's how when I when somebody says world music, I think more cowbell cowbell. But today, today I got kind of a broad topic. And, you know, we're going to talk about fiduciaries. All right, so fiduciary is describes a relationship and describes a person, right? So you hire an attorney, an attorney is your fiduciary, right? They have a special relationship under the law. And so you've got all kinds of different fiduciaries in your estate plan, fiduciaries that you deal with day to day. And they owe you a special duty. They can't they can't do you harm. They have to act in your best interest, best interest.

Yeah, I was going to say the definition of fiduciary is you act in the client's best interest. Hey, look at Morgan, man. I know he's ready.

We didn't give him a lot of advance notice either. He just he's doing it. He's basically becoming a lawyer. And so fiduciaries come up for people in a lot of different areas.

Right. And so that's what I want to talk to today, just what that relationship means. It's a special relationship. And if we're like a licensed professional, like an attorney, a CPA, certain financial planners, that fiduciary relationship is big. You can't you can't you know, you go buy a car from a used car salesman. There's no fiduciary relationship.

You're on your own. That car salesman, he can't commit fraud, but he doesn't have to help you. He's not supposed to commit fraud.

He's not supposed to commit fraud. That's a low bar, right? If me and you have to do something, if me and you have to do something, and my only my only restraint is I can't perform a criminal act. Right. I can't I can't defraud you.

That's a very low threshold. Right. If we're doing something in the law, I said there's a fiduciary relationship. Not only can I not commit fraud, I have to do what's always in your best interest, even if it's not mine. And that's what a fiduciary relationship is and is very powerful. And the law has a lot of those type of relationships that get formed. And and that's what we're going to do today.

We're just going to run through a lot of different of these fiduciary relationships, tell you what they mean, talk about the documents or the laws that kind of create those relationships. And that's what I want to try to accomplish today. Maybe play some blues. See how it's going. I tell you what, I'm sold. I wasn't going to stick around for this episode.

I was going to cut out. But now, man, you know, I don't think I don't know about Morgan. I don't think me and Joseph have any musical talent. You like to sing. You can sing, right, Joseph? Me?

No, no. I mean, I could like you put a gun to my head. You're like, sing. I mean, yeah, I'd sing.

It would be good. Morgan, you got any musical talent? Heck no. I sang a little sang a little in the church choir growing up, but that didn't last long. Sister Act 3 starring Morgan.

It didn't last long. Hey, we're going to get we're going to take a break here in just a second. But Josh, explain the complimentary consult and what what's going to happen there. Yeah, me and me and Joseph, we're attorneys. We're attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer. We come to you every week on the radio via podcast to kind of talk about legal topics. But our secondary goal is is is to is to assist you with your legal needs. And so what we've been doing for a while now is we offer you some free consults. You call the number that Morgan's going to give you.

Leave your information. Our paralegals, our staff will reach out to you and connect you with an attorney. And we'll see if your legal issue is something that we can help you with. Get you in the right direction.

Get you thinking about it from an attorney's perspective. Sometimes we can help folks. Sometimes we can't. But we want to be the ones that you call when you need legal help. And so that's why we do that, Morgan.

Yeah, I mean, it's a good starting point. You've got questions and you're just out there and you need answers. Grab one of these consults. Easy to do. Call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information and briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to schedule that complimentary consult.

That means you leave the checkbook at home. It's a great way to test drive Whitaker and Hamer law firm and see where you are with your particular issue. That's 800-659-1186. We've got more Judica County radio coming up on the other side. We are back on Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And they have put offices almost everywhere for your convenience.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to jump on each and every week with the attorneys and talk legalese. And we're talking fiduciary and there are many different forms.

And we're going to get into that right now, Josh. Yeah, the first the first fiduciary relationship I wanted to talk about was one that is is very powerful. And we talk about powers of attorney.

Right. It's a legal document. It's entitled a power of attorney. Every state has statutes that allow you to create a power of attorney where you appoint someone to act in your place. And there can be general business power of attorneys. There can be health care power of attorneys. But you're naming someone kind of to act in your stead when you are unable to act for yourself. Right. Right. Just the power of attorneys.

That's right, man. And in a nutshell, a power of attorney, like you said, you touched on it. There's there's a couple of different primary types between the general power of attorney and the health care power of attorney. But the concept, if we're talking broadly in terms of fiduciaries, the concept of your fiduciary duty is going to be the same in terms of you're required as a fiduciary to act in the best interest of the person who's granting you that authority. So the role can be different because, again, the general power of attorney touches more on day to day transactional type of things, writing checks, dealing with property, handling your day to day affairs, whereas the health care piece is more tailored towards making health care decisions, receiving information from medical providers. But again, at the heart of the role of the fiduciary, you know, if you at its simplest level, you have the same duty, which is to take care of the interests of the person that's granted you this authority.

Yeah, right. So if you've got a general general power of attorney and you know, you're you're you're found to be incompetent, you're unconscious, you're out of the country. There's all kinds of reasons where someone could be acting on your behalf and your power of attorney. You would appoint and sometimes we call it an attorney. In fact, sometimes we call it an agent, but they will act for you and a lot of spouses.

Right. I would I've got a power of attorney. I appoint my wife to act on my on my behalf. She has a fiduciary duty. You know, if she's acting on those power of attorneys, of course, if I'm unconscious, like I'm at the doctor, a health care power of attorney, she's going to make those medical decisions for me when I can't. So the fiduciary relationship is pretty powerful.

I always tell people, you know, when I first got started in the law, I ran into a situation where someone had given this was this was in like the early 2000s. Right. And some some guy had given his wife a power of attorney in the 80s or the 70s long time ago. Right. So we had this old power of attorney and the wife since then, the wife had been ruled incompetent.

Right. So the wife was the agent. And so we had to go to the successor a lot of times in the power of attorney. You'll say, hey, if I can't handle my own affairs, my wife is going to be my power of my attorney, in fact, my agent. And if she can't, then you name a successor agent, someone who would do it if she can.

A lot of people name their kids or one of their kids or two of their kids act together or brother or somebody else. And so this guy had appointed his daughter, the successor power of attorney, and come to find out his daughter wasn't acting in his best interest. Right. His daughter figured out that she was the successor agent in his power of attorney. Her dad in the hospital can't do anything. Moms can't do anything. She starts selling everything.

Right. She she sells real property. She takes money out of the bank account.

She just basically finances her lifestyle. And when the dad came to come to find out that she had not acted in his best interest. Right.

She had not not been a good fiduciary and he was going to have to sue his daughter to try to recover property. So people have this duty to act in your best interest, but you still have to select responsible people. You know, if you've got a kid who's going to sell you out, maybe don't make them a successor agent.

Right. So you really have to think about who you're putting in this. And sometimes your spouse. I mean, you know, there's there's spouses that, you know, you know, when you there's there's people who get divorced or who get separated and they're not getting along with their spouse, but they don't update their documents. And there's a there's a statute that helps us out if you're if you're divorced. But if you're just separated and you're not getting along with your spouse and your spouse name is named as your fiduciary, the spouse can do a lot to you. Right. You know, if they're not if they're not acting in your best interest, even though they're supposed to.

Not fun stuff. So and you could sue them, right? Like, you know, that's not to say there's no recourse against that person, because, again, they that's the that's the nature of the fiduciary duty is to act in your best interest. So there's potential recourse, but it's always easier. It's like the what's the analogy that the parents tell the kids with the toothpaste is out of the tube. It's harder to put it back in that I'm talking about.

It's kind of like that. And so you brought up a couple of very valuable lessons, man. And lesson one is be careful who you appoint. And you give a fiduciary duty, too, because while they have that legal duty, not everybody's going to look after it. And, you know, you can you can potentially seek recovery from those people. But it's a lot harder to to get things back than it is to prevent someone from taking them in the first place.

And lesson two is. You've got to make sure when you have these life changes. So, like, if you've appointed your spouse as your power of attorney and you get divorced and you've got all this ill will and bad blood between each other, that is the very situation where you would like to come in for a very free consultation with our office and look at revising and updating those documents. Yeah. And a lot of people do this. A lot of people do their estate plan and set up their power of attorney early in life. And then when it actually comes into play, you're like, oh, I forgot I appointed my kid wasn't 18, so I appointed my second cousin as my successor agent. Right. Something happens to your spouse.

Now, the second cousin maybe you haven't talked to in 20 years is you're stepping in to act as your fiduciary. And so I've had a lot of people come in and revoke right power of attorneys. Right. If you've got a power of attorney and someone's got it and they're acting underneath it, you can always revoke it. Right. But the easiest thing, like Joe said, is when you when you sit down and that's what I usually counsel people on is don't just you don't have to have a successor agent.

Right. Just name your spouse or name your oldest child or whoever you trust. And then if something changes, you can you can change it. But a lot of people come in and say, look, I want my spouse as my agent. My oldest is my six. My oldest kid is my successor. And then I'll have a second backup and a third backup and a fourth backup. But the further you get on that backup chain, it's someone you don't probably trust as much. And so it's a real powerful document that's subject to abuse if these folks are not not acting as your fiduciary. And that's not to discourage anybody from, you know, if you've got hopefully you got a lot of folks in your life that you trust and having having more successors is never a bad thing. If you've got sufficient, you know, a sufficient number of people that you trust, because the alternative is you're stuck with, you know, nothing. But you've got to be very careful and cautious about who you appoint.

That's that's 100 percent the case. Judica County radio again, we have complimentary consults available. If you've got a legal situation, you're facing got some questions, you need answers.

You can certainly grab one of these consults and meet with an attorney and there's no obligation. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. A lot of times these appointments can be held right over the phone.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Judica County radio will be back with a little bit more on fiduciaries. That's what we're talking about today on Judica County radio. Again, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.

We're back right after this. We are back on Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure each and every week to go back and forth with the attorneys. And now we are getting into executors, administrators and trustees. Oh, my. Taking it up a notch, baby. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I wanted to mention before before I lost track of time, you know, the Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court is starting to issue rulings and orders. You know, they're starting to come back out. It's been a while since we got any new Supreme Court decisions. And so next week, I think we're going to dive into into some Supreme Court opinions. You know, we try to steer clear of politics here on the show, but do like do like to talk about the Supreme Court opinions, because that doesn't always make the the major news outlets.

Well, you're a big Supreme Court opinion guy, man. You always have been and I respect that about you. Yeah, I like to I like to read them. I like to see what they're doing. And especially in kind of the politically charged atmosphere that we that we live in these days.

I really like to have some reasonable folks just kind of look at what's going on and kind of go from there. But yeah, fiduciary. So we just spent a lot of time talking about your your your attorney. In fact, your agent.

Right. You have a power of attorney. I always feel like I have to review this power of attorney is the name of the document that you use to establish your attorney, in fact, or your agent.

And so that can be abused. But we're going to talk about a new class of fiduciaries. And so if you have a will, you have to appoint an executor to to run the estate. If you don't have a will, the court appoints an administrator to handle the estate, the affairs of the estate. And if you've done your estate plan and you sat down with us and you've done everything the right way, you don't really care about your executor or your administrator. You care about your trustee because you planned ahead and you put all your assets in the trust and you appointed a trustee to to administer that trust.

And so that's what we're going to talk about today. Executor and administrator. I like to call them personal representatives just in general.

Right. So we don't have to keep saying executor and and just to touch on before, you know, they're very similar in terms of their role. Again, you hit the the the broad point in that you have an executor if you've got a will and that's somebody you've specifically designated to hold that role. And then if you if you don't have a will and you die, what we call intestate, the court's going to someone's going to have to step up and be the administrator. And by and large, those roles are the same. The only thing I could say that would be a little bit different potentially is as the administrator, you may have to do a little bit more fact finding in terms of identifying heirs and who's entitled to take versus the executor who is going to have a will that's going to spell out who gets what specifically.

But I like your idea of just dumbing it down. Let's just call them personal representatives. Yeah.

Yeah. Personal representative PR. But if you've done your estate plan, you don't you don't you know, we talk about this all the time. If you've done your estate plan, you created your revocable living trust or your irrevocable trust or your marital interest trust or your trust for minors, you know, whatever trust that you've created. Hopefully when you pass away, those all kick in and you've appointed trustees.

Right. So you've appointed your spouse to be a trustee or your oldest child or your financial advisor or your CPA or your attorney or your law firm. Somebody's somebody is going to administer that trust.

And of course, in our scenario, you know, in our scenario, you're no longer around. And so these people have to administer your trust in your best interest. And you've left them instructions. That's what a trust is.

Right. It's like it's like a will. It's written instructions on where you want money to go, what you want your oldest kid to get when he's 18, when he's 25, when he's 30, when he's graduated from college. And it's all just written in there and your trustees, the one who's who's executing it. But the trustee is a very, very important fiduciary.

Very, very Sesame Street right now. The word of the day. So you have to think about that. Right. And a lot of people come to us as couples. That's why I'm always talking about spouse. Right. So a lot of people come to us as couples. And a lot of challenge for them is figuring out, OK, some because that's what we do. We say, OK, say something happens to you both. Right. So my wife has named me as her trustee if something happens to to her and vice versa. But what happens if we're both on an airplane and it crashes? Who's going to be the trustee? We don't have any.

I don't have any kids over 18. Right. So they can't they can't be a trustee. And so that that that trips people up. And I have a lot of older clients who come in and maybe they've lost a spouse or they never got married and they don't have any kids. And they have to figure out who's going to be their trustee. And a lot of times it's it's a professional trustee like like us. I know you've had to do that, too, Joseph. Yeah. And that's and that's what you do in that situation.

You touched on it. So there's sometimes there's folks that come in and we sit down with them and we talk to them. And, you know, maybe they've got kids or maybe they've got siblings, but they're either a strange or they don't trust them. They don't feel good about them stepping into that fiduciary role. And, you know, I've sat in front of folks who just kind of hit a hit a wall.

They don't know what to do there. But but you said it, man, there's professional trustees. And whether that be, you know, a lot of attorneys, I know we offer that as a service with our firm. Step in as a professional trustee. There's there's financial institutions that will do that for you as well. But, yeah, that is an option and it's a good option for some folks, because, you know, even if you've got two or three people that you feel really good about, you know, you never know what's going to happen.

You could you could lose all of those. And you could be in a situation where, you know, someone else has to step up or there's no one stated. And so having a professional trustee as a backup is is depending on the nature of your estate and your assets is not necessarily a bad idea at all. Yeah, we've got a lot of clients in their mid 80s, late 80s, early 90s who are still very independent, you know, doing doing well. But they've outlived everybody.

Right. They've outlived their friends. You know, you know, they maybe didn't have children or got, you know, that does happen where, you know, if you if you make it to 96, you may outlive your children, even if they lived a nice, good, long life, you know, and you've outlived your cousins and your second cousins. And, of course, your your parents. And so, you know, you may need the services of a professional trustee.

And so we we do that for a lot of folks. And then we, you know, we administer their their trust when they're not here and get stuff to charities or, you know, make sure their houses are sold and distributed the way they want to. And so that's that's kind of a good fiduciary relationship to keep in mind. Your fiduciaries don't have to be your relatives.

They don't have to be your army buddy or your best friend from college. You know, they can be your CPA. They can be a bank. Now, you can't name these professional trustees without them knowing because they don't have to accept the duty. So if you do want a professional trustee, you need to talk to them ahead of time. Like if you want to make Truist Bank or Wells Fargo or North State or Fidelity your trustee, you can't just name them because they don't have to do it. And then you don't you don't have a trustee.

So we talk with a lot of folks and we fill that role for for for a lot of folks. And one other thing that you haven't really touched on is trustee succession. You know, you you can't have a situation and you do have the right, especially if you put together a trust to if you feel real good about someone and you got great confidence in them and you don't have a ton of successors to a point, you can give that person the authority to appoint a successor trustee as well or a beneficiary as well. So one thing with trust is you got a lot of you got a ton of flexibility and you can you can be as specific and you can be as complex as you want to be.

Or you can keep it simple. But there's just an overwhelming number of positives that come from putting together a good estate plan centered around a really strong trust. Well, planning for the what ifs and making sure you've got your I's dotted and your T's crossed.

That's what planning is all about. And again, we're going over executors, administrators and trustees right now. There's an opportunity to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer and these consults are complementary. So if you've got a question possibly about estate planning, executors, administrators, trustees, how to handle that, you can grab a consult right now by calling 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information.

And again, briefly what the call's about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and they'll line you up with one of those complementary consults. Just a quick reminder, Judica County Radio, we're here for you. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners of the firm and hosts of this show, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City.

We're going to take a short break. We'll be back on the other side with more Judica County. Judica County Radio hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. And you can find them right here in the great state of North Carolina where they are practicing attorneys. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and Moorhead City.

Complimentary consult available during the course of this show. You can call at any time. Leave your name, contact information and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch about that complimentary consult. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Gentlemen, where are we going? I tell you what, I am so, I was talking to my wife is from Western New York. I love Western New York.

It's great to visit in the summertime. She's a Buffalo Bills fan, correct? Oh yeah, big time.

Josh Allen, life size. Yeah, posters everywhere. Yeah, and she's infected. She's infected my boys with all the Buffalo Bills. So the boys are all big. You say it like it's a disease, brother. I know what he speaks of because my daughter's boyfriend is from Buffalo. He flies up two or three times a year from the Disney area just to go to games and frees his you know what off. It's cold, man. It's cold. All my children have Carolina Panther fever.

I think that is a sickness. In my old age, like I used to, you know, my family's from North Carolina. We've been here forever. And the North Carolina winter, it's usually mild, right? It gets cold in January and February.

But usually about this time of year, about early March, you start coming out of it. And we get a long spring. We get a long summer. We get a mild fall. But in my old age, I don't know how much longer I can handle January and February. Like I think I'm going to have to be one of those people that just disappears in January and February and just hangs out in Florida. That's what bears do.

They hibernate. Let's do that, man. Let's take this show on the road right now. Yeah, we should. Yeah. And we should do remote free consultations in Florida for the rest of time.

But I was like, man, I wonder what that age is where that really looks good, you know, because there's a lot of people in western New York who do that. They go down to Florida for, I don't know, up there like December. You get to about Christmas time and they just get out of there and then they come back to evacuate.

That's pretty good plan, man. Well, back in the day and I'm talking early 90s, the the term snowbird. When I when I was working in South Cackalacky, the Canadians would come down and they would stay for two, two and a half months during the winter. And that's back when Myrtle Beach, the Grand Strand had a downtime in their season. Now they don't.

Everybody's there all the time. Yeah. But back then they had snowbirds and they would literally come down for two, two and a half, three months. And this is before remote.

It's like they would work and then they would take the three months and they'd hit the beach and then they'd go back up. I respect that. Yeah, I got to I got to work that into my you know, the kids being in school. I don't think I can do that just yet. Right.

The kids are in school for a while. You got you got a wife at home. She's very confident.

She's very capable. So I should just I should snowbird it on my own. Just go. And then you come back and be a surprise like the kids.

You can look and be surprised how much they grew, you know, the type of people they've become. And FaceTime, you'll be very refreshed. No, no, no, no, no. We're going to go cold turkey and then you come back and you'll appreciate them so much more. And it'll be like a nice battery recharge.

Your wife ordered cold turkey. I like that. We'll set up daddy's daddy's snowbird and again, baby. We got it. We'll set up an office down in Key West and we just we're just there.

January one through February. All there. But we'll have a physical bill. And see, you know, I like it, man. I like that idea.

I support it. Get to work. The cold just got to me this year. And then over the summer, we had so much rain. Like, I feel like I didn't have a summer. And like, I feel like I need to catch up like it's the dark to man. It's the cold. But then it's the dark. It's the it's the the early darkness. The never ending black night of winter, man. So, Josh, basically what you're saying is more lake, more to miss the lake, man. I went down there the other day and checked on the lake in the boat. And and I just I was I'm really ready to get back into the lake, smoke some cigars, take it easy on the weekend.

I'm going to diagnose you right now, right here with seasonal affective disorder. That's what you got. I think we should do a road trip to the lake house and do the show from up there from the dock.

That would be. Yeah, it'd be nice. Be nice. Be a lot nicer than doing it from the office and from the studio.

And no offense to the office or the studio. I think if you got your choice of places, that's you're going to choose the Josh Whittaker's Lake Mansion. But something. Yeah. Lake Mansion in the mountains.

Lake Shack. The what? But I miss football.

Right. I miss I miss football. My most of my kids play football now and I miss the football. I miss the warm weather. I miss the boat.

I miss the lake. I just I just all I want. I just wanted back. No one's going to disagree with you here on this show, man.

We all I think me and Morgan are wholeheartedly behind that. And look, look behind me right now. You know, if you're if you're viewing this, it's looking great outside, man. It's looking pretty good. I think, you know, it looks like snow back there. And for our radio, it looks like it's very bright and sunny out there for our radio listeners. We do hook up virtually because we're in three different studios so we can see each other. And again, take visual cues from each other. But yeah, you get an idea of, you know, Joe, you've got a nice looking backyard there.

Thanks, man. Yeah. That's got some grass. That's not code for anything. That's not code for a nice looking backyard. Pickup line. I'm going to work into the rotation.

What's your landscaping? What? Morgan, you are you playing the pickleball yet? Do you do that and you do the pickleball? I don't. I've been to a couple of fundraisers and I've seen some professionals go at it. I I've played around with it a little bit, but I have not taken the full pickleball.

I've never I've never done that. I think that that sports tailor made for you. I've been thinking about getting into the pickleball. I got some people are trying to get me to play about it.

You should do it. I mean, that could be you could be a child prodigy, an adult prodigy of pickleball, pickleball and shuffleboard. Really? It's a newer. When did when did pickleball come on the scene? How how how new of a sport is pickleball?

It's probably five, six years. I mean, it's a pretty new. That's a new thing.

It's new. But everybody's got courts now, like every town and city are building courts and get rid of their basketball courts, putting up pickleball courts. It's not too late. It's not too late for you to become the world's foremost pickleball player if you dedicate your life to it right now.

And I've heard stories that it's it's so accessible to so many people. People are just jumping in and they're not kind of easing into it. So there are a lot of injuries to pickleball and people that are a little bit longer in the tooth. That would be you, Josh, getting into pickleball. You really got to be prepared for it physically because the injuries do happen.

Obviously, knees, ankles. You know, it's it's it's just it's tennis. I mean, it's it's not the same ball or anything. It's like ping pong and you're standing on the table.

That's that's the way I describe it. I got a ping pong table we can play later on today, man. You have to draw. You could draw a pickleball court on your driveway, right?

Just put up a net. Yeah, you can. You can't. I don't know what the ball looks like. You can. It looks it doesn't look like a pickle, just like a ball.

It's almost like a hard wiffle ball. Yeah. See, Morgan's an aficionado. I was trying to hustle us. A couple of times to try to get us out there and he's going to be out there doing backflips and just smashing. Well, the kids that my kids want to play golf to like we you know, I golf a couple of times a year. I'm not a big golfer. I enjoy it immensely when I get out there. I'm not good at it. Don't do it very often. But my kids want to learn how to play.

And so I think we're out to get out there and do that this summer, too. Really. It's like you can't you can't teach him right. Like I could teach my kids how to golf.

Yeah. I mean, I can't teach him to be good, but I can teach him like this is how you hold a club. This is the club you're going to use to work on contact. I can't give them like Tiger Woods level coaching.

I mean, you think I can take you from the best I can take you from never have played at all to like you can knock it all, knock it around, you know. But but I think really that the summer, a lot of lake. I don't want any rain. I don't want any rain the entire summer.

Lake Golf, pickleball, the rain dance. Go out there right now. Take your shirt off.

Start shaking it. And I think that'll get it done. Well, we didn't get back to fiduciaries this segment, but we'll do that next segment more.

Maybe it sounds good. And we want to remind everybody there are complimentary consults available. All you got to do is call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

We will not be doing a consult on pickleball. But if you've got questions about fiduciary question about executors, administrators, trustees, state planning, grab one of the consults. Again, you're leaving the checkbook at home. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. We've got more. Judica County radio coming up on the other side. Welcome back into Judica County radio final segment. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They're your hosts and they have placed offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. Again, for your convenience and the consults we talk about, we're going to get a little bit more in depth about those consults. But if you've got questions on the legal side, this is a great opportunity for you. The number to call is eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly with the calls about an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to line up that consult. Again, leaving the checkbook at home.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. But Josh, you wanted to kind of go more in depth. Yeah, I want to talk about the consult process. So like if you call us, you know, Morgan gave you the number. We'll set you up with a free consult. If you call us.

That number is just for folks listening to the radio show or the podcast. So what you'll do is you'll leave a message. Leave us good contact information. Leave us a phone number.

Leave us an email if you got one that you use. Some people are better with email than than others. But our staff is going to take that information and and get you in our system. And we we we do a good the staff does a good job of getting some information from you.

A great job. They give us that information. They say, hey, this is John Smith.

He was listening to the radio show. He wants to talk to you about a trust. You know, this is Jane Smith. She wants to talk to you about a separation or so-and-so has a traffic ticket. But anyway, they'll get all the information they need. So when an attorney talks to you at the scheduled time, we can do that in person. You know, like Morgan always says, we try to have offices across the state, you know, so you can meet your attorney in person if you would like.

We do zoom calls. We do phone consults. You know, we we want to make it as easy as possible for you to to talk to an attorney.

And that's and that's what we do. And we can usually get you in within a week or two. You know, even quicker if there's an emergency or something going on that requires you to meet with an attorney sooner. But that's really what the firm set up to do. And me and Joe have kind of built the firm to help with different different things that the average family, the average person, you know, might need.

So, you know, traffic tickets, estate planning, estate administration, personal injury, car accidents, business law, civil litigation. There's just a whole host of things that our attorneys are set up to to handle and help you with. And so we're we try to be a good starting point for any legal issue you might you might have. And Joseph, that's kind of how we've we built the firm.

That's right. And and and and building the firm, you know, we we specifically have designed this process of getting in touch with us to set up your consultation to be as streamlined and as efficient and as easy as possible. And I think a lot of folks get, you know, they kind of get their own head or they get a little worried about having to do something like that and think it may be a hassle. But again, we've we've made this process as easy as absolutely possible for you. You know, we've got we've got you can do if you prefer to get on the phone and talk on the phone. We're going to give you that option if that's the type of person you are, where you'd prefer to just speak to someone. If you'd rather just go online and fill a form out. A lot of people don't like calling places these days.

You can do that if you want to. We've got every option possible in terms of being able to get in touch with us and streamline that process to get in for your consultation. So, again, we tried to make it easy and take some of the headache out of of the process. And I think we did a fine job of that, Joshua, if I do say so myself.

Yeah. You got two different types of people these days. You got the types of people that want to do as much as humanly possible online and via phone. And you still got that set of people that want to come in, meet you, look at you, shake your hand, sit down at a table and talk to you. And yeah, we tried to set it up for for both. You know, we've really spent the past couple of years, we spent a lot of time on our technology and really trying to make it easy.

If you're one of the usually younger people, right. It's usually younger people like Joseph, like me, who want to be able to schedule a console at two a.m. in the morning on on on Wednesday, they want to get online and be able to interact with us and do that. And you can, you know, we send you links, we let you schedule your own consultation. You'll have access to our schedules and you can pick a time that works for you. And and again, the medium that works for you in person via phone, via via Zoom. So down at the lake house, we're looking at that option, Josh's lake house with him and a speedo and his inner tube smoking a cigar. I didn't do the speedo, but I have done the where I do virtual consults down at the down at the lake house. Now, that's a nice, pleasant day for I feel like you give better legal advice there, too. And I feel like you're more tuned in to the world, much more relaxed, you know, for sure. We need to take it to the next step.

I need to be able to do it from the boat, get out on the lake on the boat and do some. And no one can hear you. Just the wind whipping.

What did you say? But we'll have to work on that. We'll have to work on that down in the Moorhead City office. We'll have to get a boat down there and zip around and and do some consults down that way.

Judica County needs a boat badly. What would you name it? That's actually a tough one. That's a stumper.

I don't know, man. I have to put some real thought into that one. You can't take one of the you can't take one of the easy ones you got to. Yeah, you can't name your boat immediately.

You got to really you got to go on like a spirit quest in the woods. Yeah. And let the name find you.

That's right. The boat names itself. You just have to listen to the boat. The boat, the boat names itself. So what once we get the boat, we'll talk to the boat. We'll put our ear up to it. You don't talk to the boat.

You listen to the boat. Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. I was going to ask it first.

What do you want to see if I just put my ear up to the side and hear what it says? You know, we should name everything like we people name boats, man. You should be able to name your car. Maybe people do that. I haven't done that now.

But you could right now. What are you going to name your car? You can go ask it.

Speak to it. I guess. Well, I guess just I just call my cars. The you know, the truck, the car, the truck and the car. Right.

I mean, when you guys were younger. Did you name your vehicles? What pronouns do you use for the car in the truck, Josh? That's the real question we've got there. He's there.

He's in him. I didn't name my vehicle growing up. No, I didn't. Do people do that? I guess some people do that.

Yeah, people do that. Morgan, did you do that, Morgan? No, no. I had a Toyota Corona station wagon. And Corona or Corolla? No, it's Corona. Like the cigar.

Candy, apple, red like a beer bottle. And yeah, the dads in the county would cringe when I'd roll up to take their daughter out. I was going to say every one of them, literally every dad in the county, because that's how many dates Morgan went on.

No daughter was saved. It's Morgan and his red Corona. Now, my first my first car was it was an 87 Mustang that broke down all the time. 87 Mustang is one of the worst Mustangs ever made in case you're in the market for an old Mustang. You don't want the 87 Mustang.

What were some of your issues? Electrical leaking moonroof. Back then it was a moonroof leaked. But you had a moonroof, man.

How blessed were you? Oh, I was very thankful for the car roof. You know, hatchback spoiler, four cylinder four. That's all I had. I only had four cylinders. How about the ladies loved that one? What was your first what was your first vehicle, Joseph?

We've wasted a lot of time today. That's all right. This is good. I had a Honda CRV. OK, that was nice. It was a very classy vehicle and had one big subwoofer in the back. Sure.

To listen to my eclectic musical taste, of course. And yeah, man, those were the days. The easier, a simpler time, Josh. Back when you were coaching me, coaching me basketball, teaching me how to dribble. I inherited my dad's mother's car when I was a freshman. I was a freshman at UNC. And this was a.

Are you ready? 1966 Ford Galaxy with a 390. Wow. This thing was a land yacht.

I could I could literally put eight people in this car and support or. And but it was we called it the albino rhino. It was white with a Carolina blue interior. And dad put a state of the art sound system in for me. And that's nice. Yeah, it was nice. I mean, it was huge. It got like eight miles to the gallon and could absolutely haul.

I got pulled over several times and the cops said, look, you were speeding a little bit, but we just wanted to look at the car. That's good. I. Yeah, that's that's awesome. Yeah, I'm sure that was a gas guzzler. You know, maybe didn't go too far.

Right. In high school, when you got it, you didn't go very far. No, no, I picked the car up in Raleigh and I was over in Chapel Hill and we ended up. I think we donated that car to a charity because it was just, you know, it was it was fine, but it was just too big. I had been to Chapel Hill in a long time. I was down there last year and I was down there not too long ago. Looks a lot different down there. It's like Hillsborough Street. It's real. It's real different.

Oh, yeah. A lot of stuff just from the 90s. I mean, I guess the 90s were a long time ago. They're talking now about, you know, there's a big debate on moving basketball off campus and having a venue. And I was in school when they built the Smith Center. And so I had two years at Carmichael and two years at the Smith Center. And it's been the Smith Center, obviously, since 1986.

Yeah, I was reading I was reading an article or someone I was talking about. They have to move it. Right. Because there's a lot of people have lifetime rights to seats. And if they rebuild in the same spot. Do people have an argument that they still should have lifetime rights in those seats as opposed to building it somewhere else?

And I heard that was a big it was interesting legal arguments that I that that someone might might make. But it was the same thing for me. I had two years in Reynolds and two years at that was the ESA back then. That's kind of how it was for me.

Yes. I didn't even have a didn't even have a name. Entertainment Sports Arena, Entertainment Sports Arena, home of the Carolina Cobras Arena football team. That's one of those lies you can make up. You can just tell people you play for the Carolina Cobras.

Who's going to know? You would know, man, the season ticket holder, apparently. Yeah, you didn't. Yeah, I did. It was I wasn't there. I got hurt early.

I only got I would if I could, man, if I could go back and do it. Well, one of the I guess bonuses that came out of arena football. Good friend of mine, George Wallace, ran all their their PR and their marketing. And he came up with their cheerleading squad called the and again, they were the Cobras, the Carolina Cobras. The cheerleading squad was called the Snake Charmers.

Nice. Right. And as it turned out, the hurricanes came in in the late 90s and they liked the idea of the cheerleaders. No one else in the NHL was doing it. So they had a few teams that were doing like the between periods. They would have people come out and skate.

And usually it's the guys, the ice crew. But some of the teams went with all female ice cleaning and they would skate. But it was the Carolina Hurricanes that came up with the storm squad and they basically hired the Snake Charmers double duty. So they were arena football cheerleaders. And then the Hurricanes played home games.

They were, you know, storm squad. You can give me a choice between the storm squad or watching a bunch of random dude skate. That's an easy choice. I don't I don't care what the sport is. I want kids playing that sport at halftime. That's what you want. I want like the little kids playing coming out, like playing hockey. Yeah. Yeah.

I do. Playing basketball and my own kid was got to play on the ice for during the year and a half ago now. How big was that, man? It was huge, man. He scored and he was on ESPN.

They actually come out of the break. That's his life. He's never going to beat that. That's that's it for him. Yeah, that is that is pretty high up there. He's peaked early. That's his number.

Yeah. He's again, I'm so disappointed in him since then. He's not one single time.

Yeah, I've been only his being at all. You didn't make it out of school. Like what you do today, buddy. I remember how you used to be when you were seven. That's when you were really making it, man.

Yeah, for sure. Well, we have successfully put another edition of Judea County Radio into the books. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices located Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia, along with Moorhead City. The consults are available if you've got a legalese question and you just need some answers.

You can certainly do this. Call the number 800-659-1186 and they'll line you up with one of those complimentary consults, state planning. Maybe you've got questions about executors, administrators, trustees.

You can get those questions answered. 800-659-1186. And again, no obligation.

800-659-1186. Another edition of Judica County Radio in the books for Josh and Joe. I'm Morgan.

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 MWHLaw.lawyer