SPEAKER_01: 0:08

Welcome back to the Texas Family Lawyer Podcast. Today I am joined by attorney David Adams. Welcome back, David. Thank you. All right. So today we're going to do something a little bit different. We usually will uh handle a particular topic in Texas family law, but we've gotten a number of questions from listeners or viewers that don't really fit into a particular topic area and they're not quite large enough to be an entire podcast. So we have compiled all of them into seven burning questions that our clients uh or our viewers or our listeners have. And we're just going to run down the list and we're going to jump right into it. Um, so number one, is it illegal to spy on your spouse in Texas? What do you say, David?

SPEAKER_00: 0:53

Is it illegal to spy on your spouse? Well, like a lot of things in the law, it probably depends on how we define spy. Um, there are, you know, Texas is um somewhat famously a one-party consent recording state, which means that you're allowed to record either audio or visual recordings um of parties to a conversation as long as one of the parties to that conversation consents. So if you're recording a conversation between you and your spouse and you consent to that recording, that's okay. What you can't do is potentially record a conversation between two other people when you're not a party to that conversation. Now, there I know there have been some legislative changes in the last couple of years around tracking devices.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

Well, before you get to that, let me ask you about the the conversations, because a common situation that sometimes we'll deal with is um a recording device is placed with the child, and then the child goes to the other spouse or the other parents' home, and they'll say, Well, the child is an extension of me, and so it's as if I were there. Would you recommend doing that?

SPEAKER_00: 2:12

My advice to clients would be don't do that. And the reason I would say that is because I think that's a bit of a gray area in the law, and I think the particular judge that you end up front in in front of could probably go either way on that one because it is true that um as a as a parent to a child, you're allowed to consent essentially for that child to do a variety of different things. So could a judge look at that situation and say, you know, the other parent is an extension of the child, and so they're consenting to the conversation, and even though they weren't there, it's okay. That's possible. Okay. Um, but I would definitely not encourage clients to do that. All right. So let's shift to tracking devices. Yeah, you know, especially today, um, you know, air tags and different devices are everywhere. A lot of people use that kind of stuff. Um, a lot of uh people sometimes have tracking devices, they don't really think about it, like Life 360 applications or phones. Um there is new uh law within the last couple of years talking essentially saying that you're not allowed to track other people without their consent. So one of the things that will popularly come up in a divorce is you know, before you file for divorce, one spouse might think the other spouse is cheating. They want to confirm or deny that, and so they might put an air tag on a spouse's vehicle, see where they're going. Um, my understanding, and again, this is a criminal statute. I'm not a criminal lawyer, but my understanding of the criminal statute around this is that that kind of behavior without the other spouse's consent is potentially criminal and illegal.

SPEAKER_01: 3:49

Yeah, and that's the caveat to all of this is that if you've got consent, you know, say you've got two spouses, for example, my wife and I, we both have Apple devices, and so we have our fine mice so that way we can, you know, see where we are. Um if you've got consent, that's totally fine. This is simply when there is no consent, and usually when you're in the middle of a divorce or your your marriage is breaking down, there's typically not consent anymore. And um, I wouldn't rely on your spouse affirmatively telling you in writing or verbally, you know, I no longer consent to this anymore. There should be an implied understanding that if you're if you have gone from a happy couple where there was consent to a divorcing couple, that the consent's probably not there anymore. And so to err on the side of caution. Um, and there is a difference between like the live 360 apps and um things like placing a magnetic tracking device on the bottom of a vehicle or something like that. That is kind of a more egregious uh display of spying on your spouse that I think the judge is going to treat more harshly. Um, and you know, like you said, these are criminal statutes, they're not in the family code, but there are both state and federal criminal laws that are at play here. So before you think about doing something like this, please run it by your lawyer so that way you don't run afoul of any federal or state law.

SPEAKER_00: 5:22

And I would also say if you are somebody out there who is contemplating divorce or might think divorce is on the horizon and you have done this already, my advice to you would be don't tell your spouse that, right? At least, at least not yet, right? I mean, I'll have a situation where a client might come to me and say, I have all this information I recorded or I've tracked my spouse, I confronted them, you know, didn't believe them, and so here I am. Well, now your spouse knows that you might potentially have done something criminal. And if you do file for divorce, now they can use that as leverage against you to say, hey, if you come after me for whatever in this divorce, I'm gonna pursue criminal charges against you for what you already told me that you did. So I would definitely say if you've done that already, to the extent that you can, as you said, have that conversation with your lawyer before you ever have that conversation or let your other spouse know that you might have done something like that.

SPEAKER_01: 6:18

Yeah. And and the bottom line is when in doubt, don't do it. Um, and when you do come to a lawyer, we have professionals, private investigators that we work with that if you need to figure something out, you need to find something out, you need to follow somebody, don't do it yourself. There's a process for this. Come and talk to us and we'll walk you through it. Absolutely. Next question uh out of state travel, if you have joint custody, do I need my co-parents permission to travel out of state?

SPEAKER_00: 6:47

Unless there's something special in your decree, I often I've I have very infrequently seen custody orders or decrees of divorce where there's a provision that says that you've got to notify the other parent in order to travel out of state. Now, most decrees will say that you have to notify the other parent if you're gonna travel out of the country, right? That's that's a very common provision. And often to travel out of the country, the uh federal government requires you, in order to get on a plane or sometimes even a cruise ship, to have special forms with the other parent's consent, whether it's in your decree or not. Um, but you want to essentially you want to look at your decree. If there's not something specific in the order that says that you've got to do that, now if it says if you travel out of the state, you've got to let the other parent know, then well, that's exactly what you got to do. But that's not a standard provision.

SPEAKER_01: 7:39

And and bottom line, always look at your decree. Your decree always governs. We're just talking about standard provisions and uh always talk to your lawyer and and they'll make sure that they can sit straight and let you know.

SPEAKER_00: 7:52

Absolutely. There, you know, there are a lot of times injunctions that get filed at the beginning of the case that some counties, I can think of uh a local county here, Fort Penn County, where there's a provision in there that says that you're not allowed to change the child's primary residence outside the state of Texas while the lawsuit is pending, which is not the same thing as taking your kid on a spring break vacation.

SPEAKER_01: 8:13

Yeah. Going to Disney World is different from taking uh your child to Florida to move there. Right. And that's different than going to uh Disney World Paris. Right. All of those things are going to have different provisions associated with them. All right. Next question. Um what is an amicus attorney?

SPEAKER_00: 8:33

So an amicus attorney is an attorney that is uh essentially appointed by the court to represent the best interest of the child. Um there are some other types of attorneys, such as an ad lightum, who literally represent the child in these situations. But that's not what an amicus attorney actually does. Uh they they they truly are there to represent quote unquote the best interest of the child. I think a lot of judges look at amicus attorneys like they are somewhat an extension of the court, a kind of more neutral third party who can go in and and again try to ascertain the best interest of the child as opposed to the lawyers who are already on a case who are going to be inherently biased towards their clients. Um one thing I think people don't understand about the amicus attorney, which is true, is that an amicus attorney, though, is just an attorney. And so, you know, the only role that they only only things that they can in practice do that's really gonna change the outcome of a case if your case ends up in trial is they're gonna have the ability to call witnesses, they're gonna have the ability to examine those witnesses on the stand, they're gonna have the ability to offer evidence, they're gonna have the ability to make a closing argument. Um, but that's it, right? You know, they don't they don't get to write a report like in say a custody evaluation. They don't net they don't get to meet privately with the judge, or at least they shouldn't, and have a conversation about that. You know, here's what I think. Um, they're just another lawyer that's there, hopefully to represent the best interest of the child.

SPEAKER_01: 10:05

Yeah, and that closing argument, that's going to really be the only time that an amicus attorney, if you've got a trial, is going to be able to um give an indication of what they feel whether the child should be placed with one parent or the other, or there should be some sort of special provisions. Otherwise, the way that they convey their message during testimony is just through asking questions. And so maybe the jury or the judge can get an idea of kind of where they're coming from and what their thought process is depending on the types of questions they're asking, um, whether they're more friendly to a witness or uh they're more acrimonious towards them. But um, an amicus attorney will have some uh, you know, the ability to go and visit with the child, but it isn't like they can visit with the child and then report back to the judge. That's exactly this is what I talk to the kid about, this is what the kids need, you know. Um, so I think that's a common misconception that a lot of uh our our clients have. The other thing is, you know, we talk about this quite frequently when we're staffing cases, is bringing on an amicus attorney can be risky. Um it it lessens and mitigates the risk when you know who the amicus attorney is going to be. But if you're just going to the court and saying, we need an amicus attorney, we can't agree on who it's going to be. You don't know who that person's gonna be. You don't know their skill set, you don't know um how much time they can commit to the case, you don't know if they're gonna be any good or not. Um, you don't know if they've got a certain bias. And so you're taking on a big risk because you're letting go as the trial attorney of a little bit of control of the case. You're interjecting uh a third attorney that might have a different feeling, and you might end up at trial on two against one, your spouse and the amicus attorney versus you. But like all risk, you might end up on the side of the amicus attorney and then you're two against one and the other side. Um, and you might also have an amicus attorney that kind of plays it a little bit more down the middle. Some of the benefits of an amicus attorney are that it it allows the child to feel like they have some sort of voice in the process because they're able to talk to somebody who should be on their side, um, even though they are tasked with representing the best interests of the child. They should be listening to the child and voicing their concerns. Um, and a lot of times an amicus attorney is tasked by the court with not just recommending what's best for the child, but trying to reach an out-of-court agreement.

SPEAKER_00: 12:47

I was just about to say, I I think one of the biggest hope, hopefully, roles they'll play is in settlement. I I think it's I think it's usually pretty helpful in at mediation for final orders or leading up to mediation for final orders for the amicus to be able to sit down and tell one of the parties, look, here's here's which way I'm leaning and put some pressure on them to understand to the point that you made earlier that look, if we show up at trial, this is essentially going to be a two against one. I'm more on mom's side, or I'm more on dad's side, or here's what I think is in the best interest of your child. And uh that can be that can be powerful. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

All right, very good. Uh, next question is uh your spouse in a divorce, your ex-spouse is keeping the car, but your name is on the loan for that vehicle. And how do you get their name off? Um, talk a little bit about this in the context of a house. Typically, if we have a house that's in both of the parties' names and um just one or both of the parties have their name on the mortgage, say the wife is keeping the house, the mortgage, the husband has his name on it. Um, there are certain documents that we can file in the real property records to make it clear that the wife is assuming that uh mortgage and she has an obligation to pay. And if she doesn't, then the husband can go and foreclose on the house and sell the house and um protect his property uh interest, protect his credit if she's not paying the mortgage. Those protections don't exist with regard to vehicles. And so my advice is always if you are concerned that the person who is keeping the vehicle is not going to pay the loan that's in your name, you've got it get some sort of agreement that they're gonna either sell that vehicle or they've got to refinance it and get your name off of it because you just don't have the same protections. And if they don't pay it, you're kind of out of luck. The other thing to consider, too, is that if you are going to make a big purchase later or you need to buy a house and you need to get a mortgage, um, debt-to-income ratio is something that loan companies and mortgage companies will consider, even though your ex-spouse has that vehicle and they're paying the note on it, still on your credit because it's in your name. And so it's going to count towards your debt to income ratio. It could mean that you're not, if you're kind of on the cusp of that debt to income ratio for a mortgage you're trying to get or a new car you're trying to buy, that could be the reason that you're not able to get that mortgage.

SPEAKER_00: 15:25

That's I agree 100% with everything you just said. My advice would be because of all of that, if you find yourself in this situation, you want to make a provision, which you can put in your final decree related to this to make it clear that your other spouse has a certain amount of time to refinance the auto loan. And if they don't, I would say the average one would probably 90 days. Um, if they can't do that, then the vehicle's got to be sold. And so that way, at least there's a fixed amount of time that's hopefully shorter between when you're gonna get divorced and when they've got to refinance that or that'll be out of your name. So to your point, if you want to go get another loan, you'll have that ability.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

Yeah, and a lot of times people will have a page or two of instructions on how a vehicle is going to be sold, and we'll hear from either our client or the other side of why is this so complicated? Um, it's because we deal in this world where of worst-case scenarios. And so if somebody um doesn't refinance, then we need to have a provision for that. And if then they are supposed to sell the vehicle, but they don't go and sell the vehicle, we need to have a provision for what happens then. Does the vehicle revert back to the other spouse? And so what we try to do is close as many loopholes as possible. We can't close every possible loophole. There are going to be contingencies that will come up that we can't deal with, but we try to close as many as we possibly can.

SPEAKER_00: 16:52

That's right. And you know from from your practice that when you when you have the worst case scenario and you end up in court on what's called an enforcement, where you're trying to have a judge force somebody to do something that they didn't do that was in the decree. If that decree is not very, very specific, the judge is going to look at you essentially and say, I can't help you. Right. And there's nothing worse than having a taking a client to court who's frustrated because their ex-spouse hasn't followed what essentially they agreed to, and because it just wasn't drafted clearly or specifically enough, you can't help them.

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

Yeah, and that that's why our decrees and our final orders at uh at our firm at least are 40, 50 pages, is because we're trying to close every loophole. All right. Next question, uh, David, what is a geographic restriction with regard to uh child custody?

SPEAKER_00: 17:42

So the geographic restriction in regards to child custody normally refers to the geographic area that the person who gets to designate the primary residence of the children, the children have to live inside that area. Um the way you could think about this is it doesn't always, I think some people do get this confused, it doesn't necessarily mean that the other parent or the parent, the what many people will call the primary parent, it doesn't mean that they have to live inside the restriction. So for instance, if you wanted to send your kids to boarding school and not live primarily with them, you could do that as long as the boarding school that you sent them to was within the geographic restriction. So as long as the children live inside that restriction, um you're meeting that provision in the decree. Typically, the geographic restriction is the county or the county and the surrounding counties where the divorce or the child custody suit took place. That's the most common geographic restriction, but it could be anything.

SPEAKER_01: 18:42

So let me give let me give an example for uh our listeners. So if you live in um Katy, say you live in Fort Bend County in Katy, then the typical provision would be you can live in Fort Bend County or counties contiguous to Fort Bend County. Contiguous is a word that we don't hear a lot, but uh what it means is touching Fort Bend County. And so that would include Harris County and Waller County and Wharton County and Brisoria County. And I'm sure I'm missing one, but any cut county that's touching Fort Bend County, you can live in there. And um that can be an extraordinarily large area, especially where we live, where from one end of Fort Bend County to um one end of Harris County can be like an hour and a half, two hours drive. So uh it is a very large area. Um, it's the size of some small states. Um, so it doesn't necessarily it does restrict that primary parent, um, but it's a pretty big area. The other thing I wanted to touch on was um will include what's called lift language sometimes. And that's where, say, you're living in Fort Bend County and um the other parent is living in Fort Bend County. Um, but if the non-primary parent, the non-custodial parent, moves out of Fort Bend County and moves out of the area, then you can move out of Fort Bend County too. That is a fairly standard provision. Uh, I think some family lawyers would debate whether it's come the default language.

SPEAKER_00: 20:22

I I was uh I I can tell you from experience, I've I've gone I've had to go to court on this issue before, and I my interpretation of what's called the Texas Family Law Practice Manual and some decisions that I've gotten in court before, that is not automatically included unless you say specifically in your agreement or in your mediated settlement agreement, we want to include lift language. Yeah. So I'd agree with that. Yeah, and I so I would say, especially if you're the parent who's gonna get to establish the primary residence, you want that lift language. Because without that lift language, what that means is that you know the other parent could move to the other side of the country and for whatever reason or the other side of the world, right? And they might, you know, maybe just to stick it to you, they might want to say, no, you can't move, and if you try to, I'm gonna drag you back to court to force you to stay there. Um, so it if you're the primary parent, you definitely want your lift land.

SPEAKER_01: 21:16

And just to bookend this the answer to this question, the reason why this geographic restriction is in place is because the Texas legislature, the House and the Senate, they write the laws, they write the Texas Family Code, and that's what we use to write our divorce decrees, and it's what judges use to interpret the divorce decrees. They have made it very clear in the Texas Family Code that it is the public policy of the state of Texas that parents should live as close together as possible for the best interest of their kids. And the reason why I believe they think that is that you're going to have a better relationship with your child if you are within close proximity. You can go to baseball games and uh dance recitals and you can see them every other weekend or every Thursday during the school year. You can have a closer relationship if you're closer together.

SPEAKER_00: 22:07

Absolutely. And I would tell you this I personally counsel my clients. If if we're on a case and it looks like they're gonna end up being the non-primary parent, the smaller we can get that geographic restriction, to me, that's that's to me, that's probably one of the biggest wins we could get if you're the non-primary parent, is to shrink that area as small as possible. If you want to be really involved with your kids, because it's hard to go to baseball games or it's hard to go to pick a kid up from dance practice, or even to pick kids up after school if you live 45 minutes away.

SPEAKER_01: 22:38

Right. Absolutely. All right. Next question is how does drug testing impact family law cases? And this is a rather general question, depending on what type of family law case it is. Um, it could be a CPS case, child protective services case. For the purposes of this question, um, we'll we'll keep it more general and we'll talk about child custody cases and um and divorce cases, but it can have a pretty serious impact on a case. Um, you know, if there is a concern that there is some sort of substance abuse, um, whether it be cocaine or marijuana or methamphetamine or some sort of uh synthetic drug, um, the judges are going to be very concerned about that. And they're going to want to know about it. And they're most likely going to want that's going to impact their decision making in terms of who has primary custody of the child and what your possession times look like. I will say that it has been my experience that courts will treat uh marijuana differently than other drugs. So if you are testing positive for a low level of marijuana, um the court may say that, note it, and move on. I've had courts that have done that. There are still courts that take that very seriously and tell folks you need to stop it. Uh I I don't care if you feel like you need this, you're using this medicinally, um, and uh it's still illegal. You're you're still this is still an illegal activity, and I don't like it. It really just depends on the court. And if you're in the Houston area, you've got 10 courts and 20 plus judges in Harris County, and you've got three courts in Fort Bend County. So there's a lot of differences in how the courts are going to interpret this. Um, if you are testing positive for harder drugs like cocaine or methanephetamine, or even some like high levels of the more uh uh synthetic drugs, um, the judges are going to be a lot more concerned about that. And the way it might impact your case is you might lose primary conservatorship. Um and the court might say, I need to make sure that the kids are going to be okay when they're with you. And so I'm going to order supervised visitation, which is one of your family members or your friends is with you at all times when you're with your kids, or you're going to some sort of visitation center, which we have in the greater Houston area, where there's it's a facility. Um, so not an ideal situation, but 100% they can impact family law cases. And and so um just be very wary of that.

SPEAKER_00: 25:28

Agree with everything that you said. I would say that a general rule of thumb is that the larger the population of your county is, probably the greater chance that the judge in your case is probably a little bit more liberal when it comes to marijuana use. And I would say that just generally speaking, the smaller the population in the county that your case is in, probably the more likely that they might be conservative on that issue is is just a good general rule of thumb on that. Um, but I would say, look, it depends on the facts of your case, just like alcohol is legal, right? If if if two parties come to court and one party says that I'm afraid to leave the kids alone with the other parent because they're passed out drunk every night at 7 p.m., right. Um, even though it's legal, like that's an issue. I would say the same thing with marijuana. It probably is a little bit more of a liberal approach to testing positive for marijuana. But if the allegation is that you smoke marijuana every day and you got in a car wreck three weeks ago because you weren't paying attention, because you were high or you were smoking, or you like to smoke at home when the children are there, those can, you know, those are all going to be pretty serious issues, I think, for any judge when they hear about that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 26:42

Yeah. And even in CPS cases, I mean, your view might be well, I'm not smoking marijuana, I'm not doing cocaine when my kids are around. And so there's never been any danger to them. Um, but especially more recently, the courts have found that just the very fact that you're testing positive for these harder drugs is an indication that abuse is present. They don't have to necessarily link that your drug use is happening when you're around the kids. And so just be aware of that. You mentioned alcohol uh use or possible abuse, and uh that can be an issue too. And there's ways that the court will order folks to monitor that. Um, there's something called sober link that we've had um clients and opposing parties be ordered to use, which is an app on your phone. It takes a picture and it uses whatever the algorithm is to make sure, kind of like a face ID. Yep, it it makes sure that you're the one that's actually uh blowing into the device that's connected to your phone, and it will give you alerts whenever it wants you to um to blow into the device, and then that information can be transmitted to the opposing party or to the lawyers or to the court, and um, it's a way to monitor. So um all of that uh to be said the court can order you to do a drug test. You don't have to do a drug test. The court can't like strap you down and make you do the drug test, but it can impact your case. Um, and it will be a presumptive positive if you don't do it.

SPEAKER_00: 28:23

I was just about to say, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01: 28:24

They're not gonna strap you down, but they're gonna assume that the worst if you don't take it. And uh it so it's a civil case, they can't make you do it, but they will assume the worst and um expect an order to come out of that court, a valid order, which they can do accordingly, as though you were positive. So, so so just uh keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_00: 28:45

One last thing on that um that I've I've had come up lately has been uh prescription drugs, right? I think a lot of people think that if they're taking their prescribed medications and they test positive for those, then they don't have to worry at all. And people ought to understand that with the new technology that we have today, hair follicle tests, nail tests that they can do, they can figure out what the level of those drugs is in your system. And a doctor who's schooled in that area can look at that level and tell if that level is way more than the amount that you should take based on your prescription. Right. So if you're abusing your properly prescribed medications and you think that that's not gonna come up, it can, and you ought to be real careful with that.

SPEAKER_01: 29:30

Yeah. And and the drug testing has gotten so good, and there's there's providers that the courts use in our area um that are so knowledgeable and and skilled at doing what they do. But, you know, I've had opposing parties um that, and I've just seen on other cases, you know, they'll show up, they're order to do a hair follicle test, and their entire head is shaved. They will go anywhere in your body and they will find the hair if they can find it. And if there's no hair that's available, they will then cut your nails and they will uh do a drug test that way. And if they can't do that, um, then they can, you know, ask the court to do a blood draw. So there's there's really no cheat in the system. Um, if you drink a whole bunch of water to try to dilute your system, you're gonna get a diluted sample and they're gonna say, gotta do it again. You're gonna have to keep going back. So there's they they've gotten so good at this, you just uh important to know. All right. The last question uh that we have for today is what are the different types of subpoenas used in a family lawsuit?

SPEAKER_00: 30:36

Uh generally speaking, there's a subpoena, what's called a subpoena deuces ticum, which is a subpoena that you can issue to other any witness that you want to appear at a hearing or at a trial, either to testify themselves to an issue or to bring an item, usually documents with them, uh, to the hearing. There are some uh all the other types of subpoenas that aren't deuces teacums are essentially a subpoena that commands somebody to either appear, often at your law office or at a location, to either give testimony on the record, a deposition, often an oral deposition, um that can be by written question or it can literally be live, like a regular deposition, um, or just to produce documents or items at a location. So if we're in a case and we don't really want the Chase Bank, we need Chase Bank records and we need them to make sure that they're accurate. We don't really want Chase Bank to show up at our trial to testify that here's the bank records and they're accurate. Um, what we want them to do is just to certify that they're accurate and provide the records to us and to our law office. So we might issue a subpoena to appear at our law office by a date certain to provide those records.

SPEAKER_01: 31:52

Okay. And the worst thing that you can do is if you receive a subpoena, is to do absolutely nothing at all. Because there are consequences if you don't file a subpoena, even if it's just signed by the lawyer, or if it's signed by the court, if it's signed by the judge, doesn't matter. If you just ignore a subpoena and you don't show up, uh the judge could order you held in contempt, or the judge could order you to be arrested and be brought to court. You do not want that. Willingly come to court, explain what your objection is. You can even make that objection on the day that the subpoena is due when you're in court, but um, don't just ignore it. Um that's a recipe for a disaster. And and if you do have a concern with it, we've got folks all the time that they say, Hey, I can't produce these documents within the next week. Can you give me two weeks? And most of the time, unless there's some type of hearing or reason that we need it sooner than that, if we will say yes. Because if we want to get those records and we want them to be complete and accurate, and if we can give an extension, we're gonna give it. So, so just talk to the lawyer. Most of the time, the lawyers are going to be uh reasonable with regard to that. At least if you call our office, we will be. If we if we need the records sooner than that, we'll explain it to you. But don't it don't ignore it and and try to talk to folks and get it worked out ahead of time. The other thing is sometimes if we order you to produce some sort of records of a certain type and time and place, and you say, Hey, I can't make it at that time and place, we'll say, Well, when can you get me the records and can you sign this form called a business records affidavit? If you sign off on that, we don't need you to show up anywhere. We don't need you to show up in court, we don't need to show up in our office. You can just sign that form and and get us the records that way. So work with us um and and don't just ignore a subpoena.

SPEAKER_00: 33:41

Absolutely. 95% of the time when I issue subpoenas, I'm I'm looking for records and I just need the entity that makes the record to certify that they're accurate through the business records affidavit. Yeah. So and and usually we're flexible on that time frame. So to you're you're exactly right about reach out to whoever issued the subpoena and they'll usually work with you.

SPEAKER_01: 34:00

All right. Well, David, thanks for joining me on our uh first ever episode where we just took kind of these grab bag burning questions and we answered them. Uh, if anybody else has other frequently asked questions, you can go to our website. We've got a resources tab. If you click on the resources tab at the top or you click on the blog at the top, we've got a number of articles with all types of information on family law and estate planning and probate. Uh, so go to our website at family lawyerkatie.com. Uh if you'd like to do a consultation or ask some additional questions about your situation to either me or David, you can call us at 832-315-5494. Uh, David leads our office at Hunt Law Firm in League City. I'm the managing attorney based out of the Katy office, um, but I also do consultations in Sugarland and Cyprus. Uh, call us up and we'll uh be able to help you out. My name is Alex Hunt for David Adams. Uh thanks for joining us, and until next time, we'll see you then.