War Stories: Pressure Points–It’s Not Always Legal Issues

She went off again how dare you file this I'll do your file that but then after she was done ranting she goes my client has agreed that she'll step down [Music] so a couple of years after Stuart and I started the firm I had this case and it was a case that was fairly standard where he had two sisters that didn't get along and that really describes a vast majority of our cases two siblings that don't get along that's nothing abnormal these two sisters unfortunately we're also put in charge of the trust so they both co trustees which the worst thing you can do is put two siblings who don't get along in charge of a trust and yet people do it all the time so okay and so I represented one sister all the property was down where the sister lived in Riverside County and that's where our office was at the time the other sister lived up in Northern California and she had an attorney out of central California somewhere and so there was a number of disputes about who's going to get what property what the valuations are there is disputes about almost everything how to fix up the property how much to spend what to do in fixing up the property anything you can imagine anything you can have a dispute about they had a dispute about so I'm working with this other lawyer and we're trying to find some common ground to see if we can get these two parties to move forward because at the end of the day the properties are going to be sold and they're gonna split the proceeds and they're gonna go their merry way and we'll never have to talk to each other again if they don't want to but the problem I was having is that the other attorney decided that things were gonna be her way so every conversation was kind of like what we're gonna do this this way and that was the end of the story and no matter what I said or if I said well that's not doesn't right quite makes sense to me it's not quite reasonable to me it would just be end of story that's what we're gonna do so it become very difficult and a little combative in the relationship which again that's not completely abnormal because there are times when Believe It or Not attorneys don't get along so this lady decided at some point she was gonna file a petition and so she filed a petition up in central California saying that she wanted to remove my client as trustee well I happen to know that she was only a part-time lawyer she had I don't know some other business like we'll say a vineyard I don't member what it was but it was something and I know that she didn't really want to travel down to Riverside County which is where all the property was it really were it's where the proper venue of the case should have been and was so I figured okay well if you're gonna play hardball then we'll match you and we file a petition down in Riverside but then I took it a step further because I decided well we're going to also do an ex parte petition which is where you go in on short notice and I'm gonna ask that her client be suspended as trustee until we get this removal thing figured out now a lot of times courts won't give you suspension unless you have really good evidence that somebody is just stealing from the trust which I don't know that we had we had some evidence that they weren't getting along and she probably should have been suspended but she wasn't stealing it wasn't one of those cases but what I knew is that I knew that if I set an ex parte hearing and gave her notice on a Thursday the hearing was going to be the next Tuesday and I knew she wasn't the attorney wasn't gonna want to drive down for it and you have to appear in person you can't appear by phone and so I knew that that would put the pressure on her because she wouldn't want to come down here all the way just for an ex parte hearing and so we filed on Thursday we give notice on Thursday Friday morning she calls my office and she is just absolutely pissed off she is mad because of this ex parte filing that we had filed and so she just tears into my assistant which I hate that I hate when people take it out of my assistant because that's not fair but I decided well I'm not gonna call her back I'm gonna let her stew about it over the weekend she can just kind of think about it so then on Monday I call her back hey how's it going you know I understood you called what can I do for you she went off again how dare you file this how did your father that but then after she was done ranting she goes my client has agreed that she'll step down and as long as we can appoint a neutral and your client will step down well point a neutral third party then we can just not have to happen these court filings well that was fine with us we had wanted a neutral all along we had suggested that three or four months back but she refused to do it because of course it wasn't her idea so but now all of a sudden because of this ex parte she goes okay my clients ready to give up and so I said fine I'll draw it up I'll send it up to you we signed it that afternoon took the ex parte hearing off calendar the next day so it's just it was a good lesson in the fact that it's not all about the legal claims or the law sometimes it's about things that are non legal for example just knowing where somebody's kind of weak spot is she didn't want to drive I knew she didn't want to drive she'd been very difficult to deal with so I knew that if I hit her with the ex parte I knew that she there was a good chance she was going to fold and [Music]