Hi, this is Todd Burnham, and today we’re going to talk about bad facts. Everybody has them in a divorce case. Bad facts are blessings. Let me repeat that. Bad facts are blessings because it’s an opportunity for you to be authentic and credible in the court’s eyes. Let’s think about bad facts.
What are bad facts? Bad emails, bad texts, bad criminal history, bad parenting styles, yelling, screaming, anger, neglect. All of those things sound awful. And usually what we want to do is, we want to cover it up and pretend no one hears or no one sees, and if they don’t say anything, then no one is going to find out – until you get into court and there’s rebuttal testimony or rebuttal exhibits that, on direct, you are asked, “Do you have any anger issues?” And you say, “No, I don’t have any anger issues. I’m perfect.” And then they come up with texts and videos of you yelling and screaming and looking like you’re insane.
Bad facts are lemons, and honesty and ownership are lemonade. And that’s the business that you are in. You are in the business of making lemonade from lemons when you’re dealing with bad facts. You have social media posts. We’re going to talk about that soon.
You put on social media all those party nights that you were out there with your friends. You leave the comments on, and so everybody that was there can also testify, or it can be used later against you that, “Oh, you weren’t intoxicated? Well, everyone said here that you were passed out in the corner of the bar.” These are bad facts.
If you own them, you turn around, you make a bad fact a positive because you own it, and you took remedial actions and steps to improve the quality of your life and those around you by learning from your mistakes. Bad facts are blessings. They’re mistakes. And that’s how we learn overall.
So, if you can own your bad facts, own the mistakes that you’ve made, and you can prove to the court through honesty and through honest disclosure that you’ve learned your lessons, you become much more credible, and your case becomes that much more advantageous. There you go.
Thank you for watching. Make sure you subscribe. And for more information, go to BurnhamLaw.com.