Building a Practice and Making a Difference: Family Law and Advocacy With Olivia St. Clair Long
Olivia St. Clair Long is the Founder and Principal Attorney at O. Long Law, LLC, a family law firm based in Evanston, Illinois, that serves clients in the Chicagoland area. With extensive experience in litigation and a focus on cases involving divorce, custody, domestic violence, and prenuptial agreements, Olivia combines strategic legal advocacy with a practical approach to resolving disputes. Before founding her firm, she worked in both small and large law practices, developing the expertise she brings to her clients today.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [01:36] Olivia St. Clair Long shares how she knew she wanted to be an attorney
- [05:15] Why Olivia chooses to focus on domestic violence cases
- [08:06] Understanding the emotional complexities in family law
- [10:33] Common misconceptions about divorce and family law
- [12:34] Advice for minimizing conflict in child custody cases
- [13:45] Why litigation is the last resort in family law
- [16:19] Non-legal advice for those facing domestic violence
- [17:17] Challenges Olivia faced when starting her own firm
- [20:28] How Olivia fosters a collaborative and authentic firm culture
- [22:49] Why marketing and networking are essential for lawyers
In this episode…
Family law often carries the weight of high emotions, complex disputes, and life-altering decisions. How does a skilled advocate manage these challenges while building a thriving practice and making a meaningful impact?
According to Olivia St. Clair Long, a family law attorney, the key to success lies in understanding that litigation is a last resort. She emphasizes the importance of conflict resolution through negotiation and mediation, which can save clients both time and money while minimizing emotional stress. Olivia highlights that the emotional stakes in family law, particularly in cases involving children, require a delicate balance between compassion and pragmatism. She underscores that educating clients about the long-term impact of their decisions and keeping their focus on financial and emotional stability can pave the way for better outcomes.
In this episode of 15 Minutes, Chad Franzen sits down with Olivia St. Clair Long, Founder and Principal Attorney at O. Long Law, LLC, to discuss the nuances of family law and building a practice rooted in advocacy and empathy. They explore Olivia’s journey from commercial litigation to family law, her approach to resolving emotionally charged cases, and how she stays grounded while advocating for her clients. Olivia also shares advice for aspiring lawyers and insights on creating a strong firm culture.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Quotable Moments
- “The thing I can give the world is this: I’m really good at advocating for other people.”
- “I have a strange hidden talent where the more emotional someone else gets, the less emotional I get.”
- “Litigation is a process that exists to show you why you ought to do other stuff than litigate.”
- “One of the features of abusive relationships is isolation. So you need people.”
- “If you’re not cool with that, if that’s like too confrontational for you, we need to know.”
Action Steps
- Enhance communication skills: Effective communication helps in advocating zealously for clients and managing complex emotions during cases, thus enhancing client trust and case outcomes.
- Develop a strong marketing strategy: By understanding and implementing strategic marketing, lawyers can attract the right clientele and grow their business.
- Prioritize client and case management: By keeping a clear focus on clients’ financial security and strategically litigating only when necessary, lawyers can achieve more favorable results and maintain client satisfaction.
- Invest in continuous learning and development: Continuous learning helps lawyers adapt to evolving legal landscapes and manage their practices effectively, ensuring long-term success in their careers.
- Establish and uphold core values in your practice: By instilling values such as authenticity and collaboration, lawyers can foster a supportive environment that attracts and retains talented staff, ultimately enhancing the firm’s reputation and success.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Gladiator Law Marketing, where we deliver tailor-made services to help you accomplish your objectives and maximize your growth potential.
To have a successful marketing campaign and make sure you’re getting the best ROI, your firm needs to have a better website and better content. At Gladiator Law Marketing, we use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and decades of experience to outperform the competition.
To learn more, go to gladiatorlawmarketing.com or schedule a free marketing consultation. You can also send Adam an email.
Episode Transcript
Intro 00:01
You’re listening to 15 Minutes, where we feature community leaders sharing what the rest of us should know, but likely don’t.
Chad Franzen 00:13
Hi, Chad Franzen here, one of the hosts of Share Your Voice, where we talk with top notch law firms and lawyers about what it takes to grow a successful law practice. This episode is brought to you by Gladiator Law Marketing, delivering tailor made services to help you accomplish your objectives and maximize your growth potential. To have a successful marketing campaign and make sure you’re getting the best ROI, your firm needs to have a better website and better content. Gladiator Law Marketing uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, and decades of experience to outperform the competition. To learn more, go to gladiatorawmarketing.com where you can schedule a free marketing consultation. Olivia St. Clair Long founded O. Long Law to provide clients with the necessary tools and support for making informed decisions in family law disputes. Drawing on her extensive litigation experience and a straightforward approach to safeguard families known for giving clear answers and innovative legal strategies. She adeptly handles cases involving divorce, domestic violence and custody. Always prepared to zealously advocate for her clients and their financial security. Outside of her professional life, Olivia has a rich personal life involving music, community service, and family. Residing in Evanston with her wife, kid, pets, and enjoying traveling to watch her stepsons karate competition. Olivia, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?
Olivia St. Clair Long 01:28
I’m very well. Thank you so much, Chad. It’s my pleasure to join you.
Chad Franzen 01:31
Hey, tell me, how and when did you know that you wanted to become an attorney?
Olivia St. Clair Long 01:36
Oh, yeah. I don’t even remember, to be honest. I used to want to be a performer when I was a young child and a and a teenager, and I started doing classical music and singing when I was like, five. And I went to performing arts high school in Southern California, where I’m from. And my performing arts high school was full of people who were like working actors and performers in the LA film industry.And and several of them are on Broadway now. A couple of them have won Tonys recently. And that experience showed me that I am pretty good. And that’s not good enough to do that as a career, which was a good thing to learn at 17, because then you can pivot. And I was always real good in school. I’m very good at tests, so that helps. But I think that the thing that I’m giving the world is not necessarily music and artistry. The thing I can give the world is this I’m really good at advocating for other people.
Chad Franzen 02:25
What makes you good at it? Like, what skills would you say that you have that maybe other people don’t have quite as well?
Olivia St. Clair Long 02:31
Yeah, I think that the things that set me apart are well, first, I’m very good at reading and writing and manipulating language in a persuasive way. So that’s litigation skills on paper, right? But I also think that there’s something about the way that I become passionate on other people’s behalf that is straightforward, persuasive and understandable to the folks that hear me speak. And I don’t have a problem asking for things up to and including money or things that make other people feel uncomfortable, which is sort of part of it.
Chad Franzen 03:00
Have you always been like that?
Olivia St. Clair Long 03:02
Yes. I always say when they when they say to a little eight year old girl, you should be a lawyer, it is not necessarily a compliment.
Chad Franzen 03:10
So how did you always.
Olivia St. Clair Long 03:12
I always took it as one, to be honest. I always thought that was like, oh, I have a great personality. This is awesome.
Chad Franzen 03:17
Very nice, very nice. So. So how did your journey into the industry begin?
Olivia St. Clair Long 03:23
Sure. So my first job in a law firm, I was 16. My mom does. My mom used to be a domestic violence social worker, and from there she started her own private practice as a therapist where she did work. That is court appointed by its nature. So it’s basically the the mental health half of family law. And so when I said I wanted to be a lawyer and I needed a job, she knew a lot of family law attorneys. So I started as a legal assistant at 16 years old and a one person family law shop. And then after about a year that that woman kindly, my mom’s friend said, hey, so you’re going to need more experience and varied experience. If you’re going to go to law school, you shouldn’t just be doing this. And many family law lawyers will caution you not to practice family law for all sorts of reasons. But basically, she walked me down the hall to a different in an office park to a different person’s law firm. And he had he had a patent practice and said, hey, so you work for TJ now. And so I worked for TJ from like 17 to 19 and moved him from a one guy shop to when he merged with two other attorneys and created the beginning of what became a 40 person law firm long after I left. But, you know, until I went to college, you know, in a different state, I transferred after my first year I worked for him, I came back, I went to law school. One of my previous high school teachers started a law firm as an estate planning attorney. Worked for him after my one L year. So I have a rich history of working for like one, two, three person small law firms. And my mom obviously had a small professional services law firm, but then went to the University of Chicago. I went to Sidley Austin. In my summer, I started doing big league commercial litigation at massive law firms, and I did that for about six years until I realized I liked Little Law and I wanted to do that.
Chad Franzen 05:02
So you have you have a lot of experience in, you know, in different, different fields of law, not just not just family law. Was it your mom’s? You know, experience with domestic violence? What was it that made family law attractive to you?
Olivia St. Clair Long 05:15
Sure. You know, I always joke and say the market made me a family law attorney because I was a commercial litigator for six years out of law school, and I thought that that’s what I was going to continue to be when I went out on my own. But I had one client when I went out on my own, and she had a very complicated family situation that had both law division and commercial litigation aspects and domestic violence aspects. And so I was handling all of those for her, because throughout the course of my time as a commercial litigator, I was doing noncompete, enforcing non-compete. So that is on an emergency basis, going down and getting a temporary restraining order and a preliminary Injunction to stop something that is an emergency unfolding for a business. And procedurally, that is identical to a domestic violence order of protection. Which I knew because of my mom’s work. And so I like, set up a pro bono, you know. Partnership with the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic and basically took all my. Pro Green Beret skills and put them to use in the domestic violence sphere. Which is why my friend came to me, which is why I had a client to go out with. And so all of our fancy friends, because she is a commercial litigator too. Thought of me as a family law lawyer because it was a real messy family law issue she had, and because they didn’t know any family law attorneys, as many fancy lawyers do not. They started sending me people and it wasn’t crazy that I was doing it, obviously, with all this history in my far past, but also because, you know, the law changed completely in 2017, in Illinois. So that’s the year I went out. Nobody else knew any better than I did. So, you know, and I have good litigation skills, so I figured I could do it and I did.
Chad Franzen 06:47
So when you when you branched out on your own, what was your did you have like a vision for what your firm would be? Was it would it be family law, or were you just going to represent clients that came to you?
Olivia St. Clair Long 06:58
You know, I it took about three years before I started realizing this is a family law firm. At the beginning, I really thought of myself as somebody who represented businesses, families and family businesses. Right? And so when a family business breaks up, sometimes it’s because of a divorce and sometimes it’s because of something else. And I litigated closely held corporations and the breaches of fiduciary duty. So I thought that’s what I was going to do. But the the marketing of that and the way that you market it was opaque to me. I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do. And I have a lot of mentors. I could have figured it out. But as I was trying to figure out, I had just like dropping into my lap family law cases that were large enough to sustain me and in fact, to hire people. So that’s why I say the market made it, because after about three years, I’m like, what am I doing? Obviously, this is what I’m supposed to do because all of the all of the business that’s coming to me is this. And I like it and I’m good at it. So like, why, what are we doing?
Chad Franzen 07:51
So I’m sure, you know, not being an attorney, I’m guessing all cases are complex and nuanced or whatever, but family law, not only is it complex and nuanced, it can also be maybe more emotional than business law.
Olivia St. Clair Long 08:06
In some ways. Yeah. You know, I always say that I actually understand why family law is emotional to a very visceral degree, obviously. Right. We all love our kids. We all have that. We’re talking about people’s entire life’s worth of earnings that they’re splitting. It’s a very anxiety producing experience. I understand why they’re emotional and they get out of pocket sometimes. I did not understand why people who have a litigation budget, who are repeat actors in general, counsels of companies, are screaming at me about anything.
Chad Franzen 08:32
Okay.
Olivia St. Clair Long 08:33
And that happened in commercial litigation, and I could not understand the emotional reactions of those people. That made no sense to me. And therefore it was very insulting in this field. I understand that you’re going to have a couple of bad days when you’re going through this.
Chad Franzen 08:45
So you haven’t found it to be that much more emotional?
Olivia St. Clair Long 08:49
No I haven’t. I feel that the bounded rationality in both cases is absolutely there. People make decisions with emotions rather than facts all the time. They do it in business contexts as much as they do it in personal contexts. I don’t frequent the thing I didn’t have in the business context. Number one is kids. That’s a huge difference. And people doing things that are manifestly bad for kids, that’s hard for people to see if they’re if you don’t have stomach for it. That’s not a good thing about family law. And then the second thing is I didn’t have the hate. You can dislike someone in business. You could be mad at an employee who left, but I usually didn’t see actual visceral hatred. So there is that.
Chad Franzen 09:29
So. So how do you kind of not while wanting to advocate for your client the best that you possibly can not get swept up in maybe their personal emotion?
Olivia St. Clair Long 09:40
Yeah. I have a strange hidden talent where the more emotional someone else gets, the less emotional I get. So that’s very useful in this field. I also have to keep my eyes on their money so that they don’t give away the store, because that happens a lot, right? They they’re basically like, I don’t care what happens as long as this esoteric goal is met. And I always tell my clients the same thing. I say, well, my job is to make sure that your bottom line still is good for you in three years when you’re not mad anymore. Like, it’s my job to keep reminding you, hey, we could do this the expensive way, but it is very expensive. And here are some other ways we could do it. Sometimes you do have to do it the expensive way, but if you constantly make people incredibly aware of the price of fighting, you can get them to stop fighting in many cases.
Chad Franzen 10:25
Are there any common misconceptions or misguided expectations people have when they come to you?
Olivia St. Clair Long 10:33
Oh my gosh, yeah, there are tons. There is so much cultural bad knowledge about divorce. It’s unbelievable. People come to me and ask me what the effect of being in a community property state will be. We’re not in one. Illinois is not a community property and not at the beginning. Like I had a client ask me that after representing him for a year because his his wife was telling him a bunch of nonsense and he was believing hook, line and sinker. And he’s like, well, what about the community property? I’m like, not a thing in this state. So there’s that. There is the part. The most common misconception is the one in which people believe that the way a divorce goes is that you decide you’re going to get divorced, and then both of you, in short order, get in front of a judge who begins to know your case intimately and then tells you that your ex is wrong and you’re right, and then gives you things, and then you get divorced. That’s not a thing. Every one of our judges in Cook County has 3000 cases on their caseload. They would love nothing more than to have your lawyers help you negotiate this, send you to a mediator, make you understand that you have to come to an agreement. Go to them just to to stamp the agreement that your lawyers made and explained with you, and then you never go back to court again because any conflict that arises with your kids or whatever, you work it out. That’s a judge’s best case scenario in my county. They do not. They know that what they that what people want is to be validated in their grievance in the marriage and why it ended. And they don’t want to give it to people because they know if they give it to somebody and everybody in the courtroom hears, everybody’s going to be in line to hear what the judge says. Like King Solomon about who did what to whom. We don’t do that.
Chad Franzen 12:06
How do you how do you kind of advise your your clients? You know, a lot of these things are very emotional. Domestic violence is obviously a huge a huge deal. But custody of children, you know, you’ve got you’ve got like real human beings kind of who are helpless at stake here. What kind of advice do you give your clients, you know, beyond just I’m trying to help you, you know, succeed in this case. But to make sure their kids aren’t, you know, too, too damaged for sure.
Olivia St. Clair Long 12:34
I remind them that no matter what the nobility or necessity of the cause, that they’re fighting from their perspective. They always have to remind themselves that the conflict alone, the fact of the conflict, is incredibly damaging to kids. So no matter how you feel that you are fighting for their best interest, you really have to remember that it doesn’t. It’s not always going to be. Even if you were 100% correct that this was their best interest, and you need to fight because the other side is diametrically opposed to the children’s best interest. Even if you were correct, which most people are only partially correct on that. If you were 100% correct, it would still be damaging to fight. So you really have to continue to weigh the difficulty of how the conflict affects your kids. And really, every time you, you, you choose to litigate something or have conflict that gets out of the family’s sphere or even stays in it. Honestly, with your co-parent, the conflict alone is the part that is the problem. No matter how noble the goal is.
Chad Franzen 13:38
I know you have extensive litigation experience. Is is litigation the preferred option or or not so much.
Olivia St. Clair Long 13:45
100%. No. Absolutely not. No. Litigation is litigation is a process that exists to show you why you ought to do other stuff than litigate. Litigation is a worst case scenario in pretty much every. I mean, like the worst case scenario is interpersonal violence. And then litigation is one step above that. So that’s I tell people, you know, there’s diplomacy and there’s war. Which one do you prefer? Right. Litigation is the war option in our in our analogy. Diplomacy is all the other option. Mediation, negotiation time calming down, just not doing some stuff. Letting a whole bunch go that you thought you were entitled to like. These are all things that you can do other than litigate, and many of them are preferable to litigating. Almost all of them are preferable to litigating.
Chad Franzen 14:33
Our clients usually open open to that idea?
Olivia St. Clair Long 14:37
Yeah, everybody. Almost nobody comes to me saying, we’re going to need to litigate the hell out of this thing. Like almost nobody wants to. There are many times in which I inform them that, like the filing of a motion to show that we are serious about this is necessary. I let them know, like, I’m going to control this as best I can. But I’ll give you an example. I had a client who who was paying for every single thing in her partner’s life. 100%. Even though they didn’t live together anymore, and even though they had negotiated the terms of their divorce in November. Okay. And so for January, February, March, April. This. The partner wouldn’t sign the final agreement so that we could move on and get divorced. And she wasn’t getting credit for the fact that she was still paying for everything for the partner. If he had signed it and they had they had gone and gotten the final divorce decree. Then the clock would start ticking on how many more months of her life she has to pay for everything. But until the decree is entered, the clock is ticking. So this is just extra money now that she’s paying right to support somebody else. And so on that one, I filed a motion for a pretrial conference to put it in front of a judge, because the deal was really good for him. The judge would have never given him as much as we gave him, and we needed something to happen. So the guy would sign it and we could move on. So that’s an example of like strategic use of litigation that’s very surgical and not necessarily going to, you know, spin out of control that I, that I try to use for people. I litigate in that way if I can. Because if you do, if you do full bore, actual real litigation, you got to be really on board for how much it costs.
Chad Franzen 16:10
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I bet. So do you have any kind of advice for people who come to you in domestic violence cases beyond just legal advice?
Olivia St. Clair Long 16:19
Yeah, domestic violence cases are obviously very difficult for many, many reasons. The first piece of advice I have for anybody who believes they’re in a domestic violence or coercive control relationship is that you need people. One of the features of abusive relationships is isolation. So you need people. You need to go to the YWCA or a similar, you know, domestic violence organization in your area. Make a safety plan. Talk about how getting out will look. A lot of people come to a lawyer first and I think to myself, okay, but like when you move out and you haven’t, you don’t have a job and you have kids to support, I can file that. He’ll need to pay you child support and maintenance, but it’s going to take months to resolve that. And you’re not going to have checks in the meantime. So how is that going to work? And so trauma of of domestic violence really affects the brain and the ability to do that kind of future planning. And the people in organizations in your area know that and they can assist you.
Chad Franzen 17:11
Let’s talk about a little bit more about founding your own law firm. How did that kind of come about?
Olivia St. Clair Long 17:17
Yeah. You know, I, I had worked in these large law firm environments and even medium law firm environments for six years. By then I had done two years, two years, two years at three very fine law firms that I have nothing bad to say about. I just I didn’t understand very well the way to succeed in those environments, and I am accustomed to succeeding. So if I’m blessed enough to know that when something’s not working, there’s got to be a way. So basically I was like, look, I’m good at this. I know I’m good at this, and I’m not succeeding here. And I should be a rock star by now. Something should be different. And I was blessed enough to have come up in environments that are, you know, single person law firms or 2 or 3 people. So I knew what it looked like and I had been there at admin. Right. So the thing that many people are afraid of going out on their own is that they’re not going to be able to do their admin. They don’t know how to build. You know, they’re not they’re not sure how to work without the major firm infrastructure behind them. I didn’t have that problem. And so because I had this client that I wanted to continue to serve, and because I didn’t feel like there was any way forward in the last law firm I was at, and because my wife was a practicing partner at a law firm at the time, who was supportive of me and paid all the bills while I did this, which is hugely important. I was basically able to say, look, one of my mentors from UChicago, actually one of the first guys I met who was an Orange County resident who went to University of Chicago because I’m from Orange County. He goes, you know what? This is one of the last professions where when it all goes to hell and you don’t want to be here anymore working for these people, you can hang out your shingle and you can make your own life. And I just thought about it and was like, you know what? I’ve seen other people do it. Let me just do it. And you know how it wasn’t how hard can it be? It was like other people do it. I can’t do it.
Chad Franzen 18:57
Sure, sure.
Olivia St. Clair Long 18:58
So I started doing it, and I found out that I really love running a business.
Chad Franzen 19:02
That’s great. Was there anything that was. You know, a lot of people say I was a great lawyer, an expert in law, whatever. But then I had all these eye openers when it came to running my own business. Was there anything like that for you?
Olivia St. Clair Long 19:15
Yeah. I mean, I think that my I’m also lucky in that I like marketing and I always have a lot of people who are lawyers who hang out their shingle. That’s the thing they say they hate. And that’s very incompatible with solo practice. In my in my experience, the thing that I had to get over in not knowing how to run a business was that I was always very insecure about math and insecure about my ability to do numbers and to understand, like the basic financial life of my firm. At this point, I’ve probably spent as much on business consultants, outside CEOs, and and business coaches to learn how to run a business. I’ve spent as much on that as I did on law school, and just like law school, it pays dividends and it will forever. At the point where my like, my proudest moment in the last year is that my bookkeeper, just offhand, was just like, you’re really good at math, you understand this. And I’ve never heard that compliment in my life. I was so thrilled.
Chad Franzen 20:09
Nice.
Olivia St. Clair Long 20:09
But to get it to a point where I can look at a PNL and know where they are, and I know what my revenue is, and I know what’s coming in and out. I know the difference between various accounting terms. That was a huge uphill for me.
Chad Franzen 20:20
That’s great. Do you pay attention to the culture?
Olivia St. Clair Long 20:24
How do I pay attention to what culture?
Chad Franzen 20:26
To like the culture within the firm.
Olivia St. Clair Long 20:28
Oh, yeah. I pay 100%. I pay tons of attention to the culture. We created core values like about three years in four years in that I was really proud of. You know, we say that we value authenticity, enthusiasm, doing the right thing. We’re collaborative and supportive. And then when I hire people, I. I tell them those things and I tell them what they mean to us. I say, for example, authenticity. You know, a lot of people use that word lately. I say, you have to understand that for me, sometimes it’s a euphemism for blunt. That’s how I talk. You got to get that because some people think it’s rude. And if you don’t like it, I don’t want to be offending you every day in the straightforward manner in which I engage, especially with respect to feedback. I don’t like to write things down that are a surprise to someone in their review six months from now. I’d rather talk about it today. And that’s a lot of people say they really like that. You have to actually like it here because that will happen. And so if you’re not cool with that, if that’s like too confrontational for you. We need to know. Right. So that’s one of the things. But the other thing is no mean lawyers. There’s no hierarchy. Secret political hierarchies in law firms are very common in which, like, you can’t ask Donna because Donna is Eric’s assistant and Eric only asks Donna. So if you ask Donna, she’ll tell you yes, because she can’t tell you no, because you’re a litigator and she’s an assistant. But she will never do it. Or she’ll do it wrong to keep you from asking her. Again, we don’t have that.
Chad Franzen 21:50
That’s good. Good. Can you tell me? I just have one more question. But first, just tell me how people can find out more about O. Long Law.
Olivia St. Clair Long 21:57
Sure. So we’re at olonglaw.com. olonglaw.com And we’re based in Evanston, Illinois. We can help anybody in the Chicagoland area. We work in Cook Lake, McHenry, Will and DuPage counties and Kane sometime. And so we are very well equipped to assist everybody in this in this general area. And certainly, you know, the laws vary by state significantly. So we do like to, you know, talk to folks who are in are in Illinois because what we say is relevant to them. And we’re, you know, we’re available whenever you are. And we’re happy right now, especially during wedding season, to be giving people advice regarding prenups.
Chad Franzen 22:33
Okay. Very nice, very nice. Hey, last question for you. Let’s say somebody you knew decided that, you know, being an attorney is going to be my thing. And I’m interested in family law. What what would you tell them that they would only learn by kind of having your experience. And probably they didn’t find out in law school.
Olivia St. Clair Long 22:49
Yeah, I think I would tell them, number one, you got to be okay. Marketing. You have to understand that marketing is a huge part of your job. And so if you’re a person who is not comfortable getting in front of people, talking to people, etc., you’ve got to find someone who is and work with them. The other thing is family law. A lot of people act like being excellent is a unreachable goal or a stupid task, that it’s somehow a waste of time for this type of law. For people to be excellent, follow the rules. Apply regular civil litigation principles, etc.. I don’t think so. I think that being excellent is not a waste of time in this field at all. That you can be thorough without being wasteful, and that you can really, really bring a little more clarity and closure to folks if things are not as not as soft and ruthless as they can sometimes be in family law, like in family law, sometimes the judges are like, why can’t you just work it out? And it’s like, can we call a witness? Like, can I just have the hearing and like, have an answer one way or another? So a little bit of a little bit of like litigation backbone actually does I think help to reinforce and close people’s cases faster.
Chad Franzen 23:57
Okay. That’s great. Great stuff. Hey, Olivia, it’s been great to talk to you. Thank you so much for all of your insights, your stories and your time. Really appreciate it.
Olivia St. Clair Long 24:05
Likewise, Chad. Thank you so much.
Chad Franzen 24:07
So long everybody.
Outro 24:08
Thanks for listening to 15 Minutes. Be sure to subscribe and we’ll see you next time.
