Episode Details

Halfway through a hearing, a client who had been composed and strong glanced at the judge's screen and saw the case caption: her name against her husband's. That was the thing that undid her. Melissa Cohen tells that story to make a point about how much of family court is felt, not argued.

Melissa Cohen is a divorce and family law attorney in Cranford, New Jersey. She graduated from Seton Hall Law more than twenty years ago, clerked for a family court judge, and has been in private practice ever since, handling divorce, custody, support, and a domestic violence caseload she takes on by choice, including pro bono work. She joins Lisa for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with how the pandemic reshaped family court and keeps going into the parts of a case people tend to get wrong.

Melissa describes the trade-offs of virtual hearings: real savings in time and money, and real losses, like the courtroom pressure that used to move people toward settlement, and the toll of appearing in person that clients feel and attorneys sometimes forget. She and Lisa dig into documentation, and why "document everything" becomes a liability when it means a hundred unsorted emails. The better move is to bring your attorney the two or three issues that map to the custody statute. She explains why a judge pushing settlement can still be the right call, and how a shared parenting app becomes both a safeguard and, in the wrong hands, another way to keep contact.

The back half covers relocation, which she says has grown harder in New Jersey and turns on a best-interests analysis, and the twin traps of Google and barstool council, both of which hand people confident answers stripped of the facts a court actually weighs. Melissa closes on what she thinks makes a good family lawyer, real empathy for people at a painful, disorienting point in their lives, and how to find one who understands domestic violence.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• What virtual family court gained and lost, from billable hours to settlement pressure
• Why "document everything" backfires, and how targeted documentation fixes it
• Why reading the custody statute early tells you what the court is required to weigh
• How closed mediation can work even when a restraining order is in place
• Why relocation is harder than people assume, and the best-interests analysis behind it
• Why Google and "barstool council" steer people wrong in fact-specific family law
• How a shared parenting app can be both a safeguard and a tool for continued contact
• How to find a family lawyer who genuinely understands domestic violence

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Melissa's background, and why she takes DV cases
7:00 Invisible abuse, and proof versus provable truth
9:00 How the pandemic moved family court online
13:00 What in-person court cost litigants, and what virtual court lost
17:00 Targeted documentation, and the custody statute
23:00 Mediating with a restraining order: closed mediation
27:00 Parenting apps as safeguard and loophole
35:00 Relocation, and the best-interests standard
43:00 Why Google and barstool council steer you wrong
51:00 What makes a good family lawyer

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Melissa E. Cohen, Esq. at Seiden Freed: https://www.seidenfreed.com/melissa-e-cohen-esq/

🎧 More with Meliss