Family Court: Protective Orders, Property Rights & Legal Pitfalls

Unlock the complexities of family court orders of protection with seasoned Family Court Attorney, Brad Smith. We discuss why it's crucial to adhere to court-issued orders, who can file these petitions and how they intersect with property rights.

Key Takeaways: 

• Family Court Basics: Learn the key steps and legal standards in custody battles and orders of protection to protect your rights.
• Value of Documentation: Discover why thorough documentation is essential for building a credible case in court.
• Managing Challenges: Practical tips for handling the emotional and financial stress of co-parenting and legal proceedings.
• Protection Order Violations: Understand the serious legal and criminal consequences of violating court orders.
• Legal Defense Strategies: Get advice on crafting a strong defense and why immediate legal counsel is crucial.

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• Learn about Khader Law Services

Transcript

Host: 0:02

This is the brief. I'm sharing lessons from years in the courtroom, representing parents and couples on custody battles, co parenting, mental health, finances, and more. After 20 years as an attorney, I'm also bringing true war stories from the courtroom to empower you with solid and straightforward advice. I want to help you become a better partner and parent and be here anytime when you need it the most. Hello everyone. And thanks for tuning in this week to the brief with my cater. I'm really excited about today's guest, not only because he's knowledgeable, but I consider him a dear friend. We've been on both sides of the table in the courtroom. And I tell you, I hate it when we're going against each other. Brad Smith is a family court attorney who, uh, just has various knowledge in all aspects of family and custody cases. Please welcome Brad Smith.

Brad: 1:02

Good morning, everyone. Boy, I actually like when I go against you, Mike, you're very level headed. We work well together in a difficult arena. And it's always a pleasure when I work with you.

Host: 1:14

I certainly appreciate that, Brad, because, you know, a lot of times while family and custody cases are inherently adversarial, we always got to remember what the goal is, right? You know, it's the best interest of the child. And sometimes when emotions run high, people, you know, sometimes Happens where you forget that. So when you deal with level of other attorneys, you know, we try to get to a goal and it's always a pleasure. And once again, I thank you for being here and I'm sure our listeners are going to appreciate your knowledge and experience. But before we go into it, just let our listeners know a little bit about yourself. Right.

Brad: 1:48

I graduated from New York law school. Um, I've been practicing family law now going on about 10 years. Time's been moving, man, handled so many different cases from child neglect. Child abuse, custody, support, family offense cases.

Host: 2:07

I would say, you know, when I've seen you in pretty much every single courtroom before every single judge in Supreme Court and in family court, you've handled over thousands of cases. Stop being, stop being modest and we're doing that. So, so for today's purpose, we could talk days and hours about family court. I certainly want to speak to what I feel is an important topic for many calls and emails I get is about family offense petitions and temporary orders of protection. What is a family court order of protection?

Brad: 2:39

So essentially a family court order of protection is designed to keep a person safe from acts of domestic violence. Who has standing

Host: 2:53

to file in family court?

Brad: 2:56

Well, there's an easy part of that answer and a hard part. So I'll give you the easy part, right? If you're in a relationship with someone, like boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife. Right. Family members. So like brothers against brother, brother against sister, mom against son, grandma against son. Those are the easy answer. Once people have children together, former relationships. Well, let me, let me specify that former intimate. Relationships, those kind of, those kind of relationships are the easy answer.

Host: 3:32

Brad, are in laws, so can a person file a family offense against an in law if they're, you know, through marriage?

Brad: 3:39

Now, that's when it gets tricky.

Host: 3:42

That's where most of the law is, correct? Yes.

Brad: 3:45

It's gray, right? And that's where your legal fights usually happen. So if the in law lives with you, most likely, yes, right? You're members of the same household. You can file against members of the same household, right? The next step goes into, is there an intimate relationship, right? It doesn't have to be a sexual relationship. Is there an intimate relationship between you and this in law? So it can't be, the relationship can't solely be. Between be made off of essentially the third person. So for instance, I'm getting married and me and my wife's father have a disagreement. We never lived together. We have minimal contacts and he comes for a family offense petition. That should be dismissed.

Host: 4:49

Okay. So the quick takeaway, the easy stuff, people in an intimate relationship, blood relationship, siblings, parents, there's the blood relationship. If there's a dispute where it gets a little gray is for example, what I just gave you in laws. So if the in laws not living with you just because you're the son in law, daughter in law, father in law, mother in law, that's not inherently a basis for family court. Is that correct? Okay. Okay.

Brad: 5:17

Exactly. But what you should do, though, is go to court, file your family offense petition, let the judge make the determination, and at some point, when all the lawyers get involved, there'll be arguments made, and the case law is very fact specific. So, I always say, go for it. File for the order of protection. And that you never know what will shake out.

Host: 5:45

Well, you know, you, you mentioned something, go for it, you know, go file for court, you know, I think it was Wayne Gretzky that said, you know, you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take. Exactly. So what is the standard? And I want to preface that family court is not criminal court. It's a court, it's a county court. It's a civil proceeding. Sometimes someone calls special proceedings and such. So what does somebody have to prove? Yeah. You know, the standard to get an order of protection.

Brad: 6:15

Well, I would say there's two ways to look at it. When you go into court initially and you request an order of protection, you have an ex parte hearing and that, that ex parte hearing, you only need to allege A family offense occurred, the referee or the judge will go through your petition. They'll ask you questions. It will just be you, the judge having a dialogue about what occurred. That's insane. You make out a family offense, which is essentially just for layman's terms, essentially a crime that was committed against you. By one of these groups that we talked about earlier, they will grant you a temporary order of protection and that temporary order of protection will last until the next court date, where you is expected that you have served this order of protection. On the other party.

Host: 7:16

That's insane. And I've seen cases like this. So pretty much, so a petitioner, which is the person going to court, can literally go to the window, depends on what courthouse, if it's in White Plains, it's on the first floor, if it's Nourish Hall, the third floor, you file it, all you need is to make an allegation, this person did this to me. Within a couple of hours, sometimes all day, you get before a referee. Usually that's where the cases start and all you need to do is allege it and they'll get, they'll issue a temporary order of protection.

Brad: 7:45

Yes.

Host: 7:46

Okay. So to our listeners, it is not hard to get a family court order of protection based on allegations.

Brad: 7:56

Actually, I would say it's easy. You know, the court wants to err on the side to protect the person that's looking for the order of protection. So if they make out what is a family offense, anything that's a crime essentially, and there's enumerated things that they look for that's on the petitions, I'm not going to go through all of them, but if you make out one of those crimes that's listed. And you say that happened, they will give you an order of protection and just something else you need to know. It doesn't have to have, have, have happened that week. It happened a month ago or longer, and they will grant you the order of protection.

Host: 8:36

I always find that. And you kind of alluded to it, you know, the courts prefer to err on the side of caution. Obviously that's unfortunate for the respondent, but you know, I would say, listen, if it sounds, you know, if it's a 50, 50 err on caution, because you just never know. If the water protection is denied and something drastic, it does happen once in a while, we'll hear it in the news. So sometimes being more cautious. is the road that courts like to take, which is sometimes unfortunate. The second part of my question is what types of order protection are there?

Brad: 9:11

So, you know, there's different, there's different clauses the judge can put in the order of protection. The judge can say, Hey, I want you to stay away from this person. Or, Hey, I want you to stay away from their home or their business. Or that person and their children or your children. Also, obviously they'll add in don't commit any crimes against that person. Usually that's in the 99 section. And then they can also add additional terms. So I've had cases where they say, you know what, you're not to possess, consume, or be under the influence of alcohol around these people. And they can add a whole bunch of other terms to the order of protection that make it things that might not have been a crime before, like drinking around someone. They can make that now something that if you do, and it's proven that you did, could lead to you getting arrested criminally and facing criminal contempt. Or in family court, criminal contempt there.

Host: 10:17

So this is important for respondents to understand the issuance of a family court order of protection inherently is not criminal, but if you violate it and it's reported, it can become criminal.

Brad: 10:30

And it can be prosecuted in. Either family court or criminal court or both.

Host: 10:38

Yes. I've seen, we've seen that many times where there's an underlying family court case and a criminal court in a local court, and they're all based on the same transaction. So in this stay away, it's, you know, it's plain letter, stay away from this person, stay away from the school, the house and, and, and such, so what happens if in this, you know, and you got a couple partners, right, they're living together and for all intents and purposes. That's the partner's address. Stuff is there. Materials there. And now he can't or she can't go there anymore. What are the respondent's rights when they get served with an order of protection to stay away from a house, an apartment, or a place that's legally theirs?

Brad: 11:27

That is The toughest part, in my opinion, about article eight is that, you know, you could be going about your day, expecting to come home, get served at work, and now you're effectively homeless because you can't go back to that residence. And usually the judges will put in there. You can go back one time with police escort, but essentially until the next court date. You have no recourse. You have to stay away.

Host: 12:04

I want our listeners to hear this. So if you're an apartment and your name is on the lease, you are forbidden to go into your own apartment because you have a stay away order protection.

Brad: 12:15

Yes. If it says stay away from the residents, you have to stay away from the residents. Or you will likely go to jail.

Host: 12:24

What about if it's a house and you own the house and your name is on the deed and your name is on the mortgage?

Brad: 12:29

Same. Your best recourse, your only recourse actually is at the next court date. If you have counsel, or you should probably get counsel at that point, whether you have to retain it or request it from the court, you should try to ask for an immediate hearing to discuss the fact that you were excluded from the home.

Host: 12:51

And is this hearing that we talk about, because we're really talking about somebody's property rights, be it a home, an apartment and the personal belonging, you know, is the hearing. Is a respondent entitled to a hearing as a matter of right in your experience?

Brad: 13:06

Yes, but you know, I will say this. Courts all are different. So I've practiced all over. I know this is more geared towards Westchester. I've practiced in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and courts handle these things differently. So there's one thing I really want to like, um, specify. If you're excluded from the home. And you're really, you have nowhere else to stay. This is really a detriment to you. You should ask for immediate hearing. Some courts will schedule it themselves. Like I'm issuing the exclusionary order. We have counsel. We're going to have an exclusionary hearing. All right. Some will do it like automatically. Some courts. Well, not, and you need to ask for it. You might need to tell your attorney, Hey, I need to get back in the house. I need a hearing immediately. And in some courts, your lawyer is going to have to really specify that this order of protection is depriving my client of his property, right? And he wants an emergency hearing. forthwith and really the judges should adjust their calendar to accommodate that.

Host: 14:19

Well, yeah, you know, and it's funny, you mentioned the family courts in the city and, and in my experience, cases I've had in the Bronx and Manhattan counties, that's where I've practiced when there's a, uh, an exclusion from an apartment and they're on the lease or there are, you know, or their co op or condo, you know, a proprietary interest. The hearings, they're scheduled in a very short time. But what I find more in the suburbs, you know, in Nassau County, Westchester, Rockland, the fact finding, which is the trial, ultimately, sometimes is the hearing about the exclusion and it can really, many times cause. A financial hardship, an emotional hardship. And as we know, the family court, there's backlog. You go to any family courthouse and you could see the lines. You could see the courthouse, you know, it's full and it really is unfortunate. The next part is what does a respondent need to do? So now Brad, you know, let's just use you and I, we have an apartment, we have a house, there's allegations that. We did something. How do you defend it? We can't prove a negative. How would you counsel a client or somebody that calls you up and says, I just didn't do this?

Brad: 15:32

You are in a tough way. I would say to people, the burden is really low on these cases. I tell people, cause I don't like to use a specific term. So I'll say it's a 51 percent burden. The judge just has to believe one person a little bit more than the other. And I've had cases that I've tried. That my client broke out crying and I'm like, there's no way I'm winning this case and my client breaks out in tears. The judge gives them a tissue and all of a sudden I won and it's just a, your client just has to seem a little bit more credible or the other person gets upset when you're crossing them. And then it's. It's done. And it's really razor thin. I really think there should be a higher burden because there's serious consequences that go along with having orders of protection. Serious consequences. And it impedes on your life. It certainly does. I will just say this. Your best bet is to start putting together whatever evidence you can to disprove what the person is alleging in their family offense and to discredit their character and their truthfulness. Because if you can probably catch them in at least one lie, then it puts everything else they said in question.

Host: 16:56

That's lowering 101. So if this is not true, is there anything else that's not true in this petition? What I found in the cases that I've tried or settled or negotiated, and let's be, the reality is most cases as a matter of law do settle with some form of disposition and settlement. Statistically, that happens in civil cases, criminal cases, divorce cases, and even in family court cases. But what I found difficult and not all but many of the cases, and you alluded to its credibility, many times what happens. You know, I call what happens in the bedroom, what happens in the home. It's rare that you have witnesses. Sometimes you may have a child present if there's a fight or such, but there's a huge portion of where it's, he said, she said one word against the other, and then it becomes a credibility issue as, as you said. So having evidence is good. What type of evidence would you recommend? Your client to have as a responder.

Brad: 17:56

The first thing you should do, this is the most common thing. If you have text messages, videos, whatever evidence, send it to your lawyer. Day one, don't wait at your lawyer. Hey, can I have your email? Shoot him all the texts, all the video, everything. Because the most common thing that happens with people. Yeah, I had the text message. I broke my phone, right?

Host: 18:28

We've all been there.

Brad: 18:29

Yeah, all the time. Send it out immediately. If you have someone who witnessed it, get that contact of that witness to your lawyer immediately. You want all these things done on think on the front end. As opposed to the backend.

Host: 18:48

And I agree that way, when you do return to court, you know, a month later, I call it ammunition, you know, you're able to go, look, this is just clearly not true. Here's the text message. Here's the email. Here's the photograph. We have a witness that was there. That's not related to either party and they're willing. And I've said that we have a witness that was present and that's ready to testify under note that it didn't happen that way. And I always find that. Sometimes your client is the best evidence, you know, we weren't there. We don't know the history or the dynamics of, you know, the relationship. And I find that the better I'm able to get a result, either a withdrawal, a dismissal, or, or, or reduce the time. It's usually because the respondent is proactive and defending the case. You know, do you have a similar experience with that?

Brad: 19:40

I agree. I think you also need to be proactive. And what decision you're going to make, in my opinion, with every court that goes and you're not sure what you want to do, the order of protection typically gets extended in most cases. So, if there's an offer that's offered 1st quarter parents. If Mr. Cater and me are talking and I say, Mr. Cater, my client only wants a six month order of protection to resolve this. And Mr. Cater gives you the offer. It behooves you to make your decision that day, because when we come back to court two months later, most likely I'm going to say, well, Mr. Cater, I'm not taking two months off my offer, offer six months. And now you just gave that person an additional two months of an order of protection, because if you're indecisive this,

Host: 20:34

And you are correct. I've seen tons of cases where sometimes decisions are made based on emotion. And let's be real family court can be emotional. You know, you, again, we have family members or former partners and the allegations, but it's important to stress. So you get a temp. That's what they're called. They're called temporary orders and at each court appearance, they get extended to the next court appearance. And that time is not taken off. When there's a final settlement, be it through a settlement between the parties or a hearing. And from a practical standpoint and a timeline, I've counseled clients and said, you know, they're looking for six months, we end it six months from today. However, if we want to adjourn it, we'll probably go out about six weeks, sometimes two months, depending on the court calendar, then we need a hearing. And many times, you know, it's an all day hearing. Sometimes it's two half day hearing. No, it's fact specific. But I said, by the time we get there, you're pretty much done with the six months and there's never any guarantee we're going to win because of the low standard. And there's a lot of times I've counseled clients, you know, obviously we're not going to admit or deny the allegations. Okay. You want to give us a six month, you know, order of protection. We'll consent to it today. Just, you know, because of the timeframe, it's easier to settle. And when I say easier, it's quicker because the order protection will expire sooner. However, many times the actual merits or the allegations. Aren't actually addressed. It's juggling. And I've seen clients says, listen, I just want to get it over with. You know, the relationship is over whenever we're going to see each other again, and I've had, you know, a small handful where, no, it's on principle. This is nonsense. I didn't do these things. Let's schedule it for a hearing. And when the day we go to the hearing, they wind up settling and all that wasted time from scheduling. That's a good takeaway. If you're going to resolve the case and consent. And let's be clear, it's called consent without admitting or denying where you don't acknowledge the allegations, do it as soon as possible because you don't want to waste your time. Brad, am I saying that correct?

Brad: 22:52

You're saying it 100 percent right. Hey, can I bring up a topic that I think is really important? Like, Oh, sure. You know, this comes up all the time. And if there's anything you take from this, I think this is the most important thing I'm going to say. If you have an order of protection against you. Let's say your girlfriend calls you and says, Hey, I want you to come over. Come hang out with me. You cannot go if there's an order of protection against you on behalf of your kid's mother and your kid. They have a flat tire on the side of the Bronx river at night. Which if anyone's been there, so Westchester podcast. So everyone should know that is one of the darkest places in New York at night. I know you have concern for your family, you know, but you cannot go there. If the police observe you hear me, if the police observe you in the presence of someone who has a stay away order of protection against you, you are getting arrested. And because it's police observed, there is nothing that can be done. If the police, they look at the order of protection, look at you, look at the person who's protected, you're going to jail, regardless of the circumstance.

Host: 24:16

Brad, you make a great point and I use this and it's, you know, there's a slight sarcasm in it that I say many times, the reality is many times in order of protection is necessary. And we've seen that cases where there's legitimate cases of abuse, there's legitimate harassment and threat and assaulting, but we've seen. Many times that an order of protection is used as a sword for the petitioner to use leverage against the respondent as opposed to the shield. And I've seen many times, well, they called me, you know, and so I went, I was like, you're lucky you didn't get arrested. Because a person can invite you. Let's go come to my place. Let's work it out while the intention may be sincere. There's a valid court order saying, stay away. They could be arrested. So in the same conversation. And I want our listeners to know that this has happened before. So if you have a stay away order protection and the person that's protected texted you, please come over. I want to work it out and you go over. And then as soon as you're in there. They can literally call the cops and say, this person's here and you will walk out in handcuffs. Even if you show them the text, she invited me or he invited me. So it's very important. Just yesterday I had a client and she tells you, well, what happens if we walk in, we're at the same place. I said, very easy. You, you know, you walk into a coffee shop and you see him turn around, walk away. You see him on the same side of the street. cross the street. You know, obviously in public, you can't control public. So you walk away the minute you decide to stay into that coffee shop or stay into that restaurant or stay in that bar, you risk Being arrested. It is an unfair burden. It is so many times it is unfair, but the burden is on you to abide by that court order. And Brad, thanks for bringing that up. Even when people reconciled, I've had cases where, because the court adjournments are months away and in between the last court date and the settlement or the hearing, they reconciled, they move in together again, and yet there's still an active stay away order of protection. I said, It's dangerous, and I don't recommend it. I put it in writing, just in case something happens.

Brad: 26:52

Something else that people need to be aware of, Mr. Cater gave the situations in which, you know, things fall apart. I've had situations, well, you have to know this. If you go to the airport and you have an order of protection, it pops up. And if you're with a, I'll do it from a guy's perspective. If your order of protection is against your girlfriend, as against you, right? You go to the airport and you're with a young lady, they're going to ask who that young lady is. And if that happens to be the person on the order of protection to go into jail,

Host: 27:32

DHS gets involved because you know, on the port authority police.

Brad: 27:36

Yeah. If you're driving your car and you get a flat tire and the cops see you on the side of the road, they pull up behind you. They might ask you for your license registration and they run a check, but the order of protection comes up on the check. If they see that it's a woman on the order of protection and there's a woman in your car, they're going to say, Ma'am, can I see your license? Who are you? And if that's the same person that's on the order of protection, you're going to jail and those are incidents when you and that person are not having any conflict. You're getting along, you're having a good day, but something simple like that could happen. And you go to jail, so don't risk it.

Host: 28:23

It's happened before where I had a client that got pulled over him and his, uh, partner reconciled and cop asked for ID. And so, so something basic as even a traffic stop, basic traffic stop, and you know, they run a check, you have this and they see this order protection. Brad, a common question that I get, and I'm sure you have also is the family court order is civil. It's not criminal. Who has access? To see these family quarter protections, you know, job applicants, the government who has access to see that's

Brad: 28:58

always a tough one, right? For the civil ones, the courts, all of the courts, family and criminal can see those, those are there, right? If you're doing some specified job searches, like if you're trying to be NYPD government, FBI, they can see them, right? Those pop up there. And all the agencies can see them.

Host: 29:23

So if you want to get a job with a private employer, you work for a private company, would they have access to see that there's a family? Unless

Brad: 29:31

they have one of those high powered government search engines. No.

Host: 29:37

Okay. So, so pretty much if you're a school teacher, so let's say you're applying to become a school teacher, would they have access to it?

Brad: 29:44

Possibly. Got to be careful with that one. Some schools, all schools aren't built the same.

Host: 29:52

So it depends on, on, on how thorough it is. What I've counseled clients is, you know, when they're going to a job interview, if they ask you, do you have any restraining orders of order to protection? Do not hide it, be truthful. But if they don't ask for it in the application or interview, you do not need to disclose it. That's my advice. Never lie on an interview because if they do find out about it, it's, it's A, you lied to us once, you're going to lie to us again.

Brad: 30:22

If you're a teacher, I would say jobs that you deal with children in highly sensitive areas, you want to try to avoid having these family offense cases, or you might want to try to resolve it with something that's going to expire quickly.

Host: 30:43

Understood. And once it expires, does anyone have access to it?

Brad: 30:48

Well, the family court always does. So even the expired ones, dismissed ones, the, all the family court, once it's in the family court file, they see it on, on UCMS. So I know we kind of say sometimes they go away and for the purposes of police involvement. They're not going to bother you if it's expired, but it's always kind of around and never really anything that's filed in family courts available. So if you're my client, right? And I type in your file number to look at old petitions, I can see the old orders of protections, whether they're dismissed. Whether you were even served with it, I can still see it there.

Host: 31:33

Well, yeah, that's true. Many times when we go to court where we'll have one or two petitions or a temporary order. Then when we go to court and you realize that the, you know, this particular family or these parties have a long history in the court, and many times we find that out when we go into court. Again, you raised a lot of valid points, Brad. I wanted certainly to touch on. The lesser of the orders of protection. And so most of our time we've been focused on the stay away, which is clearly more serious, but you know, isn't there another type of order of protection that doesn't restrict where to go?

Brad: 32:09

Yeah. You can have something called a refrain from, and a refrain from order of protection will tell you, essentially, you can't commit crimes. There's a whole bunch of enumerated crimes. Like strangulation, dissemination of intimate photos, forcible touching amongst other things. All right, assault, harassment, second, whole bunch of things that you can't do. Those are things you can't do anyway, but now it's also a violation of order of protection to do it. Also, in some instances, which is less common, but still occurs, the judge will add additional things that aren't crimes. That she wants you to refrain from doing. Like I mentioned, sometimes there's issues with people who have alcohol and the judge will say, you cannot be under the influence of alcohol around these people. Something that wasn't a crime now is now a crime if you do it. Yes. And that, and those are kind of the refrains from areas.

Host: 33:10

Yeah, I remember I had a case where it was a stay away. I was able to negotiate it to a refrain from and I, and I told the client, you know, obviously alcohol was involved and you know, in the incident, I tell the client, listen, here's the refrain from and I literally showed the language and I said, these are things that No one is allowed to do with or without this order. And I said, here's where you might have the exposure. Drinking, right? Generally, that's not a crime, but because the underlying accusations involved alcohol, the judge said, Do not consume alcohol in the presence of the children, which is like you just said, many times, you know, there could be conditions that are fact specific to that case. So generally having a beer or having an alcohol, while it's not a crime, but because now it's a condition. You know, you're prohibited from usually doing something that's lawful to not lawful. And if you violate it, you risk getting arrested

Brad: 34:10

something you don't want.

Host: 34:12

It is. And Brad, I said something earlier when I said about the best interest of the child standard or the best, and the most basic term, what does that mean? Best interest according, or as many of my clients say, best interest of the child, according to who?

Brad: 34:27

Yes, it's a great area. So when you, when you're dealing more so in the custody realm, the judges, and we're going to kind of change gears, but in the custody realm, the judges mandate. Or what's in the best interest of the child. And what that means really is judge specific. I can be in courtroom one and the judge's best interest standards could be different than courtroom five. It's really everyone has different experiences. Everyone holds certain things on a higher importance than others. And because, you know, judges are people, right? You know, some judges hold the education, education at the highest standard of best interest. Some hold parental time as the best, the highest level of best interest. It's really up to the judge. It's really important for you to know your jurists and know what really moves them. Because everyone's moved by different things.

Host: 35:32

I certainly agree with that. You know, obviously in family court, there is no jury. So it's not, uh, even while that's civil, you're not entitled to a fact finding by jury. It's really that judge who's been that judge from the early set of the case. And he said, judges, they're human. They have wives, they have family, they have their different values while they're required to follow the law, which is governed by the Family Court Act. I certainly think it's important to know through other, through experience of other cases, what this particular jurist finds valuable, and we've done it many times, if I've had experiences with this judge and this is what they feel. You know, so chances are probably likely go this way. And, and, you know, and this is where experience matters. So like when I said, you've handled thousands of cases, we've appeared before pretty much all the judges and all three family courts, Yonkers, New Rochelle and white planes. Brad, if somebody had a question or a follow up, how can they reach out to you?

Brad: 36:29

I would say the best way is email. They can email me. BradASmith. law at gmail. com. So that's my name, Brad, B R A D A S M I T H dot L A W at gmail. com. That's always the best way.

Host: 36:46

And listen to our listeners. If you email Brad, let him know you heard about him and you heard his, uh, about his knowledge on the briefcase. Brad, I know we went a little over, you know, this is such an important topic. Thanks for sharing your experience and some examples and the takeaways. So to our listeners, takeaway one, stay away means stay away. Even if you get invited to the apartment or to the restaurant, number two, the standard to get an order of protection is very low. And then number three, document, text, emails, uh, recordings, photographs, bring it to your attorney early in the case. And I believe the most practical standpoint is if you want the case to end, accept the offer sooner than later because the temporary orders do not add on to the final disposition. Am I saying that correct, Brad? I

Brad: 37:46

100 percent

Host: 37:46

agree with you. Brad, thank you so much. Appreciate you. Thanks for your time and enjoy the rest of the week. You too. I'll see you soon, buddy. Thanks for listening. This is Mike Kater, and I'll help you and your family navigate custody disputes or divorce matters with your best interest first. You can book a free consultation with me and learn more by following me on Instagram at Mike J. Kater. I've also included a link in today's show notes. Tune in for our next episode of The Brief coming next week.