From the Archives: Mediation, Divorce and Marriage with Attorney Xavier Prather

Most people think divorce “has to” look like a court fight, but that assumption can quietly drain your time, money, and emotional bandwidth. Jacki Roessler sits down with Michigan family law attorney and domestic relations mediator Xavier Prather to break down what divorce mediation actually is, how it differs from traditional litigation, and why the best outcomes often come from better communication rather than better arguments.

We get practical about the two major mediation styles listeners will run into, facilitative mediation versus evaluative mediation, as well as which couples are best suited for mediation. 

Then the conversation takes a fascinating turn: Xavier shares how winning Big Brother sharpened skills that matter in mediation, reading people, staying calm, and reframing emotional statements into something the other side can receive.

Xavier Prather Contact Information

Xavier Prather | Foster Swift

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Divorce Rich podcast. This is Jackie Ressler, and today we have a really intriguing topic. Um, my guest today is Xavier Prater. And did I pronounce that right?

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Xavier.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

I'm gonna edit this. Oh X Xavier, okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Today, my guest is Xavier Prater. He is a family law attorney and domestic relations mediator in Michigan. And he founded his own practice. He's gonna tell us a little bit about his practice. But we're gonna talk about mediation today and all of the ins and outs for our listeners about the different kinds of mediation, how mediation is different than traditional litigated cases. And let's just dive right in. So, Xavier, can you tell me a little bit about your background and what drew you to family law and mediation in particular?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Yes. So I went to Marquette University Law School over in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After graduating law school, I practiced in a big law firm in downtown Milwaukee for several years while in law school and also at times during my the beginning stages of my legal career, I would do pro bono work for family law cases at the local planning. Family law was always an area of law that I was passionate about just because of my own personal kind of background. I'm a child of divorce, so like I've seen some of the, I've seen some of the good sides of divorce and bad sides of divorce up close to personal. And so when I had the opportunity to kind of maybe help others in the situation, I it it just kind of felt right. And then once I left my firm and decided to start my own practice, I knew that family law was one of the areas I wanted to focus on as well as entertainment and sports law. Those are the two primary kind of fields that my practice centers around.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Those sound vastly different to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

They are family law is a lot more litigious, whereas uh entertainment sports is primarily contracts?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Yeah, kind contracts, deals, things like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

So your work as a mediator, which is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to courtroom battles, is different than the traditional divorce cades. For our audience, for our listeners that don't know what mediation is, how does mediation differ from traditional divorce?

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Mediation

What Mediation Really Does

SPEAKER_03 2:26

differs from traditional divorce in a multitude of ways. It's typically more cost-effective. In mediation, you don't necessarily now, each party in a mediation may have an attorney, but if it's just the two parties and the mediator, the mediator doesn't serve as an advocate for either party. The mediator is there as an impartial third party to kind of help facilitate communication between the two parties to hopefully come to a resolution. Also in mediation, there's no pressure to come to a resolution. You know, the the goal of mediation is to kind of walk through some of these difficult topics with the parties and then hopefully they can come to an understanding and voluntarily come to an agreement that will give them a better basis or foundation for how they can kind of coexist moving forward. And uh, whereas in in a typical litigation or divorce case, you know, it's just one side pit against the other, there's really the the parties should, in my opinion, still be trying to kind of work together, just especially if minor children are involved. But a lot of times it's really just kind of one side versus the other, and it's very adversarial.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

So in my in my experience, there are different kinds of mediations.

Facilitative Vs Evaluative Styles

SPEAKER_02 3:40

So for our listeners, we have listeners all over the country. I think that there's some bigger concentration in Michigan, but I might be wrong about that. But there for for a lot of the cases that I've been involved with in, they pretty much end up in what's called evaluative meet me evaluative mediation versus facilitative mediation. So can you, and it those are you know big legally sounding words, but can you explain in layman's terms what are the differences between those two and what do you prefer?

SPEAKER_03 4:08

So facilitative mediation is where the impartial third party, the mediator, is really their goal is to try to do what they can to iron out the issues between the parties to help them come to a resolution. They're going to the mediator is essentially playing kind of a middle party to try to figure out, okay, what are the underlying issues here? Let's kind of work through those together to figure out, okay, this is how you guys might be able to move forward in a more collaborative sense. Whereas evaluative, it's it's purely you have a third party that's kind of going to sit here and do a little more assessing and kind of coming to a conclusion on what they think might be the most fair and reasonable solution here while receiving the party's input and also still trying to facilitate some of that communication. But usually in evaluative mediation, the party, the mediator stems more off their experience and kind of what they see, and then they use that to kind of help guide the parties in the conversation to come to a resolution.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

So their experience in the courtroom?

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Experience in the courtroom, experience in me in previous mediations, just like kind of their overall experience with the with family law.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Right. Okay. And I I think from again, my experience, a lot more cases that I've been involved with have gone to that end stage mediation where it is not facilitative. And in those situations, clients don't feel like they have as much control over they they tend to view the mediator as if the mediator does have some authority to settle, even if the mediator says outright, I am not, I don't have the authority to settle. They still view the mediator, I think, more as a a person that is going to be on their side or the other party's side and not someone there trying to help them figure out how to communicate.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Yeah, which I think is is something that is kind of lost with evaluative mediation, is the sense of control that the parties should have with mediation. Um with evaluative mediation, it seems more as though they're just going to an impartial third party to serve as a trier effect in a less cost effective, in a less costly manner. I know there are attorneys who prefer evaluative mediation purely because they can get an end result quicker as opposed to facilitators, facilitative. And uh if I'm being the media, I prefer it. I think for me, it depends on the parties. And like if I have a younger couple that that has a child and they're they're struggling to kind of figure out what's happening, how do you establish custody and things like that, I'm probably gonna focus more on facilitating the communication between them because these they have a lot to learn, they have a lot to grow, and they need to learn how to kind of coexist with one another to help raise this minor child, as opposed to just coming to kind of like, okay, this is what, these are the facts you presented, these are the facts you presented, here's my thought process on how this might play out in court. This is what I think you guys should do forward. Do you agree to this? Do you agree to this? Because they're still going to be at odds moving forward and they're likely gonna end up back in the courts at some point in time. Whereas if you go, or if you try to facilitate that communication so they can iron out some of these issues, it might promote better communication moving forward and hopefully they don't end up in the court system again.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

But then it's just to save money.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Yeah, yeah, save them money overall. But then sometimes you have parties where it's just clear that like their goal is just to kind of butt heads. And in that sense, you can try to facilitate communication, but you can you can usually gauge pretty early on, like, yeah, these guys are just trying to figure out how they can get what they want and get out of here. At that point, it's probably better to approach it from from a you know assessing and evaluative standpoint and just try to see if you can get them to be a little more practical and logical and reason realistic on as to how this might play out outside of the mediation room to maybe get them to come to somewhat of an agreement.

Who Thrives In Mediation

SPEAKER_02 8:11

I think that it it are there certain couples that you think are maybe you just answered this, are better suited for mediation versus traditional divorce.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Yes, I think couples that I think couples that where the relationship maybe just didn't work out and so now they're going through a divorce, there's still a lot of love, there's still like a genuine friendship that's at the foundation of relationship. I think those couples, mediation would be great. I think they'd also be willing to for mediation. I think when the relationship ends poorly and there's a lot of, you know, name calling and uh fights over property with those couples. I still think mediation will work, but I think there needs to be maybe like a cool-off period before they go to mediation. Like after they file for the divorce, instead of having them go to mediation immediately, I think it might take time to maybe send them, then send them mediation just so that way they can maybe cool down. And that's well, that's with the hope that the divorce doesn't make things even messier, and then you know, by the time a few months go down the road, they're just like, Yeah, I don't even want to go to mediation. I can't stand the sight of them. And it's like, oh geez. All right, you better make it.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

I think

Attorneys In The Mediation Room

SPEAKER_02 9:21

that some of the cases that I've mediated, that they it seems like in such in certain situations when and and I always think it's better when the clients have their own attorney in mediation. It's much easier to mediate a case when there's attorney, when there are two other attorneys present. But I think that in those, um in those scenarios, there have been several where the people haven't been communicating at all. As soon as the case is filed, they start communicating through their lawyers. And once they're in a room together, it's amazing that they actually they can communicate and the lawyers maybe can take a step back. Um so there's I think that there's the potential for that dynamic in mediation also.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Yeah, I think the key with attorneys appearing in mediation is them trying to make sure they're not trying to take over the mediation. Like they still gotta let the parties kind of communicate or still kind of allow their their clients to be heard. But I mean, I've had mediations where like it seemed like the parties were communicating well, but then the attorneys were preventing them from getting to that point that it seemed like if they if the attorneys weren't there, they would have reached a viable agreement that they all would have been happy with. And so that's where it's like, you know, you you want to make sure your clients protected and advocated for them, but also you want to look at full picture at your client seems like they they're kind of willing to be a little more agreeable. You can present them and be like, hey, are you sure you want to do this? But if they're ultimately okay with what seemingly is unfolding in the mediation process, I think that you know, you're just at times you gotta take a step back and allow the mediation process to do what it's meant to do.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

And I think that's why people want to have a mediator like you that is able to talk to the clients and make sure that the clients are communicating with each other.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Yeah. And I

Managing Emotions And Reframing

SPEAKER_03 11:11

and like I I conducted like when it comes to like mediation, I think sometimes the parties are gonna get heated. You know, sometimes they're gonna be kind of going back and forth and being a little snipy. Sometimes you gotta kind of let them get that out. Like I don't I don't think as soon as I don't think when they start kind of getting a little snippy with each other, you gotta immediately, hey, no, that's not what we're no. Like they kind of need to get that out. You obviously, if it keeps going on for too long, you you gotta step in and be like, all right, guys, this at this point we're just wasting all of our time. But what you should do is like kind of let them, they they need to express themselves. And if they feel like they're not able to express themselves, they're gonna be shut down. And then they might not be as voluntary when it comes to agreeing to things for this mediation. Whereas if you give them the opportunity to express themselves and feel as though they'd been hurt, uh, I think that goes a long way in reaching an agreement. And also as the mediator, it's your job to take what they're expressing, reframe it, present it to the other side where all they were doing was just hearing the other side just kind of, you know, for lack of better words, talk shit about them.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Right. It's like those peanut, like then the peanuts cartoons when their parents are talking and it's like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

You you gotta let them have that emotional kind of outburst to some extent, as long as it doesn't get violent or too chaotic. You gotta let them have that out, and then once they once you recognize as a mediator, like you you then have the opportunity to prove to them that they've been hurt by reflecting what they've said, and then you also have the opportunity to kind of take what they've said and be able to present it in a more positive light to the other side, so that way they're actually going to be receptive to it. I think that's a key skill for mediators, and that's something that's huge with with couples throughout the especially in divorce mediations.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Exactly. And I think that too, that you in that point of being able to reframe it and get to the root of the issue so that you're talking more about you know what are the what are the goal what are the goals of each party and not kind of wiping away some of the white noise that couples have when they are fighting.

Big Brother Lessons For Conflict

SPEAKER_02 13:18

So Xav Xavier, you have you have some unique experience, I think, in this that might be unique to you as a mediator. You were on Big Brother and you were the we were the winner of the 2023 season and 2021, 2021 season. 2021 season. Okay, we were the winner of 2021 season, so pandemic time.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Yeah, it was season actually, it was so it was season 23, but it filmed in the year 2021. Okay, so you were filming it like right at the tail end of the yeah, like the pandemic, like we we had to take COVID tests every week while we were in the house.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yeah. Wow. So, you know, I've been assuming that in that situation when you were filming that, that and you were on that show, that you had to facilitate conversations between people and learn how to read people and maybe how to reframe things. So, do you find parallels in that to your work as a mediator?

SPEAKER_03 14:15

So it's funny you bring that up because I actually like had that sit down with in in the game of Big Brother. At times there are things formed known as alliances, which is where a group of people kind of get together and they agree to work together throughout the game. I had an alliance known as the cookout.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Um we are yeah, we're uh we are considered one of the more successful alliances in Big Brother history. We were considered a very historic alliance, and uh those are yeah, tell me about that.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

What what was the cookout alliance?

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Uh yeah, so the cookout was essentially uh CBS had just started this new initiative for diversity, equity, and inclusion where they were going to start casting 50% of their unscripted reality competition shows would be 50% BIPOC.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Yeah, and so this was the first cast where there had been, I believe there were six black individuals on the show. And up until that season, no black person had ever won Big Brother. Big Brother had been on since 2000. So we're talking two decades where there hadn't been a black winner. So myself and 500 individuals, we all agreed to work together and then we kind of banded together to try to help ensure that, you know, for once a black person would be crowned the winner. And uh obviously doing something like that is gonna be controversial for some folks, but I think those who who understood what we were trying to accomplish wasn't necessarily to um, you know, outcast anybody else. It was just trying to make sure that, you know, for for our culture, we got a seat at the table finally.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Absolutely. People watching could recognize themselves.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Yeah, yeah, you know, be able to kind of see themselves in a successful light on a show that they love that they haven't quite seen in the past season.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So it's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

So yeah, we we worked together, it worked out well, we all made it to the end, and then from there we had to kind of duke it out amongst ourselves, and uh I emerged victorious. But uh in in the show, you know, you go in week by week, you're dealing with a lot of different personalities, you're dealing with a lot of emotions, and that environment is designed to bring out some of the most kind of toxic emotions that I think every single person has.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Like divorce. Like divorce.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

Yes, literally it's divorce and big brother house, they kind of go hand in hand off. But uh I remember I had two members of my alliance where they they knew they wanted to work together, then they were willing to work together, but just how they kind of played the game and their ability to communicate with one another, they just weren't able to see eye to eye. And the concern was that if they aren't able to get along, we don't know if like this whole thing works. Because for it to work, every single one of us needs to be on the same page.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

And so I literally had to take both of them and sit them down and be like, all right, look, we all want to get to the end together. Like, we all that's that's something that we can all sit here and agree on point blank right now. But you two seem to be at odds. So for us to make it, we need you two to get on the same page. So what we're gonna do right now is you two are gonna hash it out, and I'm gonna sit here and try to help you guys be able to communicate how you're feeling so that way the other person can actually hear it, and then maybe we can figure out how you guys might be able to better communicate moving forward so that way this isn't an issue because we have other things to work on outside of you guys not being able to like get all get along or be able to communicate effectively while we're in this game. Like, we need to be able to be focused on our strategies for how we're getting everyone else out.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Did it work?

SPEAKER_03 17:41

It did. It did. After that point, they were able to they figured out how to communicate well. And uh, like I said, we were successful in kind of getting all of us to the end.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

But yeah, it was that needs to be like on all of your marketing materials for your mediation practice.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Honestly, it's funny because like I I should, and I but I don't know if I could ever find a clip of that. Because on Big Brother, you're filmed 24-7, so they have what are known as the live feeds, and it was I don't think it was a moment that was captured in the actual episodes. I also don't know because I haven't watched my season back. But uh yeah, I don't know. I think if I do watch it back, it'll probably be something that I'm if I'm you know super unfortunate enough to have kids one day. Yeah, I I think I maybe watch it with them, but I've I haven't watched it fully and I don't really intend to unless my kids would want to watch it.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Yeah, well, but you but that was a great experience though for you.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

It was cool to kind of so that's why like as we got to like mediation, the more formal mediation training, I was like, I feel like I've kind of already done this in certain settings. Very good at like it's just gonna be a matter of like, okay, learning the the verbiage, the the technical skill sets and things like that. And uh once uh, you know, and I think we had a an absolutely phenomenal instructor, but yeah, so being able to kind of put it more in a practical sense and technical sense thing really would allowed me to take some of those natural skills that I had and hone in on them.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

And I also think it's been helpful, it will be helpful on future shows if I choose to go back and that's right.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

So I I I don't want to take up a lot of your time, but I want to make sure that we cover one other thing that I think is so fascinating.

Marriage Mediation To Stay Together

SPEAKER_02 19:22

So we were talking about how you like to do you like to do marriage mediation. Now, a lot of people are familiar with the term divorce mediation, but marriage mediation might be new to some people that are listening. What is marriage mediation? And let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Marriage mediation is also known as a mediation to stay married. And this is the process where you have a married couple and they're going through it. They're struggling to effectively communicate about finances, struggling to figure out about, you know, maybe it's disciplining the children or parenting styles. Um maybe they're struggling with, you know, dealing with in-laws or all the multitude of things that can cause, you know, dissension between a couple during a marriage. And a lot of times for couples, one of the biggest issues with couples that end up getting a divorce or just couples in general is knowing how to communicate effectively and honestly in a way that's going to be received by your partner. And so the goal with marriage mediation is to help facilitate that communication. Here we have a couple that wants to stay a couple. They don't want to get divorced, but they don't know how to talk about those things that they need to talk about in order to be able to move forward in a on the path towards staying married. And that's that's usually what happens. That breakdown in communication is what just kind of continues to weather a couple down over time to whether just like we have to get divorced. So the goal with marriage mediation is to prevent them from getting to that point to where like divorce is the option. It's like, hey, let's sit down, let's see if we can facilitate a conversation that to help you guys work through some of these issues. Let's create a game plan for maybe some action steps that you guys are going to take moving forward to help your marriage. And then let's say you take these action steps for six months and it doesn't work, then maybe you look at getting a divorce. But at least you did, you you created a path, a framework to maybe help your marriage. And the goal is that that framework will help you out to where you avoid a divorce altogether because you learn now, hey, this is how I need to communicate to my wife in order for her to hear me when I'm talking about finances, or hey, here's how I need to communicate to my husband what I need done around the house, or here's how we need to communicate to our children when it comes to a parenting standpoint. Like you can so a lot of times people want to do those things, they just don't know where to start or how to get to that point to where they have like the understanding for how they need to communicate moving forward. And that's what marriage mediation essentially serves as. You can do marriage mediation or you can go do a couples therapist.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Either one, but the difference between it, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Yeah, the difference between couples therapists is they're going to focus on analyzing a lot of the deep underlying issues of the relationship and really kind of ironing those out. Like it's you might need to see both. You might need to see a couple therapists and a marriage mediator. But with marriage mediation, the goal is to help facilitate you guys communicating and working through these issues. Like not having someone tell you what's right or what's wrong. It's like, hey, you guys are having these issues. Let's let's lay out an agenda for what these issues are. Let's get these topics out and let's figure out how to allow you guys to communicate effectively and what and then you're we're still working through those issues. It's just in a kind of a different manner.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Right. So more proactive in terms of having prompting them to solve, come up with solutions and solve their own problems.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

I think it's important because uh I mean, throughout a marriage, you're gonna have to be able to solve your problems, you know. Sometimes you need help. And I I think the couples that go to mediation, I I applaud them because they're recognizing that they need help and they're trying to do something about it before it's too late.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

And so I I think that's that's important, and I think that's that's a large part of I like I personally enjoy marriage mediation. I I think it's nice because you know, I then they then they're not calling me for a divorce, you know. Right.

Prenups As Relationship Insurance

SPEAKER_02 23:17

I think also it's similar to like a prenup, right? And you you mentioned that you that in our conversation that you liked drafting prenups.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

And I'm I'm a huge, huge proponent of prenups.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

I think tell me why.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

I think every, in my opinion, I think every couple should get a prenup. Even if you have no assets, even if you just or at least go through the process of seeing what it's like to get a prenup, purely because it allows the couple to be extremely transparent with one another. So that way everybody is fully informed as to what's going on before you sign on that dotted line. I think that's huge. I think that's absolutely huge. And also here's how I view prenups, Jackie. So you you're going through life. You have insurance for your car, you have life insurance, you have all these different types of insurances, but there's no you have no insurance for your relationship. To me, a prenup is basically insurance for the most important relationship that you will ever have in your life. And if you're willing to have car insurance, if you're willing to have life insurance, why would you not have insurance for such a significant part of your life? And that's what a prenup is. You you have the prenup for in the event things don't work out. And I know at times people would be like, oh, well, if you get a prenup, doesn't that mean you're just preparing for divorce, or aren't you just thinking that it's not gonna work out? I don't necessarily think it has to be all kind of glum like that. It's more so just trying to be proactive. Divorce is very much a real thing in our world. If it wasn't, the prenups wouldn't exist. But divorce is a thing. And usually you don't, when people get married, they're not usually thinking that they're gonna get divorced. Like the goal when they get married is to stay married, but things happen.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Like it wouldn't it be nice to negotiate how you want to handle it while you're still getting along and you still care, you have you still care about each other.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

That's one of the biggest things is like I think it's better for you guys to maybe talk about some of that stuff while you're still in a very positive kind of you you have a very positive perception of each other. Right. So you can kind of figure out some of these details. And then in the event, in the event that things get messy and you guys decide to split, it doesn't get messier. And honestly, that will save you some emotional turmoil. It will save your children if you have children, it will save them some emotional turmoil. It just makes the process for separating far easier.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

I agree. What I love about prenups is I think the financial transparency of a prenup is beautiful. I think that when people are getting married, they don't think about the fact that they're entering into a legal contract and that there are rights that they're signing away when they enter that contract, and that there are rights that they now are entitled to that they might not have known before. And because my background is financial, that idea of like I'm gonna lay it all out for you. This is everything that I have. This is how I'm gonna make money decisions about my how how do you feel about it? I think that it having those kinds of transparent financial conversations, to me, that's a big reason why a lot of people get divorced, is that they never have those kinds of conversations. So if we start off the relationship with a prenup talking about those things, I think that's I I love that.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

I also think the it also allows an opportunity for each party to like to me, the prenup, the the process of going through and kind of establishing a prenup shouldn't be something that's all kind of glum. Like it can be a very rewarding and fun process. Like you're you're in love and you guys are kind of trying to figure out like some of the some of the provisions can guide like how you guys want your marriage to work. Like you can have some lifestyle provisions in there. So you can figure out, like, oh, okay, yeah, he's doing trash or like things like that. Like little lifestyle provisions where you can kind of get into what you want your marriage to look like. And I think that's beautiful because like it's marriage. You're in love. This is great. But you're also taking some provisions where it's like, hey, if things don't work out because we're both adults and we can recognize that a lot of things happen in life, and though we want this love to work, there is a possibility that it won't. And if it doesn't, we want to be prepared. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I don't hear it.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Yeah, I think the transparency aspect of the prenup is is the biggest thing because I think a lot of times people will get married and they don't always know enough about the person they're getting married to. And then they might find out something later where it's like, how much in credit card debt?

SPEAKER_02 27:45

And I didn't know that you yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Like, I'm sorry, you have how much debt? Wait, I'm sorry, you have how many children with someone that you didn't tell me about? Like all these things can come out to where, like, okay, now I'm getting married, but I'm as informed as I could be about the person that I'm choosing to invest my life in.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

To me, that's like I I I love marriage and I think it's no feat, but I think you need to approach marriage responsibly. And if you approach marriage responsibly, then I think your marriage has a higher likelihood of success. I think some people get married irresponsibly, unfortunately. And then those some of those marriages end up resulting in divorce. And so when it comes to prenum, I'm like my my goal, I want to I feel like a superhero. My job is to combat divorces. I'm trying to prevent more divorces. That's what even though divorces, you know, help keep my lights on.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Though we're ending on a positive note, I didn't know it's this is so much fun talking with you. I really enjoyed this. And as uh maybe we can do this again sometime and talk a little bit more about some mediation war stories, which I think would be interesting to hear about.

How To Reach Xavier

SPEAKER_02 28:54

How can people find you? Um, I'm gonna share your contact information in the show notes, but how would people find you if they're listening and they want to reach out and talk to you about your mediation or prenup services?

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Yes, if you want to contact my practice, you can call my practice directly. The work line is 616-2190535. Or you can email us generally at inquiries at ask lawyer.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Ask lawyerlike.com.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Okay. All right. Thank you again so much. I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Thanks for having me, Jackie. It was a pleasure catching up.