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Why Lawyers Don’t Believe You — And How to Build a Case They Can’t Ignore

Rebecca Zung16:22

Transcription

Hey there. Are you dealing with a situation where you're feeling like your lawyer doesn't believe you or the judge doesn't believe you because the narcissist is just charming everybody and you just feel victimized over and over and over again? Then this video is definitely the one for you because I'm going to tell you why they don't end up believing you and how you can turn that all around.

[Music]

Hey, I'm Rebecca Zung. I'm a trial attorney. I've been a trial attorney for many years now. I'm also a globally recognized USA Today bestselling author. If you are new here, I invite you to subscribe and hit that notification bell.

All right, so why don't narcissists believe, excuse me, why don't lawyers or judges believe you? And sometimes they just believe the narcissist. Here's the thing. The narcissist is very good at what they do. I remember when I interviewed Judge Lynn Toller, which I highly recommend you watch that interview. She said, "Listen, it might take the judge a minute or somebody a minute to find out what's going on because hey, they charmed you, right?" So, they only get a little teeny slice in time and it's hard for them to figure out what's actually going on and who's who. And a lot of times Darvo is happening that deny attack reverse victim offender meaning they deny the attack they reverse it so that you are the offender and they become the victim.

It's one of the biggest pain points that I see in the YouTube comments of oftentimes or with people who are joining my programs. People think you know the judge doesn't believe me the system is rigged. everyone is against me. And so, so you end up feeling crazy. You end up feeling alone. You end up feeling isolated, frustrated, angry, resentful, and then that ends up all just feeding on itself because now the narcissist is just thinking they're getting away with it all. And it just spirals downhill from there.

I want you to understand why this happens. And then more importantly, how to build a case that flips that power dynamic so sharply that lawyers or judges, they have to take notice. They're actually going to be saying, "Hey, let's get this done. Let's win this case. Let's let's give you what you want if they're the judge."

So, why don't lawyers believe you or or judges believe you? Here's the truth that nobody tells you, and that is that lawyers and judges aren't traumainformed. They don't understand what is happening behind the scenes. They're riskinformed. Okay? They're looking at the risk. They're looking at the law. They're not looking at the emotional aspect of the case. They're looking at it through a lens of cost, time, evidence, law, risk to their reputation, court efficiency, whether or not your case might be winnable on paper. And that's goes for lawyers and judges because judges want to make sure that they're not going to get appealed. They don't look at it from the lens of emotional abuse. They don't look at it from, oh gez, this person should get some kind of compensation for the fact that they may have been abused. It's not morally right, but it is the reality. It can be very emotionally devastating. There's no doubt about it. What is going to be winnable to a judge, right?

So, you don't want to come in saying, "That person's a narcissist. They're gaslighting me. They lie constantly. They've ruined my life. They've ruined the lives of everybody around them. Look what they're doing." And and that just all sounds like chaos to lawyers and judges. Not calm, not reason. Not because it's not true, but because it's not admissible evidence. It's not something that they can use as proof.

This is what they want to see. They want to see timelines, patterns, documentations, screenshots that they can authenticate. Bank statements, credit card statements, things that can be authenticated, communication that can be authenticated, meaning who wrote it, when do we know that this was definitely that person's email at that time. It hasn't been doctorred up. So, what holds up in court? That's basically what it comes down to. Stories don't necessarily hold up in court. Character assassinations, diagnosis, your suffering. I mean, even though your suffering is real, it's not why your truth gets dismissed. Many times, your evidence is there. It's just not organized. And most people bring what I call the evidence dump. Hundreds of screenshots, random emails, long paragraphs, scattered incidents. Lawyers do not have time to sift through it all. Even if they did, do you don't want them to sit there and go through it all at $500, $600 an hour or whatever they're charging you $1,200 an hour, even if it's $200 an hour. Do you want them to be charging you to go through all of that stuff? They want things categorized, chronological, highlighted, summarized, connected to legal elements, ready for court formatting. If they have to spend 20 plus hours organizing your case, that's a red flag for them because that means you may not even have leverage.

I can tell you that I've had people come in and literally bring grocery bags, plastic grocery bags filled with their bills, not even organized. It's not even like electric was in this one and phone in this one. Literally everything just thrown in there and they just brought it in and dumped it on the conference room table. I mean, a lawyer just goes, "Oh my god, I I don't want to have to go through that."

You want to be able to tell a clean, simple story. And a narcissist is often very good at that because they're great at framing narrative. They've been working on framing narratives their entire lives. And when they come in charming, concise, organized, calm, not emotional, and and they say, "Hey, that other side over there, they're emotional. They're crazy. They are overreacting, and here's the three texts where they blew up, and I just want to be a co-parent over here." Suddenly, you look like you're the problem. And they rehearse that story. They're really good at this because this has been their whole life. Their whole life is a play is a drama that they're just a part of and you guys are just the players in that. And so they're prepping narrative from day one. You know, they'll they'll they'll couch concern and and care in in these comments where they're actually smearing you. Oh, I'm just so worried about Susie and her drinking. I'm just so sad about it. You know, I mean, I I know that she's been under a lot of stress lately, but I'm just concerned for her, even though Susie probably doesn't have a drinking problem at all. Maybe Susie has one glass of wine every month, but Susie has a drinking problem. So, this is what they do. They learn how to frame narratives like that.

This is not something that you've rehearsed and done. And so, it's not your fault, but you've got to learn how to play the game. If a lawyer thinks that you're going to be difficult, hard to manage, not because you are, but because you're in trauma and you just don't even know where to start with all of this. When somebody's drowning, they'll grab anything. When they're panicked, they behave in ways that they might not necessarily be behave if they were calm. And they get traumatized by having to tell the story again, go through everything again. And lawyers think this client is going to be emotionally difficult, need a lot of handholding. The case is going to take so much time. I don't even know if it's winnable. They don't want a death spiral. They don't want a negative vortex. Contrary to your belief, you know, that maybe they just love to build time. There's only so many hours in a day. And if they have so many cases, they're not looking for more billables. I mean, you want a lawyer who's busy, but you don't want them to be too busy, but they're not looking for extra time to bill most of the time, right? Because they've already got plenty to do.

You want to build a case that they can't ignore. How do you become that client that every lawyer wants? So, the very first thing I always tell people to do is build a timeline. Because so many times when people are coming in to tell your story, their stories, they start right in the middle. And then he showed up in my living room and started yelling at me and the kids are just so traumatized and they're just sick of it too and you're like, "Okay, uh, how long have you been married and how many kids do you have and what led up to this?" As a person who's just hearing all of this for the first time, it gets a little bit dicey. So having a clean chronological road map, not paragraphs, not an emotional trauma dump, okay? But on July 3rd at 1:12 a.m., he sent 17 texts in a row demanding answers. On July 15th at 2:30 p.m., refused to exchange the child at the court-ordered location. Uh, police report 11293. August 1st 905 email contradicts earlier statements that they never withheld information. When a lawyer sees a timeline like that, they know that you're going to be easy to deal with and serious. Okay.

So, the next thing is identifying patterns. You're not documenting incidents. You're documenting patterns. Courts rule on consistency on these patterns where they're going to see, yeah, this is the type of person that I'm dealing with here. So, financial manipulation, for example, three utility shut offs or bills not being paid or bank withdrawals, sudden bank withdrawals. There's several bank withdrawals that don't make any sense, hidden transfers that don't make any sense, repeated lack of transparency, lying. You know, so many people think that no fault means that fault never matters. No fault just means you don't have to prove fault in order to get divorced. It doesn't mean that fault never matters. Fault matters all the time. Try lying in court. See if it matters. That's not drama. That's data.

So, keep your screenshots super simple and labeled. When you bring in thousands of pieces of unorganized data and there's just all these like printouts of bubbles and half conversations, it it's just so overwhelming for a lawyer to have to try to look at it. So, if you bring in 20 labeled exhibits that says exhibit A, harassment, okay, screenshot one, timestamp behavior, screenshot two, escalation, screenshot three, contradiction, screenshot four, violation. Now, your lawyer sees leverage and it makes it so much easier for them.

That's why I developed Slay AI, which is for you to build your case file. That's where it come that system becomes your secret weapon because it will do this all for you automatically. Text, email, social media posts, co-parenting, app messages, voicemails, you can transcribe them and put them in. And then Slay AI will detect those hidden manipulation patterns, highlight contradictions, groups behavior for you, creates the timelines, and then generates those court ready exhibits for you and gives you a clean, organized case file, even analyze your leverage gaps, where are your gaps, and helps you prepare scripts for your attorney. And this is how you walk in looking like a client who doesn't cost a lawyer 40 hours of prep time and handholding with you because you're trying to tell you exactly what to do. And then that's when you go from not being believable to case ready and you also shift. You also feel more powerful. You're also taking control.

So, if a lawyer wants to know, are you going to be able to help them? If they're accusing you of 50,000 things, they're they're going to turn the lawyer's going to turn right to you and say, "How should I respond? What do you want me to say?" But if you know exactly what to say, what outcome you want specifically? And are you stable enough emotionally to be able to be their partner in this? Then you become the ideal client. You want to say, "Here's what I want. Here's my timeline. Here's my patterns. Here's my exhibits. Here's the contradictions. I've already organized this for you. Here's what I need from you. This is what I want. Okay? This is the outcome that I'm shooting for. Now, you're no longer a high-risisk client. You're a dream client.

If you want to get started, just get my free Doc the narc cheat sheet. D Ot Nc.com. docthen.com to get my free sheet. And if you are so ready for this, I want you to put so ready in the comments. And what's one thing that lawyers haven't understood about your case so far? Put that in the comments below and it'll help people feel less alone. It also helps me understand what is going to be the content that you want to hear from from me. All right?

Just know that you're not invisible. You're not alone. You're not voiceless. You're not powerless. You're not crazy. That it's none of those things. It's just that you're trying to find your way in a system that you're just not wasn't built for you. It wasn't built for dealing with narcissists. And you're also somebody who's probably been dealing with psychological warfare. And now you're learning how to turn that pain into power and that power into leverage. So, if this helped you, I want you to give it a thumbs up, give it a share. And then I also want to make sure just check and make sure that you have subscribed and hit that bell. Join my free private Facebook group, Narcissist Negotiators with Rebecca Zong.

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The next step is super critical, too. I want you to watch this video. Why lawyers won't take your case and what to do instead. All right, so that's the next video that I want you to watch. Everything you just learned today is going to we're just going to go a little bit deeper in that video. You've got this. The fact that you're even here, you're watching this, it just tells me that you are becoming stronger and stronger and stronger every single day. You're educating yourself and you're becoming the best version of yourself. Give yourself some credit. Acknowledge yourself and I will see you in that next.