24: Let's Get to Know Shanti & Maribel with Guests Shanti Day & Maribel of Cruz Day Law

Hey there! Are you a local mom business owner? If so, we've got some exciting news to share with you all. The doors to our Working Moms of San Antonio Business Owners Community are now open! Join us now in our supportive new community for local networking events, customizable social media templates, classes and workshops, business resources, and to be a part of our exclusive referral directory. We love to help our working mom business owners grow. So visit workingmomsofsanantonio.com/membership or just click the link in the show notes to join us. See you in the community.

We're Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a San Antonio area realtor and lender, but most importantly, we're working moms.

The goal of this podcast is to provide support and a sense of community to San Antonio area working moms like us.

So join us in trying to find a balance between career, family, and everything in between. Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We are here with Shanti and Maribel of Cruz de Law, um, and I am going to turn it over to them and have them introduce themselves and talk about all the neat stuff that they're doing.

Okay, well, my name is Maribel Cruz. I'm an attorney, and we focus primarily on family law matters. So that can include divorces, custody disputes, child support, adoptions. That's our favorite thing. Um, yeah, but that comes few and far between. Most of this stuff is pretty complicated, complex, and stressful.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm Shanti Day, um, also do family law. And yeah, I mean, basically anything that has to do with a family in the court, we've probably touched it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, I know it's a big topic in a lot of our, our, our mom discussions in our group, Erika. Like, I see a lot of people asking, hey, does anybody have any resources? Does anybody know this? There's a lot of things that I think we assume we know, and then when things might go not the way we want in our relationships, um, we don't know what to do next.

So, and a lot of times you say that it's not like you get married with the anticipation of getting a divorce.

Yeah, I know, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know what the percentage is, but I know it's pretty high these days. And I know that I personally, in what I do, I help— I do— I work in finance, and a lot of things that I do very much lately is helping people split assets. One of the biggest assets are homes. And a lot of it after COVID, it's— I want to say one out of every five I'm doing is someone because of a divorce or something happening. So it's— yeah, it's hard.

I mean, honestly, same here, because we get obviously the home sales side of it. So once they go through all of you, then they come to me, and it's a lot of handholding, and it can be very emotional. So I only imagine what you ladies, you know, deal with day to day. Um, so in saying that, how did you decide that family law was the way that you wanted to go?

So, and I think we were the same. When, when I graduated from law school, there were two things that I absolutely was never going to do: family law and criminal law. And I actually got started doing Social Security Disability. I did that for about 10 years, and that, that industry is interesting, um, and it's hard. It's literally life and death. And so I got to a point where I had to get out, um, and I actually had a former employee who had left and was at his own firm, and he said, come over, try it. And he pulled me out of the disability world, and I started doing family law. And it turns out it's a lot of the same skills. It's helping people through really tough times in their lives, um, but it's not usually life and death, which makes it somehow easier. Um, and so, you know, I found I really liked being able to make a difference and impact people, and hopefully positively, at least getting them closure on issues moving forward.

Oh, I love that.

I think it's a servant's heart, like where someone's trying to make a difference in what you do. So I love that because I think it's one of the out of anything, it's probably one of the hardest times someone goes through. So having someone who understands that and has, okay, I have your best interest in mind and I'm going to do my very best to help you through this, makes a big difference versus someone, hey, it's just a paycheck, let's get you through the— let's get you through the system.

Yeah, I can tell you that my journey was somewhat similar, but I got out of law school and was doing kind of insurance defense. So you have an insurance company you get into an accident and you get sued, the insurance company provides you with an attorney. And that kind of ran the gamut from individuals to business owners to commercial construction kind of stuff. And it was fun, but it wasn't that much fun. And then as I kind of moved throughout my career, I found I switched to the plaintiff's side. Then I started doing business entity formation and business litigation and things like that. And then I just kind of started integrating family law in. And from the professional side, I can tell you that the reason I fell into it is because I absolutely love what I do. I'm passionate about it. I, I cannot tell you how much enjoyment I get out of going to the courthouse every day. And fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, this job lets me go to the courthouse every day. But from a personal side, I went through a divorce that was financially devastating to me. I I'm a lawyer, I had a law degree, I had been working, but I stopped working for a couple years to have a child. And so at the time that my husband came to me and told me, "I want a divorce," I had only a part-time job making maybe $40,000 a year and a little son that was 4 or 5 years old. And come to find out, I had handed all of my paychecks over to my husband. I had let him run all the finances.. And then I realized we're this much in debt and no retirement and no real money assets to speak of. And that process has then— it, it, it moved me into the direction of being able to explain to clients, okay, this is a situation you're in. You're never gonna let it happen to you again. You're learning from it now.

Mm-hmm.

Here's all the things you can do never to let that happen again. And let's get you in a position where hopefully you can build So this is the worst tragedy of your life, but let's build you up from it and learn good lessons. And so I've been able to kind of take that and extrapolate it through a lot of situations since then. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the situation that you're describing is honestly what we most often see in the Working Moms of San Antonio group. It is women that basically weren't in control of finances. Maybe they were stay-at-home moms. And now all of a sudden they're kind of getting stuck with this divorce situation and they just don't know what to do and they don't know who to go to. So, I mean, as unfortunate it is that you went through that situation, to have that firsthand knowledge, I can only imagine, is invaluable in your family law career.

I think we both talk a lot about how we take our life situations and the things that have happened to us and use that to help our clients. I went through a divorce also.

I got lucky.

Lucky. No kids, no property. It was a fairly painless divorce, but there was a lot of mental health issues in my marriage. And that plus the disability work means when someone comes to me and there are mental health issues, I can take my experience and say, okay, I hear what— I hear you. I get what you're going through. I understand it. Here's what we're going to do to get you out of it or through it or protect your kids or protect you while we're getting you through it. So, you know, we talk a lot about The things that we've gone through in our lives have made us better lawyers because we can use it then for perspective, right?

But it makes you more empathetic to your client or the families that you help, right? You know, you know what they're going through. A lot of times if someone hasn't gone through something, it just— again, it's just a job or getting them through the system, whatever the case is. But if you've gone through it, you know that the type of emotion or stress someone might be under And at least that comes into consideration when you're working with them and it's understanding. So I think that happens in a lot of different careers where if you've not gone through with whatever you are selling or doing, it's hard to understand your clientele, whomever that may be.

So we talk about the fact that we play therapist about as often as we play lawyer.

Yeah.

Because we're attorneys and counselors.

I say that about realtors too, Erika.

I was going to say, ironically, we do too.

A lot of it.

It is a lot of that.

Emotionally. Yeah, it's emotionally, you know, but a lot of times when it comes to, especially when you're looking at your life changing, you know, change is hard for a lot of people. But, um, when finances are involved, which I'm assuming in almost every divorce there should be some kind of asset that you're having to work with other than, you know, family, that it's scary because you don't know, you know, you might be going from a two-income household down to one, and what are you gonna do now? Because your lifestyle is going to change, or one to none. Or one to none. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, in your notes, you guys put that you have known each other for a long time. And so I kind of would love for you to share with our listeners, number one, you know, how you kind of got yourself started now in this, in this partnership. And then secondly, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you to share a little bit about your love of Star Wars.

Yes.

Sorry.

Um, so yes, Maribel was pregnant with her oldest when we met through a mutual friend who's also an attorney. Um, I was in law school. I realized that today, really, I was a 3L in law school when we met. I, I had to do the math on 17 years ago and where I was. So, um, yeah, we— and, you know, we kind of— we weren't close, um, until our friend ran for judge, and then we kind of went through the trenches. And then this one says to me, hey, there's this group that you do fundraising and they pay for you to go run a marathon. Just come to this meeting with me. And 7 half marathons later with Team in Training, which is a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fundraising arm, and they're fantastic. But like, you bond. Mile 10, mile 11, you bond like nothing.

I can't imagine.

So, yes. So we got real close. And then I had kids and then she had another kid. And I mean, we've circled each other professionally for a long time and we've always said, we're not going into business together. I like you too much. You're my friend. We're not going to mess that up. So COVID hit, I went out on my own. We kind of started talking a little more. And then early this year she's like, nope, that's it. I got what you need. You got what I need. We need to do this. And we joke that we dated for a couple of months to see if we could do it. And then we got married, um, and I mean, I think it's working really well.

Yeah, I think that the— I think that the parts that I'm not good at or that, that I, you know, just fall down on, she fix— she fixes that. Like, she comes in and she fixes all my yuck, and then I kind of come in and kind of calm her down and fix her kind of yuck. And so it's a good relationship because, like, she talked about knowing more about the psychological part, and that's her forte. So I'll get an expert that starts talking all way knowledgeable, more than me, and I'm like, here, Shanti, take a look at this and fix this or do this. So she picks up the pieces where I really do kind of fall down.

And then she goes into court like a valkyrie. Takes her sword out and gets things for our clients. And I'm like, whoa. Yeah, no, we definitely—

we, we have—

we have opposite strengths and weaknesses. Yeah, we complement. Yeah, it works really well. Plus we laugh a lot.

That's the best. I love that.

It is the best. I love that idea. I like that you get to go to work with your best friend. I mean, that's, that's, that's a lot. I mean, so work isn't as workish, it's fun.

Yeah, there's moments when we go off on a lot of tangents, pretty much, but It's also good because we know how the brain thinks and yeah, but you know where your lines are, how far you can push that button with your coworker or your partner, and then you step back like, okay, got her that far. That's all we're going to do today.

And we're total geeks. Yeah.

So, yeah, so the Star Wars thing, just, I don't know, it's kind of those things you just grow up with. So it's always been kind of fun for me. It, to me, it was like a Princess Leia turns to Jedi, turns into running the world. And so therefore she's my superhero kind of thing. And then it just went from there. And now my child's name is Cody. And if you don't watch Star Wars, I can tell you that Cody is Clone Commander Cody and his middle name is Mace, like Mace Windu. So Cody Mace is my kid.

Wow, you guys are really all up in it.

And then we were supposed to launch May 1st, and I was like, wait a second.

Yes.

Earth Day is May 4th. Can we just wait 4 days? So, yeah.

Yeah. So we launched the new business entity on May 4th.

I love that.

That's fun.

Yes.

I think that is fun. And they put it in their little marketing and all that. I just think that is so cool.

Well, that's how— so just a preface until there was a post Erika shared about the post that they had put in a group, and that kind of got our attention. Was that it was a great— I wish we could share it on the screen. It was a great post. And I'm like, I like Star Wars and I don't know a lot about it, but I'm a Marvel fan.

Yes.

And I told you we're working through the Marvel. We've now made Marvel and X-Men.

Um, I'm looking forward to that.

I'm raising good comic book geek children.

Yeah.

And all those— oh, we—

I've already—

all the Marvels.

Like, do they like the stuff that you guys like? Like, for example, like, I— and I mentioned this to Shanti already in our business owners community, but like, I'm a geek on the, on the vibe of like the Harry Potter and all that stuff because I grew up with that stuff, you know what I mean? Like the books before you could see the movies and all that stuff. And so, but my kids are just not into it and I have been like a little pushy about it admittedly and they just like are just like rejecting it hardcore and so I've just kind of given up now but it's like, it's like killing me inside a little bit.

So my kids refused to be interested in Harry Potter. But they introduced me to Percy Jackson, and so now we're all over his stuff. And we've met in the middle with Marvel. I've not gone to DC. It's a little too dark for them at this age. But yeah, no, they do reject some of it, but they bring me new stuff and open my eyes.

That's true. That's a good point.

Yeah.

I've got two kids, but one is 7 and the other one is 17. So it's a very big difference.

Yeah, big gap. Yeah.

Yeah, the 17-year-old's all about all the superheroes and he's, you know, kind of nerdy with also like the Japanese stuff.

Anime, the anime stuff.

All that stuff. And that's out of my wheelhouse. But so he's all over that one. The little one, I'm starting to get him into it, but it's a little bit of a slower— that kid just doesn't stay still. They could not be more opposite from each other. Yeah, that kid.

Yeah, it's funny the way that works. Ours are like that too. We have 3 daughters and they're all just wildly different. But that's, that's what makes it interesting, right? Working mom stuff.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I grew up with Star Wars. I have older siblings, so there's a large gap between myself and my older sister. So like, I have one who's 10 years older than me, one that's 14, and then my brother's 15 years older than me. I absolutely love it. I am so blessed to have older siblings, so gay for your kids. Um, um, as an adult, I'm like, I just— it's the best thing in the world. Um, but so they were very Star Wars-y, but I got into Marvel when I had the boys. So I mean, I went all out. I mean, it was a huge thing, and we had half Captain America blue, half Hulk green in one room, and we painted. It was so much fun, and I got really into it. I grew up with mostly girls in the household, so I was something I could get into and be a boy mom. But then, you know, So, um, the boys are— mine are, uh, 15 and 13 right now, and they're still into the Marvel. We like DC some. My older one likes DC, but it's a little dark for me. I don't quite jive with it just yet.

So, well, that's okay. We took a hard left at Albuquerque with that.

Yeah, yeah, I told y'all we would. Sometimes we do that. Yeah, I do enjoy the geek talk. So, um, yeah, but to kind of pivot back to family law, um, what does a typical day look like for you ladies? Like, are you meeting clients all the time? You know, are you in court all the time? Like, or is it a mixture? How do your days go?

We both laughed when we saw that question. Yeah, there is no typical day. So in an ideal world, my job is more the administrative side of stuff. The billing and the management and the planning and all that. But in reality, I mean, we've been in business 3 months, right? Exploded. So we are incredibly busy. So I mean, a typical day, a whole lot of sitting at my computer drafting documents, emailing with clients and opposing counsel, time on the phone. It could include court, it could include mediation, it could include talking to a new client. I mean, I don't know that there's a typical—

my days are different though. Yeah, I'm more of the courtroom person because I love it. That's the thing that just gets me up in the morning and makes me all excited about going places. But getting up at the crack of dawn to attempt to work out, which doesn't ever work, and then getting a kid or two kids to where they need to go in the morning and then rushing to an 8:30 docket sometimes, or not rushing and getting there at 8:30 for a 9:00 docket to go to court that could last anywhere from 2 hours to all day, and then rushing to get another kid to an extracurricular activity, and then somewhere in there shoving food in people's faces and then putting them to bed.

Right.

There you go.

That's my day.

Typical mom.

Mari's husband works out of town a lot of the time, so she is not a single parent, but dear goodness gracious, she acts like it a lot. So I would agree, her day is chaos pretty much all the time. But I like it. She does. Like, my perfect world would be at my desk doing planning and spreadsheets and SOPs, and I'd be in heaven. And then Maudie would like walk in the door, our paralegal would hand her a notebook, she'd walk out the door and go to court to save the world. Like, that would be our perfect world.

Yeah.

We're not there yet, but we're working on it.

I'm good there.

Yeah, that's great. Well, like you mentioned before, it sounds like you guys like have opposite characteristics that complement each other and help in the business. So that's amazing. One of the questions that I had here for you guys, we had talked about initially how, you know, the type of work that you do can be a little bit trying and stressful and you see a lot of things. Do you guys have any tips or ways that you try to not bring that home with you to your own families? Because it's got to be kind of, you know, stressful.

I think it is. And I think because I've been doing this for over 20-something years, time unfortunately has been the thing that has gotten me to where I don't bring it home— the bad stuff. I don't bring the bad stuff, right? But, but, but it's taken me a lot of, of time and effort and a lot of friends to say, this was my day today, this is the bad thing that happened to me, and I can't shake it, I can't let it go, and I'm a horrible— a lot of this is, I'm a horrible person because I manipulated somebody to do XYZ. That was one of the most recent ones. That one had me worked up for about a week and a half, if not longer. And I had to go to a bunch of different friends because I don't go to therapists, I don't have time for the therapist. And it sucks, I, I get it. But my friends now are all of my therapists, so I just kind of pick all my friends and just kind of unload. And then the more I talk about it, the more it kind of— I get past it. And, you know, people beat it into my head. I think the other thing that I've done a lot is I look at what these other families are doing and the mistakes that they're making. Yeah. Um, what I've tried to do over the years is say, and it identify This is the catalyst for all of these other mistakes or all other ramifications that have happened. And so take that mistake, Marty, and learn from that mistake. Don't do that at home. Don't do that to your husband. Don't do that to your kids. And, you know, kind of manipulate, manipulate their bad behavior or bad outcome and learn that that's not okay. In my home, right?

Yeah. You know, I think people think most divorces are because someone cheated or someone stole money. It's not. It's, it's the hundred— it would— death by a thousand paper cuts. Yeah, that's what comes to us far more often. And I agree, I, I get annoyed with my husband and then I'm like, um, but I know that this guy today that I talked to was dealing with this, so that's not that big of a deal. Yeah, um, you know, I spent 10 years, like I said, literally dealing with life and death. If I didn't win my clients' cases, they could die because they weren't going to be able to get medical care. Um, and that, you know, when that's my measure, it's a lot easier to come here and say, you know, look, it's bad, it's personal. And we tell people, like, this is very personal for you. It is our job, and we understand it's very personal for you, but we give you that space where we can look at it professionally. And I'm professionally— I can look at this and say, that's not life and death. That's not going to die if we don't get this. You may not get to see your kids until 6 o'clock instead of 3 o'clock when you want to see them. What are we going to do to make that work for you? But let's put it in perspective. And so I think that perspective has made it easier for me to step back and not necessarily bring it home. But I do like Marty does, and I think A lot of attorneys, I assume in all areas, but certainly in family law, we have our circle of friends. We're a very small community, um, and we may go head-to-head in the courtroom, but outside the courtroom, we're all dealing with the same stuff. And it is likely that that person that your lawyer is fighting with today is who they're calling tomorrow to say, oh my gosh, I had this terrible day and this happened. Um, because we do, we understand each other and we understand what we're dealing with and We are each other's therapists.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I, I like that you are using like some bad things that happen to learn, you know, to learn from. I mean, we should all always be learning, and it's nice in my opinion to obviously take a negative and try to turn into as best of a positive as you can, um, even though it does seem like those situations would be very difficult.

Well, it's just, it's a I guess when you're around negative stuff all the time, you're hearing this on a consistent basis. I would think it would be hard to go home and— yeah, you know, it would be hard for me at least, you know, when it's just negative. But, but the way you took it, I like— like, hey, this is a really negative situation for these people. And not that you're— but you're like, hey, I, I've seen a consistent X, whatever it is. This, this behavior has caused, you know, so many divorces. This is something I'm going to try not to do with my own my own family, you know.

We celebrate the successes too. So yeah, just as much time as we have to explain to our client why we can't get them what they want for whatever reason, we have just as many, if not more, where we say, hey, we got, we got you that.

We—

my favorite story is about a client I took in for what was basically an agreed divorce. We were walking in, I was like, hey, is there anything you want? She said, I'd really like to keep my dogs. Dogs are property, they're not kids. You don't fight over custody of dogs. 'Well, we got the dogs.' And I was like, 'Okay, that was our win.' It was— it's such a little thing, but it made her day.

No, I mean, that dogs are huge.

That is a big deal.

I went through a breakup in college and we shared a dog. We weren't married, thank goodness. But we shared a dog. And like in the breakup, it was sort of just assumed that our dog that we had had for like 5 years together was just going to go with my ex. And like there was never really any question about it. And damn it, for a while I missed that dog. You know what I'm saying? It's just like, and I think about that. Obviously now I think the dog has probably passed because that was a number of years ago. But, you know, I thought about her for a while. And so I love that you were able to get that for your client because I think that's huge.

Yeah.

So we take the wins, we focus on the positives, I think, and the wins that we get. Yeah.

You know, the other day I was having kind of a rough day.

I don't know if I told you this.

Having a rough, rough day. And It was the end of the day. I was just picked up my kid. I think that's what it was. And I got just this random text and I didn't have that telephone number saved in my phone. And it basically said, you know, I don't know if you remember who I am, but I took everything that you said to heart. I changed my life. I've been now sober for— I don't remember how long he was sober. And my marriage is working out. The kids are great. My wife is great. My relationship is great. And if I hadn't listened to you, We would have been down this other road. And it was just a very heartful, thankful kind of— and after a minute I remembered who he was, but it was like, this was 5 years ago that I went through this situation. And it gives me a little chill.

Yeah.

You know, it's not every day that you get a thank you because we have a very yucky, thankless type of job. But then you realize that the things that you say and the things that you do, you don't necessarily know who's actually listening and how much they're listening. Until way later when something like that pops up, and then you're like, okay, well, I'm— at least I'm not talking to the air.

Yeah, right. Someone's listening.

Yeah.

Oh, I love it.

It was a good day. Great.

Yeah, well, I think in their situation with family law, I would assume that everything's, um, you have to compromise, and no one is going to get 100% of what they want ever. And that, that's, that's marriage, and apparently divorce too. Like, you're never going to get everything that you want. And to have someone come back and say, hey, and, you know, whatever the case was at their time, but what you said made a difference and I changed and now my life is better is always good because at the time I'm sure they're like, hey, that's not what I want to hear. I don't want to hear that part.

He's an alcoholic.

You didn't tell me that.

I didn't tell you I have an alcoholic.

I know that makes me a little teary, kind of.

It was a good moment. You know, our new associate did an adoption last, earlier last week, and she and I are both sitting back there going, oh my gosh, that would be me.

I mean, especially for an adoption, such an exciting time. And, you know, people are so happy. I would just be bawling. I'm like a teen crier.

I can't. I like fake it. I'm like, oh, I got something in my eye.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were talking with another woman that was on the podcast who did get a little bit emotional during one of her moments. And I guess when I was younger, I was not emotional. Like, I just wasn't. And after you have kids, it's almost just like some switch is turned where all of a sudden it's like I'm crying at a butter commercial. Like, what is going on? And my husband looks at me like, what's happening to you? And I'm like, I don't know. There's a dog and it's sad. And he's like, get out of here.

Like, what are you doing?

I don't know. It's the mother gene, I guess, that now I'm just a team crier and I cry for every reason.

For sure. I mean, I was an attorney before I had kids for quite a while. My kids are 10 and I've been practicing 17 years.

Yeah.

And, um, no, for sure I can tell the difference between what I was like before kids. And, you know, people joke like, oh, you don't understand because you're not a mother. And I always thought, well, that's such a stupid thing. But no, it really, really, it really— I was a great lawyer before I was a mother, don't get me wrong. There are plenty of fantastic lawyers who are not parents who are amazing at their job, but it's different. Yeah, it's just different.

Yeah, it is different. I think it's someone— if someone's struggling and they've not had children and you're trying to relate to them and for them to understand what you're going through. I think it's not that it's impossible for them to understand, but it's a little harder for them to really grasp how much it means to see your child at 3 versus 6 PM, whatever the case is, either side, you know, mom or dad, you know, but having your child, it's just different. I mean, when you become a mom, it's just a different type of thing because you have other people in your life that mean more to you than yourself.

Yes, period.

That's it.

You know, it is. And not to discount the dads, because I think we've had plenty of dads who just say, nobody understands me, they assume the mom is always right, I'm just gonna lose because I'm the dad. And we have to be like, you're a parent, we're gonna fight just as hard for you as we would for a mom, because you have just as much right to be in these kids' lives. Um, I think maybe we fight harder for dads sometimes because they feel so like—

I think they get the short end of the stick because it's always assumed moms are the best caretakers.

Yeah, and to be, to be honest, for those things that I went through in my divorce, they were hard, um, and I got through it. But then I started doing family law, and I started with a family law firm that was more focused on dad's rights and men's rights. But what I found was behind every dad, there's a sister, there's a mother, there's an aunt, um, that we've all had this situation where you've got your your male family members, your male friends who are going through, you know, something difficult. And just by virtue of your genitalia, now all of a sudden you're being told that you don't have, you know, access or rights or the ability to be involved in your kids' lives. And it became, for me, it became an agenda for me, kind of, if that's the right word. I don't know, maybe I just like underdogs. I, I just like fighting. Um, but I, I've seen over the years that I've been doing this that the dad— dads had it a lot harder. And over the last few years, we've been able as a, as an industry to be able to gain ground to the degree that we're looking at more dads who have equal access to their kids. And when I say equal access, I mean like 50% of the time, not the 30, 45, you know, 47.5, whatever they say. Yeah. Um, we're looking at the ability to have more dads involved, and I've been more successful at getting dads even more time sometimes than moms, because it doesn't matter what gender you are, if you're behaving poorly to your kids, right, it's bad. Like, that's not good.

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. And I think people just negate the, the role that dads are needed. Like, having— I'm a boy mom, so I, I, I love my sons and I am— I feel like I'm a great parent to them, but they need their dad. I cannot be a strong male role model for them. I cannot, just can't do that part, and they need that in their life. So I feel that across the board, if you're a female or male, you need a strong male role model in your life, and hopefully that is the, the, the father. So I think it's really important.

I think Monty's right. I think— and, and we're obviously, we're not the only ones who feel this way, but because there have been attorneys that have fought for dads, more dads are realizing that they can ask for that and they can ask for more time with their kids.

And they can—

it's okay to say, no, I want, I want as much time as I can get. I want to be as involved as I can. And that's it, you know, it's, it's a cycle. So it makes it easier. So more dads say, hey, I want it. And And yeah, it's nice to see.

It is.

Yeah. Well, we typically ask our guests what their favorite thing is about what they're doing. I imagine you guys probably have more than one, but if you could narrow it down a little bit, what are some of your favorite things about what you've got going on?

Legitimately, it's embarrassing. And she knows. She's looking at me like, you know, I love going to court. I just, yeah, I freaking love going to court. And, you know, I'm not asking for my clients to fight, so I'll, I'll not fight just as much as I will fight. But my favorite thing in the world is to go to court.

It really is. She gets—

yeah, that's great though. I mean, you obviously found something you love and you're doing that thing, so that's amazing.

My favorite, you know, it's funny because if you'd asked me that 6 months ago or maybe a year ago, my answer would have been different. But I, I like working with her.

Yeah, it really—

I didn't realize how much I missed being around other people during COVID I worked out of my house, like I joked my dogs were my paralegals. Really like being around these people, the people that we have— we call them our Island of Misfit Toys, but our people we've put together here. I love coming to work with these people every day, even when they frustrate me and we're screaming and yelling. I love making a difference. Immeasurable. Like, I can see the difference I'm making in people's lives, and that is— yeah, that's phenomenal. And the fact that I get to be like, you know what, my kids have a school production, I'm gonna go see my kids.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna be in that.

Yeah, we're like, I'm gonna take Friday off and go camping. And you know, it—

I—

those are my favorite things.

I imagine when you are working for other folks, that wasn't as allowed, right? I mean, people— I mean, you see and hear lawyers specifically. I mean, it's long hours and it's, you know, it's intense. And so when you work for other people, I imagine it's hard to be a working mom as a lawyer.

Yes and no. So I think it depends on the culture of where you work. You know, every lawyer has what we call billable hour requirements. Basically, you have to work X amount so that you make enough to pay your salary. And I think every firm is different. Some truly believe in work-life balance, and they are more likely to have attorneys that are happier and able to have— and some are not, right?

I mean, around here we tell people that they've got— you have your requirements, but we're not going to dictate to you where you do it or how you do it. Well, maybe how you do it if you're doing it wrong, but not where you're doing it or when you're doing it, right? So if you've got a kid that you need to take to a doctor's appointment, fine, you know, come in early, make it late, work at home if you've got a sick kid, work at home. Like, we're trying very hard to make sure that there is a really good work-life balance. We're not overworking people so that they get burned out. We've got some young—

yeah, our associate has an infant, so, you know, he frequently— and it's, it's really cool because we talk about, you know, the default parent, and mom tends to be the default parent, but it's cool for him to be able to say, you know, mom, go do what you need to do, I'll stay home and watch baby. Because I can work from home, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, that's good.

It is. It's nice to be able to do that and be that kind of good place to work.

Yeah, I do. I think, I think if more companies can learn, that'd be great. I think a lot of people are— a lot of companies, excuse me, are forcing employees back into the office, right? Because we've gotten used to working from home. And I think it's still good to be in the office. I think having that camaraderie, that socialize with your coworkers is good. For the team, for the company, but understanding that, hey, I have control, they have control of their schedule. They wanted to come in early because they have a school activity, they want to go to a game in the afternoon, then they balance the workload that way. They get it done in their hours. You know, I think that's, I think it's great and I think it makes for a healthy, healthy company.

So, yeah, well, good.

And then lastly, if you can just tell everybody that is listening how they can get a hold of you guys for your services.

So our website— website— also our website is Cruz Day Law, C-R-U-Z-D-A-Y Law. That's also our Instagram handle and our Facebook handle. I am shanti@cruzdaylaw.com and she's maudeebell@cruzdaylaw.com. We try to make it as easy as possible.

Um, oh, and our telephone number. Yes, uh, 210-201-4996.

Great.

Yeah, that's perfect. Call, email, whatever.

Send a carrier pigeon.

Send a carrier— yeah, we have a few patio— we get vultures out there sometimes. They may not let the carrier pigeons through.

Um, but yeah, I love it.

Yeah, that's funny. Cool. Well, I want to thank you guys so much for being on. I feel like this was one of our better episodes. I learned so much and you guys are so personable and I'm excited to see, you know, this is a new kind of venture together and I'm excited to see it grow for you guys, you know?

Yeah, definitely.

You can tell you're passionate about what you do and you can tell you love working together. And so I, I can only imagine it's going to be very successful for you guys. So thank you for being on here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then I'm going to also say thank you to our listeners. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast, and we will just catch you guys next week.

Thanks so much for tuning in to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. Be sure to follow us on social media at our respective Instagram accounts or join our Working Moms of San Antonio Facebook group. Those links can be found in our episode description. If you have an episode topic suggestion or question, please email us at office@radisagent.com. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. See you next week.