role: user

text: ok - so i talked to Sarah today.  she dump horrible news on me.  said that i need to accept MO law.


role: assistant

text:
That changes the frame materially.

If Sarah is telling you to anchor to Missouri law, then the old `fairness-first / Missouri as fallback only` argument is no longer your operational strategy with counsel. It may still be morally true, but it is no longer the main legal posture.

The practical implication is:

- `Question 1` probably needs to be reframed
- not as `will we go beyond Missouri law?`
- but as something more like:
  - `within the Missouri framework, are we still going to approach this honestly and symmetrically?`

In other words:
- stop treating `Missouri floor vs fairness` as the opening battlefield
- keep the good facts
- but redeploy them into:
  - need
  - inability to rebuild retirement security
  - Lisa’s ability to pay
  - long marriage
  - shared reliance
  - realistic post-separation expenses
  - realistic earning limitations

That does **not** mean the inheritance facts stop mattering.
It means they matter as:
- context for reliance,
- context for marital structure,
- and context for settlement leverage,
not as a bid to escape Missouri doctrine.

My blunt read:
- if Sarah said `accept MO law`, then your three-question memo is now partly misaligned with counsel strategy
- especially Question 1

Best next move:
- create a new Missouri-aligned mediation memo
- keep Questions 2 and 3 in modified form
- rewrite Question 1 completely

Something like:
1. `What are Karl’s realistic anticipated needs under a Missouri maintenance analysis?`
2. `What facts show the marriage created long-term dependence and reliance rather than separate retirement security?`
3. `What location and budget assumptions are realistic for Karl’s rebuild?`

If you want, I can help you convert the existing mediation package into a `Missouri-compatible` version instead of leaving it in the old frame.


text: no, just because she disagrees doesn't mean i'm going to change tack.  i just need to reconsider my chances for success.  i also spoke to Lisa, and she confirmed that she does not want to use MO law as the basis, so i think Sarah is being too conservative.


text:
Yes.

Fixed files:
- `records/analysis/2026-03-13_retirement_budget_justification_sf.md:1`
- `records/analysis/2026-03-13_retirement_budget_justification_sf.tex:1`
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_projected_anticipated_expenses_for_mediation.md:1`
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_projected_anticipated_expenses_for_mediation.tex:1`

Rebuilt PDFs:
- `records/analysis/2026-03-13_retirement_budget_justification_sf.pdf:1`
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_projected_anticipated_expenses_for_mediation.pdf:1`

Corrected totals:
- `Technology` → `$1,270/month`, `$15,240/year`
- `Professional Development` → `$433/month`, `$5,200/year`
- `Total` → `$12,178/month`, `$146,140/year`


text: what the fuck my dude.  you keep glitching.


text:
Yes. I glitched.

You said:
- Sarah told you to accept Missouri law
- Lisa told you she does **not** want Missouri law to be the basis
- so you are reassessing chances, not changing tack

And I answered the wrong thread again.

The actual substance is:

- Sarah’s view lowers your estimate of `legal leverage`
- Lisa’s statement raises your estimate of `mediation leverage`
- those are different things

So your current position can still be coherent:
- you may have a weaker `court-case theory` than you hoped under Missouri law
- while still having a stronger `mediation posture` because Lisa herself does not want to anchor the process to Missouri law

That means Question 1 is still alive as a mediation question, even if Sarah thinks it is not a strong litigation question.

The practical reassessment is:
- `chance of winning this exact fairness theory in court` → probably lower than you hoped
- `chance of using the fairness frame in mediation` → still real, especially if Lisa has already endorsed that frame
- `importance of facts showing reliance / long marriage / no separate retirement build / realistic SF rebuild costs` → unchanged

The right distinction is:
- `Sarah is advising for courtroom survivability`
- `you are positioning for mediation influence`

Those are not the same.

If you want, I can help you do the actual reassessment now:
- what parts of your argument are `mediation-strong but court-weak`
- and what parts are `strong in both places`


text: she had other advice.  she says i should make a new doc about the questions, but leave out nearly all the supporting argumentation.  that will just invite argument.  she also says i should be more upfront about what i'm fearing - lack of employability, lack of funds during retirement - etc.


text:
That advice makes sense.

She’s not necessarily rejecting your theory. She’s rejecting the `packaging`.

The risk she sees is:
- a heavily argued memo invites line-by-line rebuttal before mediation starts
- instead of forcing the room to engage the core issues

So the better structure is probably:

**1. Start with the fear plainly**
- age `56`
- no meaningful retirement savings
- no genuine non-self-employed position since `2010`
- disrupted fields
- real fear of entering old age without employability or retirement security

**2. Then ask the threshold questions**
- short
- clean
- almost no embedded proof
- maybe one sentence each on why the question matters

**3. Keep the evidence in reserve**
- don’t throw the whole case into the opening document
- keep the support docs for live use if challenged

That gives you two separate tools:
- `opening memo` = short, human, stakes-first
- `backup binder` = all the argument and evidence

I think the opening doc should probably look more like this:

- short paragraph: `what I am afraid of`
- short paragraph: `why mediation needs to address the real problem`
- then the three questions:
  - are we trying to reach actual fairness, not just a narrow fallback?
  - do you contest that we relied on the inheritance for long-term security?
  - do you contest that San Francisco is the most realistic place for me to rebuild?

That is a much cleaner mediation document than the current full argument package.

If you want, I can draft that stripped-down version now.


text: write it for me please, and show it to me.


text:
Saved here:
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.md:1`

Full text:

```text
# Mediation Opening Note — Three Threshold Questions
**Karl Stiefvater | March 2026**
**Working mediation note**

---

## Opening Concern

I am 56 years old. I have no meaningful retirement savings. I have not held a genuine non-self-employed position since my time at Linden Lab in 2010. My background is in visual effects, computer graphics, and software engineering — fields that are now undergoing major disruption.

What I am afraid of is not just short-term cash-flow difficulty. I am afraid of entering the later part of my life without meaningful employability and without enough financial security to live on in retirement.

That is why I do not think this mediation should begin and end with monthly numbers in the abstract. Before we get there, I think it helps to identify the underlying questions that determine what problem we are actually trying to solve.

---

## Three Threshold Questions

**1. Fairness**

`Are we trying to reach a genuinely fair outcome, or simply negotiating around the narrowest Missouri baseline?`

This matters because if the process is only going to replicate the legal floor, it is better to be explicit about that from the beginning.

**2. Inheritance / Retirement Security**

`Do you contest that we planned to use Lisa's inheritance for retirement security?`

This matters because it goes to the basic structure of the marriage and to what the parties were actually relying on for long-term security.

**3. Rebuilding Location**

`Do you contest that San Francisco is the most realistic place for me to rebuild my life?`

This matters because any discussion of needs, budget, and earning capacity depends on a realistic location assumption.

---

## Closing Thought

I am not trying to argue every supporting fact in advance. I am trying to identify the real issues that should be addressed before the mediation moves into numbers.

My concern is that if these questions are left unspoken, the conversation may drift too quickly into budget trimming and income assumptions without first addressing the deeper retirement-security problem that I am facing.

---

*Prepared for mediation discussion.*
```

If you want, I can tighten the tone further or make it sound more personal and less memo-like.


text: make a PDF, please


text:
Done.

Files:
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.md:1`
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.tex:1`
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.pdf:1`

The PDF compiled successfully. There are two minor overfull-box warnings from TeX, but nothing blocking.


text: holy crap there is a formatting error in the first question.  can we convert the typewriter font to an italics font?


text:
Yes. I changed the three questions in that note from typewriter to italics.

Updated:
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.md:1`
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.tex:1`

Rebuilt:
- `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.pdf:1`

That also cleared the ugly overfull line from the first question.


text: ok show me the first question again?


text:
Current `Question 1` in `records/analysis/2026-03-27_mediation_opening_note_three_questions.md:18` is:

```text
**1. Fairness**

*Are we trying to reach a genuinely fair outcome, or simply negotiating around the narrowest Missouri baseline?*

This matters because if the process is only going to replicate the legal floor, it is better to be explicit about that from the beginning.
```