Co-Parenting During the Holidays
‘Tis the Season... for Co-Parenting Conflict!
No parent wants to deal with emergency motion handling orders or duty judges on the holidays, but it happens. Stress can be high and the holidays – any holiday – can become a ripe place to pick a fight. So how do you avoid conflict to make the holidays still a special time for the kids?
The key is to do everything you can to avoid problems. Often, that means getting your ego out of the way so that you and your ex can make it about the kids. Avoid exchanges on travel days. Try to not split actual holidays, but if you have to, think about the activities of the day and plan accordingly. (In other words, if you’re splitting Christmas, do it in the afternoon so they can enjoy Christmas morning.) And do what you can to avoid escalation – perhaps you need to stay away from the eggnog until after you’ve dropped the kids off.
What about gifts? The kids were used to getting gifts from both parents. You don’t have to stop co-gifting just because you’re divorced. It may be what your child needs to feel safe around the holiday.
Seth and Pete offer lots of great advice. Tune in, and have yourself a happy and safe holiday season.
Links & Notes
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
-
Pete Wright:
Welcome to How To Split A Toaster, a Divorce Podcast about saving your relationships from True Story FM. Today, sometimes you're a toaster, sometimes you are the co-toaster.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to show everybody, I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Happy holidays, Seth Nelson.
Seth Nelson:
Happy holidays.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, feeling good. Feeling good.
Seth Nelson:
Let me tell you my favorite thing about the holidays.
Pete Wright:
Tell me.
Seth Nelson:
When I get emergency phone calls on Christmas Eve. Love those.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Who's the one who's usually calling you on Christmas Eve? Those emergency calls?
Seth Nelson:
It's always parents.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Arguing about pick up, drop off, what's going on? And first off, it's not going to be emergency by the court.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, because the court is, they're in port of [inaudible 00:01:09] if they're having an actual holiday.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. Now, you might not know this about the court system, but there is something called a duty judge.
Pete Wright:
That's like an RA on duty over the holidays?
Seth Nelson:
You got it.
Pete Wright:
The one who keeps the heat running?
Seth Nelson:
There's always a judge on duty.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
And that will be for search warrants, it will be for emergency motions that are filed. There's always a duty judge. And so what will happen is on Christmas Eve, someone will call somebody about something and some lawyer will file an emergency motion, which in Hillsborough County will be met with what's called an emergency motion handling order, which is the the duty judge saying, is this an emergency? If so, I'm going to deal with it right now and I'm going to do an order. Or is it not an emergency and just set it in the normal course of business. We've talked about this. Get with your regular assigned judge, get some hearing dates, clear the hearing dates with opposing counsel. Go on and on and on. And it goes from there. But let's say it's Christmas Eve and you get a lawyer on the phone and he files an emergency motion and the judge grants it.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
You got a piece of paper saying that you're right. You're supposed to go get the kids. Unless in that order it says the sheriff is supposed to go with you. I don't think it's going to matter much.
Pete Wright:
So you're standing on the front lawn with this piece of paper and no support, most likely.
Seth Nelson:
Right. Dodging the reindeers.
Pete Wright:
So this seems like a recipe, first of all, for a nightmare situation, which to me, sounds like the holidays are already a ripe place to pick a fight. I mean, that's the stereotype, right? We're already going to fight because families are coming together over the holidays trying to figure stuff out and they're not even divorcing one another. So now you have to figure out how to co-parent and are likely going to not get the support you may feel you deserve or merit from the court. So just to be really clear, I don't know what I'm talking about, but you both are obviously in the system and you have co-parented during the holidays, after a divorce. So I need you to tell me the basics, now that we've set the table with all of the nonsense that could happen with the court, which all I'm thinking about right now is Judge Harry Stone from the most famous courtroom I ever knew.
Seth Nelson:
Night Court.
Pete Wright:
Night Court. There you go.
Seth Nelson:
I love that show, right?
Pete Wright:
Yep. Yep. And what are you going to do to make good co-parenting decisions that support the kids, support the family in the state that it is as it's splitting up? Where do you start to get your head right around this stuff?
Seth Nelson:
Well, the first thing I would suggest is, tell you what not to do as opposed to telling you what to do. In my not to do column is to prevent problems. And so when you're working on a parenting plan, do not have an exchange day on the same day that you're traveling.
Pete Wright:
Oh, okay. All right.
Seth Nelson:
And what I mean by that is we all know the busiest traveling day of the year is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
So if I have Thanksgiving this year, one way to do that is to say, I get the children at 9:00 AM on Thanksgiving morning. Makes it a little hard to catch my one o'clock flight if the other parent's late or doesn't have the kids ready or there's a problem with the exchange. So try your best not to exchange the children on a day that you're traveling. So how do you prevent that? When you do a parenting plan, you can define by agreement, when the holiday starts and stops. Because we have Thanksgiving break, but then we have Thanksgiving day. So we just say for Thanksgiving break, the regular schedule shall control until Tuesday at 6:00 PM. And at Tuesday at 6:00 PM dad gets the children for the remainder of Thanksgiving break in odd number of years and the mom gets in even number of years. And this is just my hypothetical.
So why do I do it Tuesday at 6:00 PM? Because then, you have the option to travel on Wednesday. Because it's fun doing that, the busiest travel day of the year. But at least you're picking up the children the night before. You're packing them, you're getting them ready, you're making sure they have everything they need. If you get them at six and you realize at eight that they forgot their blanket at dad's or at mom's you can solve that problem by going to get the blanket.
Pete Wright:
You have a window.
Seth Nelson:
You do that exchange nine o'clock and you've got a one o'clock flight and you're on the way to the airport and you forgot the blanket, that blanket's not coming with you.
Pete Wright:
Right. Right. But a lot of drama.
Seth Nelson:
A lot of drama with a kid screaming in the back.
Pete Wright:
In the back. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Right. I don't know, I'm going to speak globally, but it's not fair, I'm sure, but a lot of kids have the whole week off of Thanksgiving. Is there any sense of just saying when vacation starts, you pick a place?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. So what happens a lot is there's different ways to divide up holidays. And we had that whole podcast that we did about just holidays, but just as refresher for people. You can divide the whole break. You can just say mom gets even years of the entire break, dad gets odd years and it just flips back and forth and this would happen a lot. Or you can divide, "Hey, let's keep the regular schedule for a certain amount of the holiday break," like I just described in my hypothetical. "But then we're going to define it the rest of the way." Or take winter break and we're going to talk about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So mom gets the first half in odd number years, dad gets the first half in even number years and the other parent gets the other half, but they want to split Christmas Day.
A lot of families want to do this. I try to prevent problems. So I'm always telling people you want your kid to enjoy Christmas and not go back and forth. So I advise not to do it because it opens the door for conflict on Christmas day. Now remember, if you are in town and you want to do it, you can always do it even if the parenting plan says otherwise. But a lot of people say, "No, I want to see my kid on Christmas Day." So here's my suggestion on Christmas day.
First off, whoever has Christmas Eve is obviously going to have Christmas morning, but do the exchange in the afternoon around two o'clock because you don't want your kid waking up, opening up their gifts and then having to leave at 10:00 AM. They don't get to enjoy Christmas morning and sitting around in the funny pajamas that we all get and playing with their new toys. So then the parent that gets them at two o'clock keeps them overnight till the next day at two o'clock. Or they just keep them for the remainder of the holiday. But remember, whoever gets the first half will have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, whoever gets the second half of winter break is going to have New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Pete Wright:
Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, you get a holiday hopscotch.
Seth Nelson:
So you get a little holiday, right? It's a little exchange.
Pete Wright:
It brings up the question of, we're looking for reasons where escalation might occur. It seems to bring up things around specific familial ceremonies and meal time that tends to be very important for folks. And generally, are you doing a Christmas Eve dinner or Christmas morning or Christmas Day, afternoon, early dinner? How that happens. If there's a reason to fight, it's going to be, "You brought me my kid full and they're not participating in our mealtime tradition."
Seth Nelson:
Happens all the time. And that's one of the reasons why you don't split the day because your kid has to sit nicely at the table twice, not just once, and they're not eating at one or they eat too much and now their stomach hurts. There's all these problems that arise. Not to mention that in the middle of the day, they're having fun with their cousins, and then they got to leave and remember, nobody cares. The court doesn't care. The lawyers shouldn't care if you decide to do this anyway, even though your parenting plan says you have the full day. So you can always make agreements, be flexible with the plan. So that's just where my default is.
I know a lot of parents want to see the kids on Christmas Day. So when you're doing that, my suggestion is make it later in the day. Have the parent coming to get the child, beginning their time sharing, do the pickup because you're going to be on time. The other parent might not be, right? If someone's drinking like, "Hey, you're not going to drink when you go pick up your kid." But if you're the one dropping off and everyone's having eggnog in the morning and they're going to participate, that could be a problem. So you want to be the one doing the driving.
Pete, we're talking about the holidays on this show.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, we are.
Seth Nelson:
One of the things, stressful time we're saying, "Hey, be calm, focus on your kid." But it is ripe, ripe, ripe, ripe. For people to drink in excess and drink when they should not be drinking. So you really just need to be careful. You really need to be self aware of what's going on around you and what are your responsibilities when you have those kids.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
It's going to be New Year's Eve fireworks. We don't want to be drinking when we're playing with sparklers. There's all sorts of stuff going on. The nice fire is toasting marshmallows on Christmas Eve potentially, and making s'mores, there's all this stuff going on. You've got to be careful when it comes to alcohol.
Pete Wright:
And one of the best ways to do that is, and to help deescalate potentially difficult situations, is to have the data and to know that you have a resource that's going to help you understand both your relationship with alcohol if you need it, and the relationship of your co-parent if you need to know that too. And one of those fantastic resources that is a great friend of the show is Soberlink. Soberlink is a device, it's a breathalyzer device. It has facial recognition on it. If you're dealing with alcohol, if you're collecting data about alcohol use for you or your co-parent, you blow into that device. It sends real time data about whether or not you are sober. Sober enough to drive your kids, sober enough to be around your kids, sober enough to live the life that you want to live in the context of your divorce. That's Soberlink. And they're a huge help. Seth, you use it with your clients?
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. And here's the deal, you're going to say, "It's the holidays, I want to have a drink, I'm with my kid." That's fine. But what you're going to get accused of is drinking to excess and your kids aren't safe. And so then what happens is, you're going to get a motion and you're going to get in front of a judge and there's going to be all these witnesses they're going to call, and you're going to have to pay your lawyer all this sort of money to defend you, to prove a he said, she said, or what did you do or not do? And it goes down to credibility. And sometimes the judge won't believe you, not because you're not telling the truth, just because the way you say something didn't sound truthful, even though you're saying the truth. So there's a lot that happens in a courtroom that shouldn't, judges make mistakes, they get it wrong sometimes.
So how do you just get that all out of the way? You have independent third party real time verification that says, I wasn't drinking. Judge, you can line up as many people as they want. They can bring all these witnesses. But I've got an independent verification with my face showing that I blew into a breathalyzer on Christmas Eve at nine o'clock and I had not had anything to drink. And you're done.
Pete Wright:
And you're done. Whether you are falsely accused of alcohol use or are concerned about your child's safety because of your co-parents alcohol use, Soberlink's right there, working hard to keep kids safe. This is remote alcohol monitoring system. It is the gold standard because of their great technology. Don't miss Soberlink's free guide for this holiday season. You can request it today at soberlink.com/toaster. That's soberlink.com/toaster. Thanks to the Soberlink team for sponsoring this show.
Gifts. Co-parenting ideas around sane gift giving.
Seth Nelson:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
How'd you handle this?
Seth Nelson:
So, let's start what happens when you're married? Kids are little. Who do they get gifts from? Santa and mom and dad. Why does gifts from mom and dad have to stop just because you're divorced? They don't. But parents rarely do that. It's now a gift from mom and at dad's, it's a gift from dad, but sometimes it's nice to have a gift from both parents.
Pete Wright:
Got it. A gift from both parents.
Seth Nelson:
It's a joint gift. And there should be a joint gift from mom and dad that's at mom's house. And there could be a joint gift from mom and dad at dad's house. And so some pre-planning and communication helps. By way of example, if you're getting a bicycle, you're going to want the kid to ride the bicycle at both houses. Why not get the same bike? And then it's not a bike from mom or a bike from dad. These two bikes are from mom and dad because kids learn to ride a bike. So it doesn't have to be a bike. I'm just saying by way of example, there can be small gifts at each house from mom and dad because that's the way that you show your kid, you both love her. You both love your kid. You're both giving them a gift just as if you were if you were married, because to that kid, you're still the parents. It doesn't matter that you're not married.
Pete Wright:
Well, and if we ask the question specifically around escalation and deescalation, that isn't the trope that you're buying attention by separating the gifts. Mom buys a bunch of gifts, dad buys a bunch of gifts we're looking for. There's some sort of unconscious team upsmanship.
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. Happens all the time. And also, there's usually an imbalance of wealth after a divorce, someone's receiving alimony and people are annoyed that they're paying the alimony check. Or you get your child support check. But a little pre-planning and saying, look, Christmas is coming up. I would like to have some sort of level of gift giving that we can agree upon. Or if you're going to be giving a larger gift, it would be nice if you could put my name on that gift too, even if maybe I don't give 50% of the gift. And it's not about the money, it's about that you are focused on your kid. So if I want to give my kid a big gift, let's say they're in middle school and they've been dying for that phone and they're going to get the new iPhone, what's wrong with putting mom's name on that gift? Nothing. Your kid still gets it. Now if you're looking for the credit, because you want to control that phone and have the power, then get your ego out of the way. Let's focus on the kid.
Pete Wright:
Well, and that gets to, again, opportunities to deescalate. Usually start with ego.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Like you say, getting it out of the way. I like the bike discussion because if you have the means and the resources to have a bike at both places, that solves a very practical challenge too, which is just, we don't want to lug a bike back and forth.
Seth Nelson:
They won't get taken back and forth. One parent's going to keep the bike and the kid goes without bike riding for a week.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Doesn't sound like fun.
Pete Wright:
No, doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Especially in the months right after Christmas when the bike is still new.
Seth Nelson:
That's right?
Pete Wright:
All right. We've been talking presumptively around Thanksgiving and Christmas, but other holiday structures to consider, Hanukkah. That seems to be more complicated to me.
Seth Nelson:
Why? Because there's eight days. It just...
Pete Wright:
There's so many days, man. The only benefit is they're even, I guess, but-
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. Which way do you light the candles on the menorah? It's confusing. Okay.
Pete Wright:
So I'm very confused by that.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. So here's the deal. It's not that Hanukkah in and of itself is difficult because typically in the Jewish religion, the first night is the most important or the second night, and we have these things laid out. And those are just traditions, not real religious saying that one day in Hanukah is more important than the other. The real problem comes when-
Pete Wright:
I just hearing you say we have it laid out. We of the Jewish faith like you're on the board and you just figured it out.
Seth Nelson:
I'm going to speak for all of Judaism here.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, would you speak for all of Judaism, please?
Seth Nelson:
But I'm only going to do it in Yiddish and Hebrew so no one can understand. Okay.
Pete Wright:
If you understand, you who you are.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. And you know that I'll be wrong on what I'm saying. So the problem is when these holidays overlap, first night of Hanukkah happens to be Christmas Eve. So the way you try to really do that in your parenting plan is to understand that, look, what do we do if there's a conflict? Which holiday will prevail on which year? And don't just start arguing about this when you're doing a parenting plan about the what ifs. Because you can Google and say how often in the next 10 years will Hanukkah and Christmas overlap because people will argue about it. And then I'll look on the calendar and I said, "It happens once and your kid will be 17." Do we really care?
Pete Wright:
Right. Right.
Seth Nelson:
So you want to avoid these issues because settling a case as hard enough as it is, it's even harder when you're dealing with what ifs. So always define what you're arguing about. Now, here's the bottom line. Kids don't care. They don't care what day they get gifts. Okay? You can do third night of Hanukkah and treat it like it's first night of Hanukkah. The kid will be just as happy. Now, I'll share a story about Kai.
Pete Wright:
Kai, your son?
Seth Nelson:
My son.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
When he was little, four or five years old, I think about four. And just the way the schedule worked, he was going to be at his mom's for the first five nights of Hanukkah for whatever reason. And he comes and he is talking to me and he goes, "Dad, do you know what's happening on Hanukkah?" I said, "Yeah, we're going to light menorah's. We sing songs, we have family dinners, we make [foreign language 00:20:09]." He's like, "No, I'm at mom's for the first five nights. So when I come to you on the sixth night, am I getting the sixth gifts? Because I didn't get the five gifts for the days I was at mom." I'm like, "Nope, that's not how it works." There's eight nights of Hanukkah, not 16 nights of Hanukkah.
Pete Wright:
Right, exactly.
Seth Nelson:
I said, but I do appreciate the math.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. The math and the intention. He is your son after all.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly.
Pete Wright:
Tell me you wouldn't have made the same-
Seth Nelson:
I would've made the same argument. Yeah. No. Here's the deal though. The point I'm raising here is don't over gift. Right? Don't over gift. And having these communications is really important. So if you can communicate about what kind of stuff you're getting and "Hey, what am I giving? What are you giving? We don't want to load the kid up with all the clothes at both houses because we didn't communicate, but got no video games and we don't want to give all video games and no something else." So a little communication goes a long ways. And I would even extend that to the grandparents and other people buying your kids' gift. Like, "Hey, we got the bite covered this year," or whatever. So this always comes back to communication. It comes back to thinking this stuff through. It comes back to being proactive in trying to deal with this stuff on the front end, not the back end and go from there.
Pete Wright:
That message is really important. The idea that you have as co-parents, an opportunity to set expectations in advance, even with your young children. You can make a story that actually is believable and loving and heartwarming, that helps them navigate complicated holiday splits too.
Seth Nelson:
But to your point, there's other holidays. There's spring break, there's birthdays, Easter, Passover, there's all sorts of different holidays. All these same suggestions that I'm giving all apply. For example, Mother's Day. We don't really necessarily think of that as a holiday, it's on a Sunday. But what happens there is I would do the exchange on Saturday night at six o'clock and then you drop the kid off at school on the following Monday. Why do I do that? Because if it's dad's weekend and mom has Mother's Day from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, hey, the problem there is you're going to see your ex spouse twice on that day and your kid doesn't get to get up early, make your bed breakfast and bread and give you a trinket.
But when we talk about conflicts, June is when Father's Day is, June's in the summer months, you got to make sure that your parenting plan says that Mom can't pick that weekend of Father's Day as one of her travel weekends, because now there's a conflict. Mom gets to pick travel in odd number years, but she picks Father's Day. But Father's Day is obviously going with dad. And I know we're right in the current holiday season with Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah and New Years, so we want to give some pointers there.
Pete Wright:
The message is the same, right? Because all of these problems are more easily solved and more easily deescalated when you're able to look at the calendar ego free and say, ""What is the solution here that offers the most love for the kid and gives the kid the most opportunity to share love with the parent, as appropriate?"
Seth Nelson:
Which is spending quality time with you. And that's my point about going back and forth. Now look, I've done thousands of parenting plans where they split Christmas and I just say, "Hey, just think about this. Is this more for you or is it for your kid?" And I appreciate that it could be for you and that is okay. I'm not saying that it's not okay that you want to spend Christmas with your kid, but let's do it without conflict.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah. Any other tips? Hot tips. Hot, hot tips. Things you absolutely should not do as you go into the holiday season as a co-parent? Don't call your lawyer the night on Christmas Eve. We already got that out the door.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. No conflict. No conflict. Whatever is happening is not worth the conflict for your kid. You don't want your kid being 20 years old, 30 years old, having kids of their own saying, "Man, I am not going to have conflict during the holidays because I lived through that conflict and I never enjoyed Christmas."
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Because my memory is invariably my parents fighting on the front yard.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. That is the absolute key. And parents will go crazy if they're not getting their kid. I hear it. I appreciate it. I appreciate where you're coming from. We can deal with it later. And you can say, "You know what? I'm going to celebrate Christmas on the 28th and I'm going to crush it for that kid." And I get, if you didn't get your kid on the 25th when you're supposed to, you don't get them until the 28th, you're going to be super pissed. But instead of spending money on your lawyer, I would tell you, save that money and fine, go do extra gift buying. Right?
But that's really the key, is the least amount of conflict as possible. And one way to do that is to set low expectations. Don't think everything's going to be perfect. Plan that it's going to be Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, or you're going to mass and the other parent's dropping off the kid and that kid's not going to be bathed or fed or have the proper clothes, plan ahead. That is the key. You want things to be as smooth as possible so you have less conflict. So your kid can really enjoy the holidays.
Pete Wright:
So go enjoy the holidays everybody. We are ready to do that ourselves. And we encourage you to deescalate, relax and figure it out. And if you can't figure it out for real, judge Harry Stone has your back.
Seth Nelson:
He'll do a parenting plan in no time.
Pete Wright:
Oh yeah. Midnight court session.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. Bringing the kid in at midnight.
Pete Wright:
Right?
Seth Nelson:
He might do midnight mass right there.
Pete Wright:
Harry Stone is a capable, capable jurist. That's all I'm saying.
Seth Nelson:
Do you think that's even on reruns these days?
Pete Wright:
Oh yeah. Oh, sure.
Seth Nelson:
Night Court?
Pete Wright:
Night Court. Of course. Oh, great show. Please.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, yes.
Pete Wright:
You know what? We should do a whole episode where we cover all of our favorite Night Court moments.
Seth Nelson:
The rulings on Night Court. I think many of them got appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Harry Stones is very popular among Supreme Court, I'm sure.
Seth Nelson:
It's the only thing the justices would agree on is the over-turning that guy.
Pete Wright:
That's right. What you don't know is RBG had a put picture of Harry Anderson on her wall right behind her desk. You didn't know that. You thought it was just all blind justice and scales, but no, Harry Anderson.
Seth Nelson:
I got you. You got me on that one. You got me on that one. Listen everybody, have a great holiday. Focus on your kid. Keep it calm. Not a lot of conflict. Try to recharge and not have it be about all the extra stuff. Focus on the quality time and that's what your kid will remember.
Pete Wright:
Create those memories people, but only the good ones. Create the good ones for the holiday season. Thank you Seth Nelson. Have a great holiday season yourself.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, I'm subdued today. I'm already in that mood.
Pete Wright:
You are. You're killing it. You're ready.
Seth Nelson:
Just chill.
Pete Wright:
Bring out the little spiked eggnog. It's going to be great.
Seth Nelson:
That's what all the nice Jewish boys liked to drink on the first night of Hanukkah. Right next to the [foreign language 00:27:48].
Pete Wright:
That's great. Right next to the [foreign language 00:27:50]. That's right. Thanks everybody for hanging out with us. We appreciate your time and attention. Don't forget you can send your holiday related questions or otherwise to the show, howtosplitatoaster.com/askaquestion, that'll get to us and we'd love to hear from you. Have a safe holiday season. We'll catch you next time right here on How to Split A Toaster, a Divorce Podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split A Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
