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Meet the Experts: Attorney Joseph Roche of Eden Rafferty
Based out of Worcester, MA, Joseph Roche is an experienced lawyer at Eden Rafferty, specializing in family and probate court matters. Join Attorney Roche as he discusses typical divorce proceedings, how to make a divorce as quick and painless as possible, and the do's and especially don'ts of getting a divorce.
- Duration:
- 30m
- Broadcast on:
- 21 May 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car, a new podcast featuring long-form interviews with guests who have a specialized field of expertise. This week's guest is Joseph Roach, an experienced lawyer at Eden Rafferty, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, specializing in family and probate court matters. Join Attorney Roach as he discusses typical divorce proceedings, how to make a divorce as quick and painless as possible, and the do's and especially don'ts of getting a divorce. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Car. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to this week's episode of Meet the Experts. And our expert this week is Attorney Joseph Roach. He's a divorce lawyer in the law firm of the Eden Rafferty. You could reach him at EdenRafferty.com. EdenRafferty.com. Joe Roach, he lives in Worcester County with his wife and three kids. He's not divorced. He is a graduate of UMass Amherst. And he's also a graduate of the Suffolk University School of Law. And he's been in practice for about 15 years. And his specialty is family law. He practices mainly in probate and family court in Massachusetts. What we're going to discuss here today is primarily divorce law. And it's a sad part of life. But many people do find themselves in a situation where they want to sunder the bonds that are supposed to be for life. And that's the way it is. Joe Roach, thanks for being with us, first of all. Really, thank you for having me. I'm going to start off with, I think, the real basic question. Do guys have a shot at all in divorce court? That's always one of the first questions that especially husbands will ask me when they come in. I think a lot of people who are going through divorce have sort of the idea of what their parents went through or their grandparents went through when they got divorced, where dads were just presumed that you're going to move out of the house. And you're going to see the kids every other weekend. And you're going to pay child support and alimony. And you're going to lose your shirt. And that's just the end of it and accept it and move on with your life. I think that there's been a real change in the probate and family courts and how they treat husbands or fathers. And I'd say fathers, because even in any case where you're not getting divorced, but you have custody issues, I think that fathers are a great deal now. I think the contributions that husbands make are valued probably better. The court's doing a much better job of accounting for the contributions that they do make and the importance of dads and husbands staying involved in their kids and accounting for the contributions that they've made throughout the marriages. So do I think that fathers have a shot or dads have a shot or husbands have a shot? Absolutely. I think that they have a very good shot. We get a lot of guys who come in and they say, hey, I want custody of my kids. I'm the primary caretaker. Full custody. Full custody. I mean, you deal with these days a lot of dads who are at home raising their kids. We get a lot of those guys. And they come in and they say, hey, wait a minute. I should get to stay in the house. And I should be the one that gets custody of the kids. Just briefly, what percentage of the males in the divorce system in Massachusetts get a full custody and be allowed to remain in the house as opposed to the wife? I mean, it would be tough for me to give you the percentages, but I know that in my own practice, we get dads full custody of their kids pre-regularly. I've jokingly said to a lot of my clients, men and women, but hey, be careful what you asked me for, because you're going to get it. And if you want full custody of your kids, that means you're going to have them. They're going to be with you every day, but we do. We get that and guys keeping the house happens quite a bit. I would say that a lot of times we've gotten points where husbands keep their house and they get full custody of their kids. Or at a minimum, I think a lot of the courts now are looking at they want joint custody of kids. They want husbands or fathers to remain equally in the lives of their children as moms. And that I think is a change. And I think it's something that people and dads and husbands especially get nervous of when we start talking to them about the divorces. A lot of guys will say they're going to stick it out in a place where they're unhappy because they don't want to lose time with their children and we try to tell them. I'm not sure that that's going to happen. That's not necessarily a default, just because we're separating that you're going to lose time with the kids or you're not going to see them as much. Now, in this state, as well as many others, we have what's called no-fault divorce. And I think a lot of guys think of no-fault as being, if a wife catches a guy cheating, he owes her a million bucks. If a guy catches his wife cheating, he owes her a million bucks. I think that's probably a way a lot of people look at it as far as no-fault is accurate. I mean, here's what I tell a lot of people. And I think that this comes up in the divorces a lot. Because for me, as a guy who makes my living, I pay for my mortgage because people's families are breaking down, which is a little bit of a morbid way to look at it. But the specifics of why you're getting divorced are not always that important to me. Most people don't call me because their marriage is going well. Very rarely have I ever got a phone call from someone who says, hey, I just wanted to tell you that me and my wife are really happy and everything's going great. That's not why you call me. And so what I say to people in no-fault situations is, look, she's got a boyfriend. You've got a girlfriend. You guys have been messing around with each other. Those things, those brought you here. If we get stuck in that part of it, if we're going to argue about the adultery or the cheating or the lying or the things, the only person who benefits from that is me because it's going to cost you more hours. It's billable hours. And so I tell all my clients, the pie never changes. It's just the slices, right? Your estate is going to be what it's worth, and you're each going to get a piece of it. And the only person's piece of the pie that gets any bigger is mine. But you know, you say it doesn't matter to you, but does it matter to the judge? In my experience, an ever-increasing number of probate judges are women. Yes, that is true. So my next question-- and again, you don't have to answer this if it's going to affect your practice-- are women judges fair to men? I will say that I've appeared before on many male judges who I don't think are particularly always even handed with men the same as women. I think that certainly I would say, whether this gets me in trouble or not, I think that we do have a lack of male judges on the bench right now in the probate and family court. I hope that I think that that's something that does need to be addressed. I think that I've appeared before some very, very good male judges who are absolutely even handed and who have experiences in their life that the female judges don't have. I've been in front of female judges who have been incredibly helpful to fathers and husbands going through the divorces. So I would say that in a vacuum, bad judges can be either gender and good judges can be either gender. I run into bad judges all the time who are men. None of them are probably listening right now, I hope. Give me your address and your phone number. Sure. So the first thing they should do is probably call me. I'm at Eden Rafferty. We're on Schusbury Street in Worcester. My phone number is 508-795-1601. You represent clients all across the state. I have appeared in every probate and family court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I represent clients all across the Commonwealth and across social economical spectrum. If you don't think you can afford a lawyer or you're nervous about how much it costs, call me, first intake is free. We'll tell you what we can do for you. If there's nothing we can do for you, we'll help you out either way. Give you some advice and send you on your way. The first thing you should do is call a lawyer. I'm saying that obviously from a position of somewhat biased because I am a lawyer, but there are definitely things that you can do wrong at the initial phase of your separation. The first step is to call the lawyer and then the second step is to avoid certain practices. Now let's go into those. What should people not do? One of the things that I see people make mistakes about all the time when things start to break down because it is very emotional and it is very difficult, right? If your wife's got a new boyfriend, you probably don't want to be around her too much. And so I get a lot of guys who call me and they say, I moved out. That was not a great thing to do, right? I understand for your mental health, you don't want to move out. What I tell people all the time is, there needs to be a plan before you move up, right? For a couple of selfish reasons. First of all, the leverage you have is living under the same roof as your wife, right? Because she does not want you there anymore. So as long as you're there and as long as you're being smart, and this is where I think talking to a lawyer and making sure you're not saying or doing anything that could end up in a call to the police or a restraining order. Now, that was my next question, restraining order. Sure. How does one avoid a restraining order? Well, that's a hard one to answer because I would say that the courts of the Commonwealth give out restraining orders relatively freely. And again, I don't think that this gets me in any trouble, but I think it's worse now than it's been in the past, meaning I think it's easier to get a restraining order from maybe less grounds than it used to be. I sort of will always point to a relatively infamous story in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where a former Boston Red Sox broadcaster, family member, maybe didn't have a restraining order issue. Walked out of court. I mean, we understand the courts want to air on the side of caution. But on the other hand, you don't want to put yourself at a position where they're going to have to air on the side. Exactly. And so you just need to be smart about what you say, smart about the context in which you say things, deliberate, and not necessarily pleasant, but you know, you can't be aggressive. This is why callers, we set up sort of parameters on how you're going to behave, how you're going to act. You know, you don't want to do things. I get people who call me. I'm videotaping all of my interactions with my wife. That's not great, right? I've put up hidden cameras all over the home. Okay, that's probably not a good idea either, right? I understand why people think that. But when you end up in front of a judge and the first thing you're soon to be ex-wife says is he put up hidden cameras all over the house and he's been videotaping me, the judges are not going to take kindly to that. And so you tend to sometimes overcorrect, I think is where I worry about people in those situations because you are in a very emotional time. Everything is really up in the air, right? Nobody goes into a marriage hoping that it ends. And so when you get to that point where things are starting to break down, we say and do things that we maybe don't mean, but that can definitely get us into trouble. When I say don't leave the house, I'm not telling you you're going to live at the house for the entire duration of your divorce, but there needs to be a plan. When you leave, there's got to be a plan because I can't tell you the amount of people who tell me, I moved out and now I haven't seen my kids in two weeks or I haven't seen my kids in a month or she doesn't let me see them on the weekends or they can't sleep over because there was no plans. It's a variation of possession is 9/10 of the law. Yeah, possession is 9/10 of the law, absolutely. So those are some common mistakes that divorcing couples make. Yeah, does everyone need an attorney for a divorce? So as a divorce attorney, I would tell you always need a divorce lawyer even in the happiest of circumstances, right? Everybody agrees we're divorcing. We all agree on all the context. We just want to get divorced. I still think you need a lawyer because one, people forget stuff, right? There are things that you overlook and that can create problems down the road. And also, I think that having an advocate who has experienced doing divorces, most people only get divorced once. Twice maybe if you're lucky, right? But most people only get divorced once and you don't really know what to look for. And a lot of people, especially at the time where my wife has said she wants to leave or my husband is leaving, the first thought is always like, I just want to get it done. I just want to get it done. And in just getting it done, oftentimes you give up something that you don't need to give up or you lose something that you don't need to lose. And so having an attorney who you can consult with, who can protect your interests, who can get all the paperwork together that you need to get, who can file everything with the right clerk that needs to get the paperwork filed on, right? Who can point you to the right room when you go to the courthouse? It shortens that period. So even when you have an amicable split, you should still call an attorney, find out what do I not know? 'Cause the things that you don't know are where you get yourself into trouble. I can't tell you how many times I've had people say, oh, we did this amicably. We worked with a friend of ours who's a lawyer. You know, they do real estate. They helped us draft this agreement. And now we've been divorced for three months and we just realized that we forgot to deal with the house. And this happens. - Oh, wow. So how much can people expect to spend on a divorce? - It's tough, right? Because every divorce is different and every person's lived experience is different. So, you know-- - And their financial-- - And their financial circumstances are different. I would say that, you know, when you come and you hire me, you're probably looking at anywhere from 35 to $5,000 retainer. That's to sort of get started. And we've came up with that number because it gives us a range where we feel like, or I feel like, because I've been doing this for long enough, that within 10 to 15 hours, I should be able to at least have you in a situation where we've got the structure of an outline. The problem is is that I can't control what the other people do, right? So if the other side wants to get bogged down in documents or get bogged down in personal history or throw mud or fight in the dirt, you know, we'll do that too. I'm happy to do it. I don't particularly think that it's always necessary. I don't think that it's really ever necessary. I've done divorces for people for $1,000. I've done divorces for people for $80,000. Here's a very wide range of numbers here. I would tell you that in Worcester, where I am, in Worcester County and really anywhere in the Commonwealth, you shouldn't need to spend a huge amount of money on your divorce. Most divorces, and I may come to regret saying this, but within $10,000 to $15,000, you should be able to be divorced. - Really? - Yeah, I think that if you're-- - 10 to 15,000? - If you call me and you say, look, I own a business, or I've got substance abuse problems or mental abuse issues, or we might need a guardian ad light 'em, 'cause my kids are getting pulled in multiple different directions. That certainly escalates the cost. But if you just call me and you say, my marriage is over, you know, we gotta put my pension in the health insurance, you know, cut a house in half, and that's what most people's divorces are. Most people who we deal with, the majority of your estate is wrapped up in, I've got a pension from work, or a 401K, I own a house, you know, maybe I've got a second home, or a rental property that I bought, or something like that, I inherited something from my dad. But even in that, there's only so many things that can happen. I don't subscribe to that idea that everybody needs to spend $20,000, $30,000 on their divorce. - Now, a wife, in my experience, always wants what the husband brought to the marriage. - Sure. - Can the husband go after what the wife brought to the marriage? - Sure, so Massachusetts is one of these lovely jurisdictions where the marital estate is sort of defined as all of the assets, regardless of when or how they were required. So you get married, and at the time we got married, I owned my own home. That's still a marital asset when you get divorced. It's still part of the equation. Regardless, if you're a husband or wife, I worked for 10 years for the union before we got married, so I was paying into the pension at that time. That one, I would say, it's all part of the marital estate, but certainly what they call the marital coverture period, so the time from you got married until the time you got divorced, that's usually what you're dividing on those retirements. - So maybe a third of the union pension. - Yeah, you're gonna reserve some of whatever you had in when you got married. - That's where the legal bills can really run up, though, when you're arguing. - Horse trading on the assets, right. - You're exactly right, Harry. The two places where people spend the most money are kids and assets, horse trading on the assets. For me, if you wanna pay me $350 an hour to fight over the equity in the house, that's your prerogative. My feeling is paying money to me to fight over assets. It's not necessarily the best use of your resources, but that is where a lot of people get bogged down, because what you're really doing is you're figuring out what the numbers on the ledger are, and then you're trying to balance them as fairly as possible. And some people disagree on what that means. - To put it mildly. - Yes. - How long does the divorce usually take? - In the pre-COVID days, I used to say that, for most, what I would say is a standard divorce, right? You don't own your own business. You don't own multiple properties. You don't have a sizable inheritance or trust fund. Just a regular divorce. We used to get a mandatory court date within six months of filing your divorce. I would use that as sort of a highlight as like, "I want you to, if not be done, "at least have the structure and outline of an agreement "that's gonna end your divorce within six months." - But now we are post-COVID, and of all the courts in Massachusetts, they're not really as hardworking as they used to be, but the probate court stands out. - I would suggest that probate and family court is not the most efficient court in the Commonwealth. - How diplomatically you put it. And so, I still would like to say that most divorces are somewhere in the nine months to 12 months range. Do I think that that may be ambitious in some cases or mainly in a lot of cases? Yes, for sure. I think that if a divorce is handled appropriately, you're not unreasonably delaying things, you're not fighting over things that don't need to be fought over, you should be divorced within a year of filing your divorce. I know that sounds like a long time for people, and it is a long time to go through something, but there are people, and I've had cases wrap up this year that I filed in 2019, so it does happen. - So what are some of the most difficult cases that you've dealt with? - So there's kind of two groups of what are the most difficult, and I mentioned that I take a little bit earlier. The biggest, most difficult, just as a person who has to absorb this and live your end of your relationship, when people talk to you about issues surrounding their children, whether it's abuse of children, which I've dealt with. I've dealt with cases where children are being abused, physically, sexually, emotionally. Those are the worst. No one wants to deal with that stuff. Those cases are very difficult. You get a lot of experts involved. You have multiple different levels of hearings when you're talking about children who have been abused and children who are in a bad place. Substance abuse cases, cases where one parent or both parents, we always sort of say, ones don't marry tents. Like if someone comes in and says their husband's a heroin addict, he probably wasn't doing it alone the whole time. Substance abuse cases are very difficult. Mental health cases are very difficult because it's very sensitive, right? These are sensitive issues. These are very difficult things. These are maybe things you don't want being discussed in open court, your behaviors that you've engaged in. Those are probably the darker side of the difficult cases, when you're dealing with those issues about kids in your personal life. The other side of it, guys who own your own business, you guys are the worst. That is the worst cases to have to deal with. When we're talking about guys, especially like single member LLC, you guys, S-corps, you guys who are, we're filling out specific financial statements, we're working with your accountant, we're working with your investment guys, we're trying to figure out, oh, I own all these rental properties, or I've got this, you know, I own this small restaurant. You guys are the hardest because it requires the most work to figure out what it is that you guys even have, because I got to be honest, most guys that I've met who are running their own business, the books aren't always, you know, in the best order. - I have probably, they think too, I put in the lion's share of the effort to accumulate this money and probably. - I have never met a single person who runs their own business, who has ever told me that their business was anything other than me. Every guy who owns a business says, "Look, without me, there's no business." Is that true? I understand why they feel that way. - Well, without me, there is no business. - Except for this specific business. Except for this one business. Look, your business has value with or without you. - We don't call it the how we call our radio network, we're nothing, Joe. - So do you tell people to speak to a financial expert, or does it, again, does it just depend on the array of your assets? - Yeah, the obvious answer, and I've said to many, many people, you'll never get me to definitively say anything. I wouldn't even tell you that today's Thursday, right? It's more likely than not that today is Thursday. But certainly, I think in a lot of cases, we have experts who we consult with, who we have sort of on the phone if we need them. A lot of people come in with their own guys. So again, these guys who run their own businesses, they have HVAC companies or restaurants. They've got a guy, or they've got an accountant who will definitely consult with if they're maybe not the best, then we have other people. So there are definitely cases we're doing that makes sense. I also think that, and we have real estate experts and lenders because a lot of these cases deal with, are we selling our house? Am I buying you out of the house? Am I gonna have to buy another house? How can I afford that? And so we do have a network of people who we work with, who I work with, because part of what I do is I'm also trying to set you up so that when your divorce ends, you don't ever have to talk to me again. - That's a good plan. I mean, that's very fair. And you can get into hassles when you're trying to sell the property and the spouse will object to the person who you've selected as a real estate agent or tried to select because he or she is closer to you than to the spouse. They're just a million pitfalls. - Yeah, I mean, in divorce cases, I can't tell you the amount of times they've had conversations with other lawyers where we've both looked at each other and said, "All right, these people need a realtor. "The person that I suggest your lady's gonna say no to. "The person you suggest my guy's gonna say no to." So who's the third guy that we're gonna be here because it doesn't matter, right? In a divorce, these people can't agree of today's Monday. They can't agree what day it is. Forget about the list price of our house or when are we gonna do the showings or who's the realtor that we're gonna use. - Is it cheaper to keep her as this old song goes? - I will tell you that I have told some people that that is true, that sometimes it just makes more sense to not get divorced. But usually it's not. I have a thing where I've said to people before 'cause I do a lot of, I've noticed an uptick maybe in divorces between people who are, let's say, 55 to 65, right? In that age group where they come in and they see me and they're like, "Well, my youngest is 24." They just finished their senior year and assumption. And you know, you're just sitting in the couch and you're looking across at your wife and you just think like, "What are we doing here?" Right, we're done, we've won the game. And you know, a hundred years ago, our grandparents or our great-grandparents, they just had the good sense to like, you know, die. And we don't do that anymore, right? We're gonna live to be 80, 90, 100 years old. And so if you're 55 and you're looking at your spouse and you're just thinking like, "I'm just not happy." This is not doing it for me anymore, then you get out. And that's where that idea of like, well, is it cheaper to keep her? It's like, "Well, 30 years a long time to live unhappy." Right? So you know, at that point, I think, yeah, it's gonna be a financial hit and you're not necessarily gonna love, you know, the next 18 months, but you're gonna live it on the 20, 30 years. It's probably better to get out now. - We're talking to Joe Roach from Eden Rafferty and he's a divorce lawyer. We're talking about divorce. So again, give people your telephone number and your email address. - I'm gonna have to look at this because I don't wanna give it wrong again. So I'm at Eden Rafferty. You can tell how often I have to call myself. 508-795-1601, that's our office phone number. My email is jroach, it's the letter J-R-O-C-H-E at Eden Rafferty.com, E-D-E-N-R-A-F-F-E-R-T-Y.com. - More and more people are moving out of Massachusetts for all kinds of reasons. It really doesn't pay to die in Massachusetts, as we all know. You're gonna get taxed through the ceiling if you work for a living. What about getting a divorce in Massachusetts? How should you try to flee before you file? - The geo-geographic cure to my marriage. If you have the freedom of movement, based on certain circumstances, I think that there may be some reason to not get divorced in Massachusetts. I think that the alimony laws in Massachusetts are probably more-- - Onerous. - Yes, onerous is a good word, probably very relatively onerous if you have the alternative of living in Florida or Georgia. And I'm not a lawyer in any of those places, but I've certainly dealt with cases with those-- - And you can refer people. - Certainly, I definitely can help people get in touch with attorneys down south. - Let's talk about child support and the payments. Now, it varies from state to state. What is it in Massachusetts? - So in Massachusetts, you've sort of got a tiered child support obligation. So everybody who has a child support obligation is going to have a child support obligation until their child is 18 years old. At a minimum, okay? - Period. - Period. - Yeah, everywhere. - Yeah, everywhere. - And that, yeah, that's across the board. I don't know of any state that stopped child support before 18. In Massachusetts, if your 18-year-old is still dependent upon the other parent, so the recipient parent, from 18 to 21, you still have a child support obligation. So even if your kid decides, I'm not gonna go to full-time college, I'm not really gonna get a real job. I'm just gonna like bang around at mom's house, play video games. You still have a child support obligation. But if your little cherub has decided to get a four-year college degree, your child support obligation can extend to 23. So you're somewhere in the window of 18 to 20. - So if you get the worst in Massachusetts, you could be on the hook for child support until the age of 23. How about if you were in Florida? - Sure, so they are trying to stay. There are other states in the Union, Florida is one of them, that pretty much has a hard and fast 18 years old and your child support is over. I think some of those states have caveats where if you have a child with special needs, that they could extend beyond 18. But certainly if you're sitting here right now and you've got a house in Northboro and you've got a house in West Palm Beach, you know, maybe you change your permanent residence to West Palm for six months before you decide to get a divorce. - Say five years of child support? - You could make a worse decision than that. - At least child support though, you don't get to write that off. - You don't get to, you don't get to anything off anymore. - Well, Alimony isn't- - Alimony can't be written off? - No, not anymore. Once upon a time, your Alimony payment was tax deductible to you and taxable to the recipient. And then Donald Trump at one point passed a tax law that helped everybody. And by helping everybody what he did is he made your Alimony no longer tax deductible to you or taxable to the recipient. And so now for all intents and purposes, Alimony is the same as child support. You're getting no benefit from paying Alimony. We used to, divorce lawyers used to have guys, we used to, I used to love to have my clients pay Alimony in lieu of child support. Buy a little more Alimony instead of your child support. - So you get the tax benefit off it. You don't get that anymore. - So in Massachusetts, is it automatic that after child support injury have to pay Alimony? - Oh boy, that's a great question. And I think there's probably divorce lawyers all over the Commonwealth listening to that question and going, I don't even know how to answer that anymore. Because recently there's a case that came down that required us to make all these different calculations on how we determine Alimony. Sometimes you can pay Alimony and child support. I have clients who pay both. And yes, I think the primary difference between them is there's a different termination point as to when your child support could terminate, when your Alimony could terminate. - How long does Alimony usually continue after child support? - So your Alimony is, another statute in Massachusetts, when you reach Social Security Retirement Age, for the most part, your Alimony obligation terminates. So that's about the furthest extent that you're gonna end up paying. It's based upon the length of your marriage, how many months you were married and things that get considered like that. But certainly, if you're 68 years old right now, you're probably not paying Alimony. You've probably gotten through the threshold. - But a lot of people aren't 68 years old, that's the thing. Before you have you give out the number one more time, what would you tell people to do if they're thinking about getting a divorce? - Yeah, that's easy, call me, call me. Having a conversation with me is free. I think you can hear like, I love to talk. Listening to myself, talk about divorce is like my favorite thing to do. So I'm happy to talk to anybody about a divorce, whether I end up being able to help you or not. I think talking to lawyers, talking to many lawyers is helpful. You get a lot of different information, a lot of different perspectives on how to do what I do. But if you're thinking about getting a divorce, it doesn't hurt to call. Your wife's not going to find out that you called me. We can have a safe and private conversation and then you decide what you want to do after that. - It's probably better to call Joe Roach than it is to go down to your local tavern and talk to some of the boys. - Everybody's got a buddy who got divorced who can't wait to tell you about what you're entitled to and what's going to happen to her. - How screwed you're going to get. - How screwed you are. And you can definitely listen to that guy, but I promise you, I've done more divorces than he's been in. And so, look, if you're sitting next to a guy at the VFW right now and he's telling you about how screwed you are, probably not the guy that you want to take advice from. You know, no offense to those guys. Those guys should call me too because maybe they had bad advice. - That's some real good, free legal advice and just regular advice. Okay, Joe Roach, this has been very interesting. Joe Roach, he's from Eden Rafferty Law Firm and he's here to help you if you need his assistance in any kind of family matter, specifically divorces. Joe, give us your email address and your phone number. - Absolutely, so you call me at Eden Rafferty. It's 508-795-1601. And my email address is the letter J Roach-R-O-C-H-E at edenrafferty.com. - Thank you, Joe Roach. And I appreciate you coming in today and I hope I won't be calling you anytime soon. - Thanks, Howie. We'll take it personally if we never speak again. (laughs) (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us on Meet the Experts with Howie Car. We'll be back soon with another interesting guest you're sure to learn a great deal from. (upbeat music) (dramatic music) [BLANK_AUDIO]