Divorce can become significantly more complicated when culture, immigration status, or international law are part of the equation. I’m joined by family law attorney Diana Romanov for a conversation about what happens when divorce crosses cultural and international lines. 

Diana brings a rare perspective to this work, shaped by her own immigration journey, her legal training, and practice across multiple countries. Together, we unpack how jurisdiction is determined when spouses live in different countries, how cultural norms shape power and decision-making in divorce, and why custody battles often look very different when one parent has been the primary caregiver for most of the marriage. We also dig into the realities of international relocation with children and how courts decide who can move, who can’t, and why.

At its core, this is about understanding how power, protection, and parenting are negotiated when the rules are shaped by more than one system.

What you’ll hear about in this episode:

• How Diana’s international background and lived experience as an immigrant informs the way she practices family law and advocates for clients across cultural lines (2:06)
• What “jurisdiction” really means in international and cross-border divorce (5:00)
• How cultural norms around gender roles, finances, and marriage can deeply impact the divorce process (11:05)
• Strategic realities behind custody negotiations, including when equal timeshare is about optics or money rather than actual parenting (13:08)
• How international and long-distance custody and relocation cases are evaluated, including the factors courts use to decide whether a parent can move with children (24:46)
• What parents need to understand about documentation, communication, and evidence in high-conflict and cross-border cases (34:40)

✨ If you’d like to watch the video version of this episode, you can find it here.

Learn more about Diana Romanov: Diana Romanov is a San Francisco family law attorney, licensed in California and Germany, and a certified Family Law Specialist. Fluent in English, Russian, and German, she provides counsel, representation, and mediation services across cultural lines.

Previously a prosecutor at the Regional Superior Court of Berlin, Diana practiced with Beiten Burghard & Wegner and Linklaters Oppenhoff & Raedler. She earned the Justice and Diversity Center’s Outstanding Pro Bono Award (2012–13) and was named a Super Lawyers Rising Star for her client care and legal expertise. Diana holds a J.D. in family law from Freie University School of Law (Berlin) and an LL.M. in US Legal Studies from Golden Gate University.

Born in Kiev and raised in Germany, Diana’s multicultural background enriches her empathetic approach. Drawing on her own divorce experience, she founded a boutique firm to deliver personalized, efficient solutions in custody, support, mediation, alimony, and asset division.

Resources & Links:

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Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!
Seven Step Mindset Reset for Divorce

Diana’s website
Diana on LinkedIn
Diana on Facebook
Diana on YouTube

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back. I am so glad to see and or be heard by everybody out there today. Today I have with me Diana Romanoff. She’s a San Francisco family law attorney. She is licensed in both California and Germany. And is a certified family law specialist. She is fluent in English, Russian, and German, and provides counsel representation and mediation across cultural lines, which is one of the things that I really, one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to Diana about was this cross-cultural and also international divorce.

Before launching her own boutique firm, Diana served as a prosecutor at the Regional Superior Court of Berlin and practiced at major international firms. All very exciting and I think really relevant to a lot of our listeners. Hi, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m happy to have you.

So [00:01:00] let’s just first talk about like, how did your international background shape your approach to family law? This is not, you’re not like someone who was trained in California and lived in California and practiced family law in California. You’ve had this broad experience of international experience.

How did that shape how you approach family law now? 

Diana Romanov: First of all, I immigrated to Israel when I was 14 and then immigrated to Germany when I was 15 and then immigrated to America when I was 30. So I had experience being an immigrant in three different countries, and when people who not only are facing to be in a different country, but also facing the most difficult thing that.

Life can offer divorce, immigration. The type of compassion I have for them is extraordinary because I have experienced that. [00:02:00] I know what it’s like not to understand not only the language, but, the law. Yeah, and 

Kate Anthony: right. 

Diana Romanov: It’s complicated. I don’t know why it has to be so complicated, but just feeling getting married in Las Vegas is super easy.

Kate Anthony: That’s right. Yeah. 

Diana Romanov: 10 minutes in and out. Couple hundred dollars. That’s it. Getting divorced, it’s a different situation. You have to disclose all your assets. You have to fill out certain forms, and the clients who have tried to not involve lawyers and hired paralegals, they have paid later bigger price.

I had clients coming back who used the paralegal, and the paralegal didn’t include spouses support waiver language the way it’s supposed to be included, not just the waiver, but modification. 

Or termination 

Of jurisdiction of the court or things like that. I, yeah to answer your question, I have more compassion.

Kate Anthony: Yeah, sure. 

Diana Romanov: People who are going through [00:03:00] difficult time and if they don’t speak English very well and have different types of issues, dyslexia. DHD had it all. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Absolutely. 

Diana Romanov: Don’t worry, just speak slowly and so will I. 

Kate Anthony: Right, exactly. And I think what you’re saying about laws differing is as a coach, right?

I work with women in all. States globally really but mostly in the US and Canada, right? I can’t hold all of the different, the divorce law differs so broadly from state to state. I can’t, I can give legal information, we can let Google stuff together and I can say, oh, okay, so this is what it means in your state, right?

But I cannot imagine what that is like internationally. And is there even agreement on jurisdiction? If you have, if you were married in, let’s say in Germany and you immigrate to the US, [00:04:00] let’s say, one spouse wants to go back to Germany, like who? Who has jurisdiction over the divorce? 

Diana Romanov: I just remembered the joke, but I’m not gonna say it because I cannot say jokes really well, but it’s, the bottom line is what jurisdiction do you want?

So when a client calls me, 

Kate Anthony: yes. Oh, that’s interesting. 

Diana Romanov: Close the windows and the shades. It’s what jurisdiction do you want? And so what I do ask my client to do is to, first of all. In California, even if they’re not resident, meaning they’re not yet six months living here, but they want California to be the jurisdiction, we can file for legal separation if the money is here and if they intend to live here, then the issue becomes if the other side is going to travel to California so we can serve them the paperwork to get jurisdiction over the other side.

So it’s not about [00:05:00] just the court. Whether the court has the jurisdiction does, the court has jurisdiction over everyone involved. 

Kate Anthony: Because if one party’s not here, they can’t even be served. 

Diana Romanov: Correct. So I had an international case where. The other side was in Germany and we served properly through Hague, but the court only is allowed without minimum contact of the other side to California to terminate marital status, not vital assets, so which means proper service.

No jurisdiction over divorce, only legal status. The way we circumvented this, we asked the other side to file a response to the petition, and then we filed an RFO and asked the judge to divide assets because the judge wanted to speak to the other side. So it’s where the money is, where is better law, for example, in [00:06:00] some states.

Believe it’s Massachusetts, but I’m not practicing there. So when I had a client and we talked to an attorney there, they’re like, oh, there’s no spousal support. Usually, especially in a short term marriage in California, that’s standard to have spousal support, half of the length of the marriage, up to 35% of net disposable income from the other side, minus 50% of the.

The spouse who is asking for support, there is a formula, ex-spouse, formula. Usually it’s always the case. The spouse to support is granted need-based attorney’s fees is granted. In some states, maybe that’s not the case. In some countries, maybe that’s not the case. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. And it is, it’s, and it’s one thing to say which is more beneficial to me, but if.

You are soon to be ex. If it’s not beneficial to them, they’re gonna fight that. So how do you get both parties? [00:07:00] How do you even get agreement on jurisdiction if one person’s it doesn’t work for me, as well as it might work for you? 

Diana Romanov: We don’t get an agreement on jurisdiction unless we have leverage.

So first we’ll determine if the court has jurisdiction over the other side. Can we serve the other side in California? Can we establish jurisdiction to begin with? If that’s the case, then we don’t need to reach an agreement about jurisdiction, then we just do what we gotta do to get the jurisdiction we want, and then we can reach an agreement about the split instead of jurisdiction.

If I’m on the other side, and I would like to reach an agreement, and I know the law is less favorable to my client. What I have done is when a client came to my office, in one case, he said, my wife filed, and I know she’s about to serve me in la, and he came to my San Francisco office. I said if you don’t wanna, if you don’t want to travel to LA, then you need to be not only the [00:08:00] one filing.

First, but you also have to serve her first. It’s not about who filed first, who served first, and so we served her. We filed and served her the same day when he, as he came to my office, so she had to dismiss her petition. Agreements are good if it’s possible. To reach those agreements, but sometimes even reaching out to have an agreement could lead to unwanted service.

Kate Anthony: ‘Cause it it tips your hand, it

Diana Romanov: Exactly. 

Kate Anthony: Shows. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I get that. Yeah, it’s all very complicated. I wish. I think, like you said, I wish we could all agree on divorce law, at least in this, in our country, let alone internationally, but Jesus, we would be out of job well.

Maybe not. There’s still, yeah, it would be nice if the laws were at least consistent so that we could, so that people knew what to expect. Half of my job is helping women understand what it [00:10:00] is, what to expect once it happens, right? People don’t necessarily always wanna, even if they want to get divorced.

They still need to know what is my life gonna look like? Am I, what? Are my children gonna be safe? Am I gonna have enough money to live, all of these things that they need to know in advance. And with all of these laws that it’s always it depends. Depends. I know 

Diana Romanov: favorite and of a lawyer.

Kate Anthony: Yeah, exactly. It depends. All right, so what are you seeing? Even cross-cultural divorce, right? We were talking about like different divorcing in different countries, but even culturally even if you’re in the same country or the same state, do you see things where cultural differences are impacting the legal process?

Diana Romanov: Yes. I can’t forget this case where. A woman came to my office and then she [00:11:00] said, I have been married for over 20 years and I haven’t seen my husband’s accounts. I don’t know how much money we have. And it was a cultural thing where in their culture it’s not. Typical to, for man, it was typical for man to earn the money and be in charged and control it financial, financial aspects right now of, we would say of course of control and financial abuse and all of that, but in their culture it’s completely normal and. And it’s not just one client. It was just the first client where I was like, what? 

Kate Anthony: Oh yeah. 

Diana Romanov: For 20 years. And then many more came through with the same standards.

Of cultural acceptable norm. 

Kate Anthony: Yes, 

Diana Romanov: and not far long ago in my culture, that was also the thing. 

Kate Anthony: Sure. Listen, I think there are a lot of cultures within the us, that have these norm in [00:12:00] religious cultures or more patriarchal cultures. The, that’s the deal. We have this, the rise now of the trad wife, right?

Or, and then the trad girlfriend. These are people who are willingly giving over all of their financial power or agency to men, and it’s glorified. It’s something that’s considered a status symbol. 

Diana Romanov: That’s right. That’s one thing I noticed another. In my culture, Ukraine Ex Union, let’s put it that way, because when I left it was still sort of Soviet Union and that, and still now women get sole custody.

A child still completely by default, the norm. And so when a woman calls me and she’s, what? Whatcha talking about? 50 50, I have been raising our [00:13:00] children. I have been bringing them to the doctors and to the, to school. He has been making money. Sure. But I have been. The sole caregiver and the next thing you know, he has his mother coming from somewhere out of the woods and now equally takes care of the children and while he’s working, so he has to pay less in child support.

And then trying to convince the California judge that it’s not okay is really tough. 

Kate Anthony: It is very tough. How do you handle that? Because that’s a very, that’s beyond common. If you have been a stay at home mom, all almost, huge portion of my clients and listeners are in this situation where they have been a stay at home parent or they are a working parent and still doing.

All of the child labor, all of the right domestic labor, and are married to men who [00:14:00] maybe don’t participate as much in raising of the children and now all of a sudden want 50 50 because they don’t, either they don’t wanna pay the child support or they don’t wanna be seen as a deadbeat dad, right? So now all of a sudden they want 50 50. And legally the courts are favoring that more and more. How do you represent a woman in court who is in that position and how, what do you advise her? 

Diana Romanov: Before we even get to court? I get to the bottom of it. I find out what is the motivating factor for that to be 50% dad, and if it turns out to be child support, then, and my client tells me, you know what?

I’d rather have 90% with the children and he pays me less. We put on paper 50 50 if it makes him look good. If he has narcissistic [00:15:00] tendencies to look certain way, then we. We just put it on paper that the parents share reasonable timeshare, equal timeshare, and then don’t specify, or we say 50 50, but we agree on the site, on a diff in a different agreement that he pays X amount in child support.

That is less. And sometimes that’s what it takes. Sometimes that’s exactly what the agreement tends to result in a really good outcome. And sometimes women come and they say, I have a hundred percent of the time our child, and he doesn’t pay anything. And then what happens? 99% of the cases, if they start asking for child support, then he starts to ask for visitation.

Because then he has less to pay. So then we assess there. My job is to get to the bottom of what really is the desirable outcome. And then [00:17:00] compromise, because in, in this type of situation, I ask her, do you really want 50 50? Because that’s what will happen in a year. If not, then cover child support yourself, because then he will come after equal timeshare.

Kate Anthony: Exactly. I will, I’ll often advise my clients similarly. I’ll say, listen, if I love, I do exactly what you say in terms of the, if he just wants it on paper. Because he doesn’t wanna, because he doesn’t wanna look like a deadbeat, but he, you wanna make a side deal on whatever great let’s just do that.

If he, if it just needs to be 50 50 on paper, he is not gonna show up for it then, or, he doesn’t wanna pay for it. Fine. The other thing I say is, if a person who has not shown much interest in parenting for. The life of the child beforehand is suddenly has to be dad of the year and definitely has, is fighting tooth and nail for 50 50.

Then I say. Let him do it if we know, [00:18:00] if you know that he’s gonna slowly fall off that cliff.

Diana Romanov: That’s exactly. 

Kate Anthony: Agree to it, knowing that within a year he’s not gonna be exercising his parenting time. And then if you wanna document a year’s worth of not showing up for parenting time, and if you want to file for support for increased support based on 90 10 versus 50 50.

If the money is if it’s actually a lot of money. ’cause most times it’s really not. Might be a couple hundred bucks. Depending on the income. Yeah, 

Diana Romanov: exactly. 

Kate Anthony: Then you can file with that documentation. But if we know he’s just gonna fade out, then let it happen. It’s not worth the fight.

Diana Romanov: Exactly. And most of the time he doesn’t show up. And I had a case where we had. In judgment paperwork 50 50, but for five years he hasn’t been showing up, and now he’s asking to enforce the judgment. The judge is saying. Of course [00:19:00] not. 

Kate Anthony: Of course not. No. Yeah, of course 

Diana Romanov: not. 

Kate Anthony: Yes. We have proof that you actually don’t care very much.

Diana Romanov: I wouldn’t even suggest to that client after one year to file from a ification, because then he will be back on track and trying to look good. 

Kate Anthony: Sure. Exactly. 

Diana Romanov: Just document five years of no show.

Kate Anthony: I’m a firm believer that if the money actually matters, if you are in financial hardship because you have to support your children. A hundred percent of the time with no support, then we have to do something to equalize that. But sometimes it’s gonna cost you more to hire the attorney to file the motions.

All of the things. 

Diana Romanov: Speaking of which I, when a client calls me and says, my. Ex doesn’t pay child support and I notice money is a problem, which is usually the case. Unless it’s a super high asset case, [00:20:00] then I suggest to contact child support services. 

Kate Anthony: That’s right. That’s right.

Diana Romanov: Because they do it for free. They don’t, 

Kate Anthony: they do it for free. They take it off your plate. It has absolutely nothing to do. You don’t have to pay for it. You don’t have to. I agree with you a hundred percent. If there’s, if they are failing to pay what is in the agreement. Then we have to, yeah, do it through child support services ’cause that’s their job.

Diana Romanov: And if someone contacts me and says Child support services contacted me, or, can you defend me in a child support case? If someone is trying to evade or avoid paying child support, I don’t like the, no, I don’t take these cases. It just feels to be on the wrong side of, there are some cases where. The other side makes millions of dollars and goes after my client because of some legal concept.

But other than that, those are really the child support services type of cases. I also had a case where I was representing [00:21:00] a woman who had two kids and he had his W2 job, didn’t pay child support, and then what he did, he opened different businesses. That were losing money to offset his W2 income against the businesses.

So it ended up being a trial, and thankfully Judge was, and Child Support Services made that same argument that we made is that his financial decision should not. The children should not pay the price of his poor financial decisions or smart financial decisions. So he avoids paying taxes but not child support.

And tax returns are presumed to be correct unless someone owns the business. So then that presumption doesn’t apply anymore. So he had to have some, he had to some explaining to do so to say, and the judges didn’t buy it. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah, exactly. I see all the time with my clients that who are divorcing men who own their [00:22:00] own businesses.

Sudden the businesses have been doing great for many years, and as soon as they file for divorce, suddenly their businesses are doing terribly Suddenly the businesses are failing. 

Diana Romanov: Of course, the market. Or the market’s changed. 

Kate Anthony: Yes. Exactly. And that, you know of a sudden I’m like fortunately it’s really based on the last three to five years, not the current state of the business, but also like I call bullshit, really?

Yeah. I call bullshit. I don’t think that the business is really failing that badly all of a sudden. 

Diana Romanov: Exactly. We have to hire forensic accountants because then they’re gonna be the expert witnesses if the funds permitted, and then we go through the tax returns and see where the deductions are.

Actual, not actual deductions for the purposes of paying child support or spousal support. All these travels and vacations and luxury. Car number three are not proper deductions. 

Kate Anthony: That’s right. That’s right. How do we deal with [00:23:00] this, let’s say like support or child international custody? What again? Let’s say one parent wants to relocate abroad.

Maybe to the country where they came from, maybe even the kids were born there. I don’t know how did the courts determine who can move where with children 

Diana Romanov: Excellent question. I’m scheduled to be in trial end of the months because a parent, a mother, decided that she would like to relocate to Europe and take the 9-year-old child with her, and they have been living for 10 years in, in California.

So the strategy in cases like this. Depending who I represent. If I represent the mother, then I would get, if possible, sole legal, physical custody first. So then when the relocation request happens, there is a presumption, not only that mother can relocate, but father now needs to prove the change in circumstances.

So it [00:25:00] creates a whole set of it’s called La Musga case, LA and then the second word is M-U-S-G-A. It’s Supreme Court case in California. That outline outlined factors, and I have a whole video on my YouTube channel about all the factors. I’m not gonna bore you with that, but in that case, the court went factor by factor.

What’s in the best interest of the child? How old is the child? What is the connection with the community of the child? What is the distance? Long distance. Then of course it speaks against the relocation. Can father who stays here, usually it’s the mother who moves. I rarely seen cases of relocation where father wants to take the child.

So can father take care of the child if mother relocates, because the presumption is ma the parent who wants to relocate is gonna relocate. The cannot say you have to stay because it’s.

[00:26:00] Move around. So then can father, can the staying parent take care of the children? How’s his schedule? A hundred percent of the time. And then what would be the reverse schedule? So the, there’s a lot of strategy that goes into it that would we look into domestic violence, restraining order factors, has there been abuse from either side?

What about co-parenting? Is, has there been an alienation from either parent, depending who I represent? Speaks towards the, in cases where there are funds, I suggest to hire custody evaluator. Custody evaluators, usually a psychologist who will take hours and hours to interview everyone involved, parents, school teachers, therapists, friends, family members, and then goes through the factors and provide an extensive report to the court and to the parties about.

The conclusion and opinion about relocation? 

Kate Anthony: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a lot to get, I think, to get relocation with children even across state [00:27:00] lines, right? If it’s a, a certain distance, it takes a lot to prove that it’s worth or to get permission to take the child away from the other parent 

Diana Romanov: I used to tell my clients, or potential clients, whoever I was talking to about relocation that relocation I would say number one is the most difficult thing to go through, especially to prove that relocation is in the best interest of the child, until I had that one case where the judge ordered. So there was a case where, so mother relocated a couple hours away and father stayed in San Francisco. And they enrolled them into private school and mother refused to sign the scholarship paperwork, which gave both children $90,000 scholarship for the schools.

And she moved to out of, 40 miles away, which is an hour. So it would be impossible to have the children drive in and out. [00:28:00] And so we filed an ex parte and got a long cause hearing a trial on the issue, whether the court can sign. Documents, application, the scholarship paperwork. And so in her response paperwork, she said, father exercised coercive control by not allowing her to go to church.

And among other things. But that was the most, and when I asked her on the stand, I’m like, what would be if you said no to him when he said on Sunday, don’t go to church? I could have said no to him, but I didn’t wanna have conversation about it. And so the judge. Ordered that after this trial, the judge ordered that mother can relocate.

She went through all La Musga factors. She gave her sole legal and physical custody over that course of control testimony, and then she said that mother can enroll children in whatever school she wants. So I thought location is really hard until that case.

What happened? [00:29:00] Where did this come from? 

Kate Anthony: Because coercive control is codified as a form of domestic abuse in the state of California. If it, sure. She could have said no, but what were the ramifications? So if she proved that, like I could have said no. I could have said the word no, but it would have create, I knew that there was a rules based.

Dynamic whereby if I went against him, I was going to be punished for it, then I guess that was the, that was the outcome, but 

Diana Romanov: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it was part of the. I understand the re the coercive control piece, but how it was tied to relocation, sole custody in, in, in the background.

That’s the part I was expecting to be more complex. 

Kate Anthony: ‘Cause he just said, okay, that’s it. Now he basically, your client lost custody entirely 

Diana Romanov: like retroactively, uhhuh she relocated and then retroactively the judge said, okay, that was fine because of all these factors, 

Kate Anthony: and you also take your children?

Diana Romanov: Correct. So what I noticed is that the 30 44 presumption, which is when abuse happens within the last five years against the spouse or the children, the victim gets so legal, physical custody. So that presumption doesn’t mean that a client or a victim has to file for domestic violence restraining order because she didn’t.

So it can be done in any custody proceedings. 

So some people say I don’t want to go through domestic violence restraining order trial. I just want sole custody. And that’s the way that 30 44 presumption works. It can be done just. By responding to something else related to custody?

Kate Anthony: Yeah, it, it’s so complicated because there are very valid reasons I think that women don’t file restraining orders because they can, be punitive and they, there can be blow back and it can be really dangerous [00:31:00] even to do it right. 

Diana Romanov: The other side could lose a job and not pay child support because they have a klutz restraining order on their record.

So they don’t, they like sole custody, but they also would like to get child support and by. Filing domestic violence restraining order and asking for sole custody could mean 

Kate Anthony: losing a job. I have a client right now whose spouse is, an absolute terrifying abuser, but he also works in the correctional system.

So if she were to file a restraining order, he would lose his job and then he would retaliate because of that, like very violently, right? So we have to work through this system and like what? All these little, 

Diana Romanov: yes. Yeah, and I’m saying this because I have been practicing for over a decade and I talked to different lawyers like Actually, did you know you can file a response declaration and ask for sole custody because of abuse?

Because of 30 44, the code section, I even had to do briefing with the judge explaining that it’s. [00:32:00] 

Kate Anthony: Oh wow, that’s really interesting. I haven’t heard about this. 30 44, is that in, that’s California code. 

Diana Romanov: California family code? Yes. 

Kate Anthony: And what does it say?

Diana Romanov: It says that if abuse happened, and I’m paraphrasing, if abuse happened was in the last five years, then the victim of abuse gets sole legal, physical custody, unless the presumption is rebutted and the presumption of sole custody can be rebutted.

If the other side says, I redeemed myself, I have done. Whatever the court said I need to do better intervention program or whatever. But the point of that code section is that in any custody proceeding, sole custody can be requested, not just in domestic violence restraining order proceeding. 

Kate Anthony: Okay. 

Diana Romanov: As long as abuse happened in the last five years. 

Kate Anthony: And that’s only for child abuse or also for spousal abuse. 

Diana Romanov: It says abused. Lemme double check. I think it says both. Upon a finding by the court that a party seeking custody or child [00:34:00] has perpetrated domestic violence within the previous five years against the other party seeking custody of the child.

Kate Anthony: Okay. 

Diana Romanov: Or against the child. So both, like I said, 

Kate Anthony: and that’s, so that’s in California and that’s something that, we fight all the time as advocates because a lot of the time the court will say they didn’t abuse the, they didn’t abuse the children, so just ’cause they abused you. That’s a relationship problem, which.

Abuse is not in a relationship problem, but they will say, that’s a relationship problem. He didn’t abuse the children, so that’s fine. So this is actually really interesting to know in California that this statute exists. Thank you for 

Diana Romanov: Exactly. It’s 

Or, and then if the children witnessed it.

They can be also part of this code section 

Kate Anthony: as they should. As it should. Exactly. They should not have to do that, but yeah. That’s very interesting. What other cases or like interesting things have you worked on that you think would be just anecdotally interesting to our audience?

What are some other. That have come up in your caseload. 

Diana Romanov: Sometimes I [00:35:00] feel so devastated how people talk to each other over text and everything comes into evidence. So at times I have this trial where we have a package of text messages where she wrote a letter to him about what he did wrong, including abuse, and then he responds to that.

And so my advice, not advice, but my suggestion is to communicate in a way that the world can see it and you are now gonna be, you’re gonna be proud of how you communicate and it’s gonna be very short, sweet. No adjectives. No insults, because everything can be used against the person who is writing it.

And electronic production is very common, every single post I, a client told me she had a case, so I was [00:36:00] representing her in a divorce case, and she thought she lost a case where she was claiming she was disabled because on her social media, she posted how she was cooking and gardening and things like that, where she said in court that she couldn’t walk, but then she would po she would post something else.

And so now there are softwares that. That can analyze every post that was deleted. 

Kate Anthony: Oh, wow. Wow. 

Diana Romanov: And this electronic production act, or? Whenever I talk to a client, potential client who hires me, then I remind them that they’re not allowed to delete anything. And so the other side is not allowed to delete anything on social media, emails, text messages, changing phones.

How many times do we have, do we send the subpoena and say, produce all the text messages between you and ex about the child? 

They’re like, oh, my phone, I lost [00:37:00] my phone, or I changed my phone. They have a duty to preserve evidence. 

So it can be sanctionable not only against the other client, the other side, but against the attorney for not advising them to preserve evidence.

Kate Anthony: Oh, that’s really interesting. Yeah. I think the main thing is that I always tell my clients like, if you don’t wanna judge to read it, don’t put it in writing. All of your communication should be filtered through the lens of I’m writing dear judge, and CCing my ex. Yeah.

You want to be speak, communicating in a way that you can be on the stand and stand behind it. 

Diana Romanov: Many years ago, I remember the easiest DV case I won was, I was not seasoned to turn yet back then, so the other side wrote a nasty text message, just one, right? And so the judge is like, how many days of trial do you need and how many hours?

And who are your witnesses? It’s I’m looking at the judge, you honor. He wrote this text, he can grant the restraining order right [00:38:00] now. We don’t need a trial. And she looked at me and she said, Mr, did you write this? Okay, restraining order granted. 

Kate Anthony: There you go. Yeah. I don’t think we need a trial for this, your Honor.

Diana Romanov: Yeah, 

Kate Anthony: we don’t.

Diana Romanov: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly. Exactly. Diana, this has been very fun and informative. Where can people find you and I know you mentioned you have a YouTube channel, so where can everybody find you and learn more from you? 

Diana Romanov: Created the easiest tag hashtag that anyone can think of. Divorce like a boss.

If you type it in Google, you will find everything. You will find the Instagram, YouTube page, and from there you can see my website and phone number and how to schedule a meeting. It’s all there. And I sell my book on Amazon, also called Divorce Like a Boss. Awesome in [00:39:00] four formats. 

Kate Anthony: Okay, great. Good. So that’s divorce like a boss, everybody. You got that. Diana, it was really wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. This has been a great conversation. 

Diana Romanov: Thank you.

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DISCLAIMER:  THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE.  YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

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