(Teri Ann Kezirian)
So people need to kind of be patient with the court system and in their expectation of getting their divorce handled in a fast or timely manner, of course any the easiest way and the fastest way to get divorced is to settle. Right? So then you want to kind of talk about how you can, you know, let down your barrier of, I must get what I want versus do, you know, I can make a compromise in order to be done with this process, and there are avenues to avoid the court system completely through mediation, private judges that has increased lot, for, for, yeah, for people who can afford to use a private judge, it’s allowed under a California constitution to stipulate to a private judge to resolve our matter.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
A lot of, retired judges have a side business of providing this work and it can be costly, but it is you get that person all to yourself, no sharing. When the day you, you set a hearing with a private judge, you have your hearing with the private debt, you don’t deal with the uncertainty of continuances and court backlog. So there’s ways if parties are willing to be creative and maybe even spend a little bit more money to get their case handled more efficiently.
(Emanuel Rose)
And you have a, or you have a list of private judges that you have have been in front of recently.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Yes. So there’s private judges. Oh, and one thing that’s been nice about private judges is they’ve maintained some of the access to the technologies that, to zoom. So there, it’s easier to have, judges out of San Francisco handling our cases. I have a judge at a Napa handling a case right now for me, and they are doing zoom and easy to maintain it while the superior court Fresno county is moving away towards them. So that piece of technology is kind of something they’re, they’re kind of deciding to stop using, as frequently as we were using it before. So now you have to make a special request to appear via zoom, you know, which, you know, you think we’d want to move with the times, but there are some limitations to that as well.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
You know, the court has experienced, poor behavior and you know, they don’t like being on Youtube and that kind of thing. So we were, we can control, the forum the time and you know, the pace of a case much faster with the private debt. So yeah, there’s a lot of good private judges at a San Francisco, los Angeles, and then also in our current area who are familiar with, you know, some of the unique experiences that residents of the valley, have to deal with when it comes to their employment cost of living, where it would be a benefit to stay local.
(Emanuel Rose)
Yeah, and you’re comfortable on the zoom, the zoom docket.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
I am I’ve, I’ve adapted to it and there are some things about it. I really enjoy. Just because it, it provides you with, you know, access to materials and resources in your office that when you have to hike down to the courthouse, you kind of wonder, am I going to need that book? Am I going to need this, and you can’t really be looking at things on your phone, so it, you know, it, it is a great resource tool to, you know, if some question comes back to be able to ask Google, you know, one example is, is, you know, custody and visitation cases were deciding to pick the central, a meeting spot in the middle to do an exchange, right.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Come up with this. No, ma this Mcdonald’s is closer to them than my Mcdonald’s, you know, and and it’s easy to pull up a Google map on your second screen while you’re having a conversation with a judge and say, I did the math, I’ve done the miles. This is the center location, right? So those are the kinds of ways that it can be a benefit. But you know, I, I also have to acknowledge that, you know, the court, it has its own entity that has its own limitations and that Zhou might be impacting them. So why it might be easier for me, it may not be easier for them, but on the client side.
(Emanuel Rose)
Do you think that the zoom is easier for the clients? Also.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
It depends on the client. You know, I think every person is, is more or less comfortable with technology for clients who are very tech savvy. They, they appreciate it. They feel comfortable being more comfortable in their own home than having the stress of getting in their car, driving somewhere, finding parking, you know, am I in the right spot? Am I, you know, going through security? But there are people who are very afraid of technology, you know, and and the unknown, you know, I offered to have clients come in with me, you know, so I can set up my desk in a way where my camera can have, you know, a person, you know, there’s a chair on the other side and they can be in the frame, and so a lot of times clients will come to those who are not comfortable with will come to my office, and so they feel just more comfortable being in the room with me, and that has, I think they don’t mind zoom in that way, because we are able to have, you know, a thorough conversation, you know, you did, nobody can hear us, and it it’s less stressful than being in the environment that the courtroom presents.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
I mean, the courtroom is just stressful by design. You know, they say they design courtroom to be intimidating, right. Judge sits up PI, they look down on you, the guy with a gun over there, you know, you go through a metal detector, there’s a bunch of other people sitting in the room, and you know, you know, biology kicks in when people are stressed out and their brain chemistry impacts how they, are hearing information, how they’re reading body language, and so, you know, removing those types of triggers, I think also helps people kind of calmly think through questions that are being asked of them, offers that are being presented to them. I like zoom, but it’s being taken away in Fresno county. I I’m sad about it.
(Emanuel Rose)
Yeah, and it sounds like you’ve got a good hybrid situation where you’re able to bring somebody into your office, and so they get the support from you, but still the expediency of the zoom.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Right, and the, and it’s more comfortable to be in an office versus a courtroom setting.
(Emanuel Rose)
Yeah. That makes sense. About, what’s kind of the ratio between like trial mediation, private judge right now, and what you’re seeing.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Well, I mean, the ratio for mediation is probably a little bit higher that most self represented people who are relatively calm with each other, go through some kind of mediation, even if it’s just, you know, and I know this seems silly, but a family member, a friend, you know, it’s like, you don’t realize it, but people get involved in these divorces to try to work the deal out. Right. So I think there’s a pretty higher ratio of mediation cases or self represented people who never get attorneys involved. Private judges cases are very small portion because of resources, you know, you’re paying for attorneys and then you also pay for the judge, and that might seem like, well, how much more could that be?
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
But it, it can get up there. So you’re so high, what we call high end divorces, larger estate. They’re going to go to private judges at a pretty high rate. I would say at least half, if not more, are going to be private judges of that income category.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Yes. Especially with the court backlog and the access to, you know, maintaining real remote access and technology that the, the traditional courthouse is losing.
(Emanuel Rose)
Yeah. We’re good at it, and for you, how, how much of your case load is trial versus mediation inside your practice right now?
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Yeah, so unfortunately might be just because, well, fortunately, fortunately, you know, my, my case is, you know, 90 percent of my cases are going through the litigation process only out, only about 10 percent of them. I’m never stepping into court at all. That doesn’t mean I’m doing a full trial on all issues on all my cases, cases that have to do a full trial on all issues to resolve that that’s a small percentage of my litigation cases. That would probably only be the 5 to 10 percent range, but there’s going to be in pretty much majority of my cases at that 90 percent range, some court involvement, some contested hearing some dispute, and whether it’s a trial just on custody, or it’s a hearing on support, a temporary support hearing, there’s going to be some court involvement just because of the fact that I am, I am a litigator.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
That’s what I’m. I gravitate my work and my experience on, and most people who are coming to me now, they know the writing’s on the wall. A lot of them are already, you know, they already tried mediation. It didn’t work. You know, they tried working it out and not having an attorney. It didn’t work, you know, so, they’re coming to me and it’s already primed in that way, and it would take, you know, a level of work for me to back it out of that, that probably couldn’t do like, I’m just getting it through the system.
(Emanuel Rose)
Yeah. So that’s when people are coming to you typically is after they’ve already given their best chance to separate amicably.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Right, and the conversations are already, you know, you’re never going to see this kid, you know, the conversations are, I’m not paying you a dye, you know, that that toxicity has already happened, and sometimes people can wake up and come back from it, and sometimes they need a judge to yell at them to come back. Right. So that’s kind of the unfortunate part is I’m, I’m pretty much, I’m pretty much retained in cases that are already on that litigation warpath, and it’s about, you know, can, can we stop it, with only a couple of hearings or does it have to get to trial on all issues, trial on all issues, and family law is very rare and discouraged. Even in our regular court system, our judges make us go through mandatory settlement conference and show proof that we’ve met and tried to resolve issues, you know, multiple times before they’ll give us that trial date.
(Emanuel Rose)
Gotcha, and then your client base right now, what’s the ratio of the men and the women clients.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Gosh, I haven’t even thought to look through my list and think about that, you know, I have a case list maybe so, you know, I have, I have 60 now, how many cases do I have open right now? I have two lists. I have to combine it. So right now active cases I’m right around and like 85.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
And like I’m going when I’m looking at is my, my work in progress list that my paralegals make for me, and you know, there’ll be like, you know, 3 or 4 names on each page, and I can say, you know, pretty evenly split any, a little bit more female than men, but I would say that that would be a little slight.
(Emanuel Rose)
All right. So not really a differential. That’s interesting.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
No, not really.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Yeah, you know, I, I, I definitely don’t mark it, then I’m better for men or women. There’s so much attorneys who kind of try to maximize on that and their marketing, you know, pro dad, I’ll get you your time. You know, I really, we really try not to, so I don’t think that we, we come across that way.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
You know, any, and it can be strange because I would say that I feel the majority of women I have, like, I want a bull dog, you know, I need that money. It’s been a fight, you know? Yeah, yeah. I don’t know necessarily why, but, maybe cause they feel a little defenseless. They feel a little weaker in general in the situation, and so they feel like they need someone who’s going to level that playing field while maybe men, don’t feel that way. But you know, I’ve had, you know, there has been a bigger shift where, you know, higher income earners can be the wife or or you know, the female and the relationship just as much as the male, and then I do have things that couples, you know, so two men, two women, and so we don’t, we don’t necessarily see this as much of the same, you know, historical gender roles and identities play out in our cases.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
Even though I would probably say Fresno stills a little bit more in that range. I mean, our cost of living is such that people can, you know, maybe be a one income household, not a lot of areas in California where you can be a one income household there really isn’t, you know, and I think in Fresno is probably one of the fewer areas where that is financially still viable for our families, and then that usually does fall on the wife and a same text couple being the one who stayed home, and that kind of creates some of the, the more, I guess, historical gender roles when it comes to who’s gonna get custody or who’s paying the support. But, it, it doesn’t, it doesn’t really fall that way consistently as east to be.
(Emanuel Rose)
Yeah. Gotcha.
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
All right.
(Emanuel Rose)
Well, that’s good. Anything else you think we should cover right now?
(Teri Ann Kezirian)
No. I mean, I’m, I’m guessing it probably helps to kind of talk about like things that are happening, you know, in the world and staff and kind of highlighting that. I have some thoughts about school safety. I don’t know if it’s really relevant or not, but maybe we can wait until we get closer to the start of the school year. If they think that, you know, I, just personally, it’s something that’s been in my mind and I’ve thought about it for, you know, divorced couples, how they would feel, you know, about situations regarding school safety. So I’m going to I’ll think about some things like that, and maybe we can talk, we can highlight that and you know, fall.