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Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell joining Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel who is the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group located right here in San Diego, California Mission Valley area helping couples through every aspect of divorce and related family law matters. Hi Bonnie. Hi Michael, how are you doing this week? I’m doing great, I’m doing great.

Bonnie, today I want to talk about a topic that you and I chat about quite a lot and that is online behavior and how that impacts divorce. So how do you think the rise of social media and online communication and AI and all these things change the way divorces play out? You know, in one area we see it a lot is child custody and visitation because people don’t realize what they’re posting or what they’re liking or what they’re allowing their children to post and like and follow and tweet and insta and that’s as far as I go. It’s amazing because in family law there’s a requirement that you are not allowed to delete or get rid of any of your electronic information and you’d be surprised how much that is.

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Text messages, whatsapp, instagram, snapchat, you’re not allowed to delete or get rid of anything and so in custody and visitation situations when you were in a battle and you can use a lot of this as evidence. Evidence of what, you know, poor parenting decisions, bad judgment. Now whether or not that’s a good idea, Michael, whether or not it’s how you really want to run that case because again, I say it again, everything in family law in San Diego is public.

It’s mostly public and so your kids can go and see all the stuff that you said about each other. They won’t see these pictures because pictures are not part of the record but you’ve argued about it, you know, so you’ve got to be very careful because us as attorneys we are taught to investigate and seek discovery of all this electronic information because that’s where a lot of this evidence lies. So what is there one big mistake that you advise your clients not to make when it comes to social media? Well one, don’t delete your account because that’s going to screw you over at left right and center.

Sorry. Number two, be very careful what you post. What you post about your situation because your kids could possibly read it and the emotional and mental health impact on them and also be careful because people are watching.

Nothing is private anymore. Nothing, you know, is private. So if you want to maintain a semblance of, especially if you’ve got a high conflict divorce situation and you want to maintain a semblance of reasonableness, don’t be posting crap on the internet.

You counsel many high-profile families and obviously these are people who have to be extra careful. Have you seen, obviously without going into any detail or revealing anything, but have you seen cases where a simple post, a vacation picture or a new relationship has had major legal consequences? In a lot of ways it’s just the little detail that can get them. You know, the changing of an email address to say something.

It’s not just to be a dig at the other side and you lose custody because you show how petty you are. You know, doing things online that are questionable. If you do enough of it, the questions become less questionable.

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Mm-hmm. I imagine, for example, like, you know, father and mother would have the kids and they go away for the weekend. They post a picture and the mother or father, the reverse parent, sees the kid doing something and that person says, what are you letting him do that for? That’s not good for him.

There are things like that. There’s also, you know, you go away on the vacation and your daughter is about, I don’t know, 15 and mom allows her to wear a bathing suit that dad would not allow her to wear. And all of a sudden that picture is posted.

That can be a problem because you’ve got then people who take that picture, right? We know what people do on the internet and the ripple effect of that. And even though it was just an innocent, we’re out on the beach together, it could become very problematic for the child, you know? And I’m not saying don’t because I post all the time about my family. We all do.

It’s just when you’re in a custody battle and there are questions out there, you got to be very careful. People are watching. Yeah.

If people have questions about this issue, about social media and impacting their divorce, how can they be in touch? They can reach us directly at 619-574-8000. And myself or one of my esteemed associates would be happy to have a 30-minute free telephone or Zoom consultation to see how we can help you. You can reach us online at www.PrimusFamilyLaw.com. There’s a form you can fill out and we’ll reach right out to you.

Or there’s a live chat agent that’ll help you connect with us as well.