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Welcome to Family Law Matters. I’m Dr. Michael Mantell, privileged to be joining Bonnie Rabinovitch Mantel, who is the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group here in San Diego. Hi, Bonnie.
Hi, Michael, who is not related to me at all. How are you doing today? I’m fine. Someone stopped me in the gym the other day and said, hey, are you related to Bonnie Mantel? And I said, oh, here we go.
No, she spelled my name with one L. I spelled my name with two Ls. We’re just long, long, long time friends. And here we are.
Bonnie. Now, actually, I’m surprised she didn’t write that on social media, because today everybody communicates good, bad, anger, this, that, and the other through social media. In the middle of a fierce, or even not fierce, but a strong divorce case, when husband and wife may be doing some battle, what do you say to them about dealing with each other through social media and the comments they might make? Well, Michael, first of all, there’s actually law that says that you are not allowed to delete or erase or manipulate any electronic storage information, ESI, things I’ve learned that I never thought I’d have to learn.
But what people don’t realize is that once it’s out there, right, it’s out there forever. So, and it is evidence because they are usually what are called party admissions. If I put something online, I have no expectation of privacy in it, which means it can be used against me.
And if I say things, it’s me saying them. So, that is evidence. And you’d be surprised how good attorneys troll your social media to see what you are saying about your spouse, about, or how you’re living your life.
If, for example, if alcohol is an issue, there’s an allegation that somebody’s using or abusing alcohol and somebody walks into court and says, nope, and their social media is full of postings about partying. You know, it, it dings your credibility, it could affect your custodial arrangement, and you can’t delete anything. So, what I tell people is stop posting, you know, just don’t.
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Now, so if a spouse is talking to friends on social media, and they go like, oh my God, he or she is such a louse, they stole money from me, or they hit the kid or something like that, it’s on social media. How can the other side use that against that person who made that accusation in social media? Well, that’s an exhibit. I mean, that is lack of co-parenting.
That is, so we print it out, get a screenshot, print it out, lodge it with the court. When I say lodge, it means it’s not filed, it’s not part of the public record. But when you do make all these allegations, or even just talk about each other in social media, your kids may find it.
We don’t, we keep forgetting how smart they are. If we think that they don’t know how to get into our stuff, we don’t know how to get into theirs. They know how to get into ours.
And if you’re doing this, come on, you got to be better than that. That’s what I say. You know, you’ve got to be better than that.
So your advice is what? Don’t. If you want to post, write yourself an old-fashioned letter, pen to paper, and burn it. Burn it.
Don’t mail it. Don’t mail it. You know, but don’t understand that everything can be seen today.
There’s no privacy. So if you feel a need to share that with a friend, go out for a call. Call them.
Yeah. Tell them privately. Privately.
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Plausible deniability. Call them. If people have questions about this, and they want to speak with you or one of your team members, how can they reach you? You can reach us directly.
619-574-8000. Or you can reach us online at www.primusfamilylaw.com. And all roads will lead you to a free 30-minute telephone or Zoom. Sometimes you need to see who won’t represent you.
And we are more than happy to see how we can help.