YouSaid · the spoken record

James Sexton

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2023-09-18

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2023-09-18

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1. “And Christian Slater sort of taken aback by the question. He says, No, I came to talk about Alabama. She's with me now. And he proceeds to tell him what his offer essentially is. And Gary Olman says, you know you fucked up, right? In some substance, he says, you know, if you'd sat down and started eating my Chinese food, I would have thought Who's this guy? He didn't have a care in the world just sitting down eating my egg foo young. But instead, you tried to be hard, and now I know you're full of shit. And so I think that scene summarizes how in negotiation.”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Yeah, Gary Olman plays a pimp. And he owns his girl is Patricia Arquette, right? And Christian Slater's character, the protagonist, is coming in to tell Gary Oldman that he no longer owns this girl, Alabama, as a name. Alabama is going to be with him now. Gary Oldman is an amazing performance. And he's sitting in a living room with a shotgun next to him with armed guys around him watching television and eating Chinese food. And he's got Chinese food laid out in front of him. And Christian Slater comes in and he says, I need to talk to you about Alabama. And Gary Olman says, do you want some Chinese food?”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “I think it's wonderful that we do because sometimes now people don't get that reference anymore. Like, I talk to people when I try to teach negotiation to young lawyers who come work for me. I tell them to watch the Gary Oldman scene where he offers him the Chinese food.”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “We got after we get on threesomes. I don't know. I always wonder how people get on threesomes. I figure they like if one is fun, two must be better. If two is better, three must be better. Yeah, I think the way that this becomes an issue is Why would you have a non monogamous relationship? What is it about your sex life with this person that's not satisfying? And I think that that is the question that's harder to ask yourself and to try to answer with your partner.”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “And there's an easy way to misinterpret the data, right? Like, so if I'm If I really like sleeping with my partner, but I get one chance to sleep with this other person, like, well, of course I should indulge in that because I can do this anytime. Like, what did, you know. But this person, my partner, might interpret that as, oh, so you're more interested in her than me because that voice in my partner that would be insecure might hear that. So I just, why would you even open yourself up to that level of chaos?”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “And then I look at your face and find myself having this whole thing in my head where I'm going, like, oh my God, where am I supposed to look? So I think a threesome with. Two women you don't hardly know, or you're not threesome with a long-term partner. You're in a relationship with. And a new person. Seems to me a very dangerous ground because you're going to want to enjoy the novelty of this new person, but you're going to have to spend time with this person after. So how much attention do you spend to the new novel exciting thing without creating the impression that you don't? You're not interested in this because you want, you're my favorite person, but this is fun, so I want to just try this for a few, but then also I don't want to forget about that. It just seems tricky.”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Like, if I go to a strip club, you know, like you go to a strip club and there's the part where the woman's on the stage and she walks past each person and does a little thing and then next person and the next little thing. So when she's right in front of you I like a woman's face, and I like a woman's body. I like both of them. So I'm looking at the woman's face, and she's very beautiful. But she's naked. And I think, oh, she's naked. I should be looking at her naked body because obviously that's like, it's almost rude not to because she's naked in front of me, of course. So then I'm looking at her naked body, which is lovely to look at. But then I find myself going, oh my God, you're just staring. You should look at her face, for God's sake.”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “But together, like we're going to be together with other people or with another person. And then that connection of those two people. Like, do you think it's a soulmate all of a sudden now? And it goes in this other direction. Because, and again, is that novelty? It's the reason why I don't understand why people have three sons. It's kind of like, you know, when someone sings to you, I don't know where to look. I don't know where to look. Like, if someone's singing to me, I don't know where to look. It feels weird, right? This is a conundrum. No, this is. I'll say this too. This will never. It's the reason I can't go to strip clubs. I don't know where to look”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Well, let's see, and this is one of those like. From a research perspective, this would be flawed because I see they're in my office because their marriage is falling apart. So there may be lots of people having open relationships that don't end up in a divorce lawyer's office, so I'd never meet them. I meet a lot of people that that was the Hail Mary pass. I meet a lot of people that they tried that, but it in retrospect, it was a Hail Mary pass. It was like, look, we just figured, let's try this. Maybe this will keep the glue together on this thing. And I've also seen open relationships go wrong. Where we agree we're just going to have sexual connections with other people, or we're going to bring other people into the bedroom.”

   2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “They'll say to you very openly, like, no, I really love my wife. I really love my wife. Like I just, I don't know. I was just an idiot. Like I just Know, I saw this bright shiny object and I went for it. I really wanted to sleep with that woman. I wanted to fuck her. I love my wife. I make love to my wife. I love my wife, but I just want to sleep with this one And we created a culture where one of those eradicates the other. That's a whole nother discussion is, you know, or is there ethical non-monogamy? Like, should we, is marriage about who I have sex with or is marriage a different kind of a partnership? Is it a pair bond that's about building a life together? And where does monogamy fit into that? And people like Esther Perel, and those are people who are making very intelligent discussions about that”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “That's a whole different set of equipment. I don't have that. So, like, I can't, okay. Like, it's not me, it's you, it's something you want that I can't offer. We don't serve that at this restaurant, so, you know, it's okay. I get it. I mean, there's a betrayal, there's a sadness, whatever, but Know this is a different thing. The saddest Of infidelity, in my opinion, is the mistake, which is someone just makes a mistake. People do dumb shit when it comes to sex. In a moment Know they follow temptation, their impulse control is poor, and they do something that they that doesn't reflect their morality or doesn't reflect the depth of their feelings. Like if you spend enough time in a room with people who've cheated in a relationship and are speaking candidly to you about it because you're their lawyer.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Where including marriage equality, obviously, where there's a lot of change as to people accepting people as being gay or lesbian. And I think that there was a time where people were having, being in the closet was much more important. You were subject to professional scorn and all kinds of things if you were gay or lesbian. So people were sneaking around and having affairs with their same-sex partners, and then they get caught. And then, you know, it really was a function of the fact that they were closeted. And again, that's another kind of complicated dynamic. I haven't had that happen to me where a woman left me for a woman. But I'd like to think it would be easier. Because if you left me for a man, you're saying I want one like you but better than you. Whereas if you leave me for a woman,”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Yeah, there have been by much smarter people than me But I think that Soulmate thing is very, very painful for a lot of my female clients when a man says, listen, I found the one. I found the one and it's not you. That is really, really hard to get past. Even when it turned out to be true. I mean, I've seen some people that, you know, it was an affair that turned into 20 plus year marriages. An unhappy marriage and then a happy affair that turned into a very happy marriage. There's not a formula, you know, like I've been doing it long enough now that I've seen permutations I never would have expected. So that's one type of infidelity. The other is what I call the push out of the closet, which is, and I think happened more often earlier in my career. There have been tremendous strides, I think, in the lesbian and gay community.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Of a hition, where did you stay? Oh, was it good? Did you like that? Oh, that's nice. And now we're talking, and now we're having an interaction, and now this is how the spark of affairs begins. It's usually, people don't usually meet and go, would you like to potentially wreck your marriage? Yes, would you? Oh my God, let's do this. It's much more, you know, it's slowly happens. So, when I talk about types of infidelity, The soulmate, the unexpected soulmate, you know, this connection that you didn't expect, I didn't expect to fall in love with this person, but I did and the heart wants what the heart wants, and I'm sorry That one's tough. That one's tough. Because, you know, it's an interesting distinction between men and women to some degree that when a man finds out his wife was cheating, the question is, did you fuck him?”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Was a function of what Facebook and I think Instagram also are, which is it is a communication tool that has people looking into windows that I think are antagonistic to marriage. You're looking into the lives of other people. You're looking into the social lives of people that you meet casually. So there was a time where you would be at your son's soccer practice and see the attractive mom across the way. And you wouldn't really talk to her, interact with her. If you did, it would just be at practice. But now we add on social media those people because for legitimate reasons we need to maybe communicate about when practice is or we want to message the person. But now it's sort of an invitation to a connection. And then it's, you know, there's a picture of her on vacation in a bikini. That's very intriguing. And then you have a benign, oh, I saw you guys.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “But now, if I had to rewrite it, it would be if we were going to invent an infidelity generating machine, it would be called meta. That would be what it would happen.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Yes, if we were going to invent an infidelity generating machine, it would be called Facebook, which, by the way, is a function of the fact the book was written in 2019. I would now change it to Instagram”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “There are plenty of cautionary tales associated with that where people thought that they found they're someone, and then it turns out it was, you know, no, it was just unfair, you know, and, you know, a man who leaves his wife for his mistress just leaves a new job opportunity open.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Yeah, I mean, what I wanted to say is that all infidelity is not the same, that there's different kinds. And some of them are more obvious than others. Like there's the soulmate. That's the one I think I see most often, which is a person meets another person or rekindles on social media or elsewhere a reconnection with another person in their life. And they go, oh my God, this is the person I'm supposed to be with. I'm in love. The heart wants what the heart wants. Like I'm leaving you for this person because I have found my true love. That's one type. And it's an incredibly common type.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “And that's not so, like, if you say to someone, if you got married tomorrow and then you found a company that's worth $100 million. And under your prenup, that's your separate property. But there's a sunset clause that says that your prenup goes out the window in 15 years. Man, at year 14 and six months, you got to ask yourself some serious questions about where's this relationship going to be in five, ten years?”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Same reason the community property law in California is a bad idea. So the community property law is after a certain number of years, I think it's seven, everything, including your premarital property, all becomes marital property. And the idea of that was supposed to be that if you've been married, that number of years, like you're in enough of a serious relationship now that everything is one unit, you're one person, what it actually does is creates a very uncomfortable thought experiment that people have to have at the six-year mark. Because you have to, now the honeymoon's kind of over. You might have a kid or two, and you go, okay, wait a minute. Am I so happy in this relationship that I'm willing to take all of my premarital assets and throw them in the pot right now? Because if not, I got six months to get divorced.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “Right. It's an emotional affair and affair. Is oral sex cheating? Is, you know, like what? What is, and by the way, how do you prove it? Like, while I was in a hotel with her, but how do you prove that I had sex with her? And it's very, very, you're opening a can of worms with that kind of a thing. But people sometimes still put them in. And sunset clauses, sunset clauses is if we're married X period of time, this goes away, as if it never existed.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Fidelity clauses is I'm waving alimony, I'm waving this, I'm waving that, but if you cheat, I get a million bucks or I get this much alimony or I get this amount. And I know the intention is to disincentivize the person from cheating. It's a deterrent. Have them cheat All it really does is just creates like an interesting legal battle for lawyers. How did you prove that they cheated or not?”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Yeah, I think when we create. Incentives of that kind. That's why there was the no nut November, no shave November, you know, sober, like all this. It was a competition. When people make a competition of something, they gamify something. It makes something that people are more likely to stick with. So, I mean, I guess a prenup would be interesting. The problem is there's also, people put in prenups what's called fidelity clauses. Fidelity clauses, people still do these. I discourage people from doing them. The two things that people put in prenups that I discourage people from putting in prenups, but very often people still put in prenups, even with my caveat, is Fidelity Clauses and Sunset Clauses.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “What's his, I think Tim Ferris says that about how he does, he said you should make bets with people. It's like if you gain this much, I got to give you this amount of money, you know? He says that in one of his early books.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “But the appellate court essentially said, I don't know why you married this person, having had them make you sign this, but it's binding.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “When I do a consult for a prenup, the first thing I do is here's what's going to happen legally if you marry without a prenup. Here's what happens to your rights and obligations. Then what we can change with that, there's almost no limit. You can amend anything you want to. The example I always give is there was a case that went up to the appellate court where high net worth guy married a very beautiful woman and there was a provision in the prenuptial agreement that said for every 10 pounds she gained during the marriage she would lose 10,000 dollars a month in alimony if they divorced. And here's a baseline weight as of the time of execution of this agreement. Did what a wrestler does? Like, did she, you know, Did she like bulk up right before and then cut when she eventually”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “Same thing. Same thing. You're just going to say, look, what's the rule set? Let's agree on the rule set. And then let's conduct ourselves with the rule set in mind. Let's plan with the rule set in mind. And I think that, you know, by the way, and if you're going to cheat, you cheat with the rule set in mind. You know you're cheating, right? You know you're trying to get around the rule set. So prenu”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “The main thing you need is the ability to see what's going to happen in the future, who's going to have money, who's not, who's going to be successful, who isn't, what people will inherit. Problem is we don't have that. We don't have that. So what can we do? We can create tranches. We can create structures. We can create systems. And then people can live with those in mind. You enter the game knowing the rules, right? You know, if this is going to be a submission only event. You know if this is going to be no time limit. You know if we're after a certain number of minutes we're going into points now, okay? So I can work with that rule set and I'm going to amend my game based on that rule set.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “No, actually, it's the same. I mean, You're doing with a prenup is you're identifying You're identifying how things will be classified in advance. So you're creating a set of rules. And then you both can function under those rules during the marriage. So, like, for a brief time, I taught a family law drafting class at a law school. And when we would do separation agreements and we would do pleadings, it was lots of fun. When we would do prenups, I would say to the students, what's the main thing you need when you're doing a prenup? And they would say, well, you need asset disclosure. And I'd say, well, that's not the main thing. And they'd say, well, you need technical language. They said, nope. Main thing you need is a crystal ball.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Prenups are not published anyplace. They're not filed with a court. They're maintained by the two people that signed it, and they're lawyers. That's it. So nobody has to admit that they have a prenup. But yes, but there's a certain problem with that insofar as a lot of people have prenups and we need to normalize prenups. Like there's no reason not to normalize prenups. There's no reason not for until some famous people say, yeah, we have a prenup. We're crazy about each other. It's why we're getting married, you know. But yeah, look, we're getting, you know, I don't want to get a car accident, but I got a seatbelt, you know, like you have it just in case.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “Weddings is for the Graham. I have to tell you, weddings is performative, man. See, the problem is, though, it's curated. So here's us picking the cake. It's not here's us doing the prenup. You know how many people I've done prenups for? I've watched on their social media or them being interviewed by Andy Cohen on Bravo and saying, well, no, we don't have a prenup. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. You do. It's in my office. It's in a folder.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “Well, it used to just be the summer. They say when you marry in June, you're a bride all your life. That's from some Rogers in Hammerstein musical. Now the fall is very big, too. People love fall content, fall weddings, pretty pictures and things.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “So, first of all Whenever someone approaches me about prenups, and that's like four or five times a week probably, depending on the season, right before wedding season, we get a lot.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “They just did the most legally significant thing they're ever going to do other than dying. And they have no idea what rights and obligations it created in them. And the first time they're going to get an education about it is in my office. That's crazy. It's crazy.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “So having life insurance or having a will doesn't mean you can't wait to die. It doesn't mean you're looking forward to death. It doesn't mean that you're predicting your demise sometime imminently. It just means that you're being realistic and honest. So when you marry, It means spiritually marrying, having a marriage ceremony. I mean legally marrying. You're making changes to your rights and obligations under law. That's what you're doing. Like marriage from a legal standpoint. What we mean when we say I got married. Is a state agency. It's been created by the state. Like, this is a legal status that most people who are in it know nothing about.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “It's your separate property in the event you divorce. You go out and buy a boat and she doesn't support you buying the boat, but the boat, you got a big loan on this boat. You're responsible for that loan. So, I like that because I like people having some control. And I also like people having to have discussions. Why are we putting that bonus just in your bank account? Why wouldn't we put it in the joint bank account? We should have that discussion while we're married, not when we're in a divorce lawyer's office 10 years later. Because we should be able to talk about those kinds of things. So, you know, what's interesting about... That somehow people think there's something like it takes away from the romance of a marriage. But I've said it before, and I'll say it again all marriages end. They end in death or divorce.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “That's generally true that both sides get half equitable distribution, which is what the law is. Not called the law of equal distribution for a reason, because it's equitable, not equal. Now, equitable is presumed to be equal, but there are exceptions to that presumption. And that's where lawyers can get into fun and or trouble, depending on how you view it. It's where we make our money. We make our money arguing that the fair result will not be just a 50-50 split. And so there's the very generic standard prenup, which is easy. And I call that yours, mine, and ours. Like if it's in your name, it's yours, whether it's an asset or liability. My name is mine. Joint names we split at 50-50. Simple, clean. And you go in to the marriage now, knowing what the rules are. So if you get a bonus at work and you put it in your sole name,”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “That's ridiculous. That's not a lot of money. Like, so there's no reason you wouldn't do it, but people still will still. I've had clients that have hundreds of thousands of dollars and they did their prenup downloading something from the internet. And because of some imperfection, it doesn't have the right what's called acknowledgement, which is the section where the notary signs. And it has to say that it was duly sworn before this person on this date. And if it doesn't have that, it's invalid. It's not binding. So there are weird technicalities. But yeah, prenups are binding. As long as there's been some minimal asset disclosure, which is easily done in a prenup, and as long as there's not a language deficiency, meaning that the person who is reading it understands English to the level that they understand what they're signing. And if they don't, that at least they've acknowledged in their native language that there is some opportunity for this to be translated for them. Yeah, they're binding.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “In general. Yes. If they are crafted correctly, which is not that hard to do for a lawyer to do, I'm saying for a lawyer to do because with the internet, everybody thinks, why would I spend $1,000? I can just Google prenuptial agreement and I can get one and then that is a bad idea. Like it is like a will. Like if you're going to have a document that binds your rights at that level, it's worth like the most expensive prenup I've ever done was like three grand.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “Prenup is an excellent idea. Prenup is a prenup is a contract between two people that binds their respective rights and obligations in the event of a divorce when it comes to financial issues. That's all it is. And there's a lot of reasons to have them and there really aren't any reasons not to have them other than the fact it requires an uncomfortable conversation.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “It's not popular to quote Kanye West, but if you ain't no chump, Holla, we want prenup, we want prenup. I mean, that's what he had to say.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “When you have a team of lawyers working on a case, you can burn tens of thousands of dollars a day if it's a big enough case. There are also very complex financial cases. People move and hide money. The high net worth space. A different world, like if an average person owns a home, they own a home in their name or their name with their spouse. A high net worth person owns an LLC that owns that home. That LLC is owned by a trust. They are a beneficial interested party in that trust. Like this is how some of my clients who make tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay less in taxes than a cop or a firefighter. Because they have structures. And the structures that were designed for tax planning purposes then in a divorce become very tricky to unwind and to figure out, wait, no, what is mine and what is not, you know.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “A hair follicle test where it was said he was definitely not going to test positive, and he tested positive. So it was like we were scurrying now with, okay, we got to get a motion filed, we got to suspend access, we got to protect the kids, we got to get in front of a judge, we got to think about what are the implications of this because he was about to transition to an unsupervised parenting. Like this is the kind of stuff that can amp up the amount of work the lawyer has to do, which then translates to money. I mean, I get paid for my time. And the time of my team. You know, I have attorneys and paralegals who work for me.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “We've done some head cases. You know, there are cases where people have Have very different facts. Like before I came here today, a client of Soon to be ex husband, who she's in the middle of a war. He tested positive for cocaine.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “It can be complex custody that requires a hearing that requires expert testimony. Dueling mental health professionals, opining on the parenting. It can be a situation where emergency circumstances occur, like where an individual tries to abscond to another country with the children and you have to bring them back under the Hague Convention. International child abduction.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “Yeah, the duration, the complexity of issues. Like, I have clients who've paid. Two, three million in council fees to me.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “Know to me, like forgiveness is very often it's for me, you know? Like when I let go of anger, I feel lighter, you know, I think my heart enjoys peace. I mean, partly it's because I fight for a living. You know, I work in the world of conflict. I jokingly used to say to my sons when they were teenagers, you know, like I can only argue if you've paid. Like it's not fair to the paying customers. If I argue with you,”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “Whereas, if you go, that's nice. He's a nice guy. Oh, that's great. I heard nice things. Yeah, I heard he's really, he likes bicycles. That's cool. That's really neat. Like, you just told this kid, okay, it's okay. You can like this person. It's okay to like this person. It's okay that your mom is with this person. Like, and again, whatever you feel about your ex your co-parent, usually you love your kid more than you hate your ex ideally.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “Just said your dad's a bad person. You just did it with your eyes. You did it with the expression on your face when you handed the phone to the kid. You told that kid your dad's a bad person. You didn't have to say it out loud. And that is something people are guilty of all the time. When the kid comes home and says, there's a divorced couple. Kid comes home and says, oh, I met mom's new boyfriend. And you go, oh, yeah, that's nice. Remember, he's not your dad. You know, like, well, whoa. Like you just told that kid a whole bunch of information about how he's supposed to feel about this person.”

    2023-09-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source