Most poly families are one crisis away from a legal nightmare — and they don’t know it. In this episode, Alonzo sits down with attorney Toby Adams, who has spent 14 years specializing in family law and estate planning exclusively for poly, queer, kink, and neurodiverse communities. Toby breaks down what rights actually exist for poly parents in California and beyond, how to get all three parents on a birth certificate, why a will or trust can protect your polycule where the law won’t, and what happens to your home, your children, and your partner’s belongings if you never put anything in writing. Allegra Pescatore, general manager of Toby Adams Law and a poly community member herself, adds a deeply personal story about losing a partner with no legal protections in place  and why that moment changed everything she understood about why this work matters. This is the episode you didn’t know you needed. Listen before you need it.

Alonzo Banks (Host) · Attorney Toby Adams, Esq. (Toby Adams Law) · Allegra Pescatore (General Manager, Toby Adams Law / Author) · Captain Lynn

Toby Adams, Attorney at Law : http://www.TobyAdamsLaw.com
Allegra Pescatore : website: authorallegra.com

PolySoCal – D43 – Attorney Toby Adams
Alonzo banx: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Poly SoCal Podcast. I am super excited tonight. We’ve got an amazing guest at the table. Gonna have a good conversation, talk about the legal world and how it affects us in poly. Hi, everybody
Captain Lynn: Hey, Alonso
Alonzo banx: Hey, it’s good to have you. Okay, so for everyone at home, let’s go around and talk about who’s on the call tonight. Captain Lynn, welcome back
Captain Lynn: Thank you, Alonzo. It’s good to be here
Alonzo banx: Want to tell people who you are?
Captain Lynn: Uh, yes, I have been in the poly community for, uh, going on 15, maybe 20 years if I do the math, and, uh, different kinds of, uh, configurations in my life. Currently, I’m single poly dating and, uh, always good… And I– my children were involved with me when– and I was out with them, when I first got into community
Alonzo banx: Always good to have you. Glad you were able to make it on tonight. [00:01:00] And we have Allegra with us. And you’re part of the law firm, the first time on our call tonight. Please let people know who you are and what you’re doing with us tonight
Allegra Pescatore: I’m Allegra Pescatore. I am the general manager of Toby Adams Law. Um, I’m also a member of the poly community and an author who writes books primarily featuring disabled and poly characters
Alonzo banx: Nice. Welcome. We gotta make sure to get some of those links. Tell people, tell us about your books. Where can they find them?
Allegra Pescatore: Um, pretty much everywhere books are sold
Alonzo banx: Okay. And they just look up by your name, they’re gonna find them?
Allegra Pescatore: Yep
Alonzo banx: Okay, get me some links so we can put them up on the website for people. And our guest of honor tonight, Toby Adams, the lawyer and head of the law firm.
Tell us about you, Toby. What, what, what do you do, and why do you grace us here tonight with this call?
Toby Adams, Esq.: Well, Alonso, thank you so much for introducing me and for inviting us here. Um, my name’s Tobi Adams. I’ve been [00:02:00] an attorney since 2012, and I have always only worked for the queer, poly, um, disabled, uh, kink, neurodiverse communities, people who, um, other lawyers really aren’t serving well. Um, and the prim- primary area of our law firm is handling family law and estate planning for poly families.
So we have a lot of triads and quads who have children who wanna have parentage rights. We have, um, polycules of various configurations who want to protect their partners with estate planning, um, through wills and trusts, and, uh, that’s, that’s what we’ve been doing for… since 2012. So I guess the math, uh, almost 14 years now
Alonzo banx: [00:03:00] Nice. So explain to me as a non-lawyer, what does that mean? Family law trust estate. What, I mean, why, why do people call you
Toby Adams, Esq.: So people call for– they, they don’t always– I mean, people usually when they, when they first reach out to us, and don’t call me, email me, please. you call me, my voicemail says, “Here’s my email address.” Um, when people reach out to me, um, and reach out to our firm, they are concerned about protecting their families, and I use the term family to include all configurations of molecules.
I’ve worked with multi-generational that included parents, children, multiple partners, grandchildren who were disabled, all, all, all configurations of families. A lot of triads with kids, um, come to us and [00:04:00] say, “We heard from a friend of a friend that we can actually all be the legal parents of our children.” Um, people in triads and quads are get– are, are raising children together. The children see all three or four or whatever of their parents. I’m actually just for the first time have a quad. So mostly I have triads, but they’re of all configurations. But a triad will come to me, and their all– their children see all three of their parents as their parents. But the law doesn’t see that. Um, a lot of people assume that whoever’s on the birth certificate is the parent. In fact, it is whoever gave birth. It is whoever is married or in a registered domestic partnership with that person has a presumption of parentage. Whoever is holding out the [00:05:00] child as their own and saying, “This is my child,” has a presumption of parentage.
There’s a couple of different ways. And if there are more than two people with a presumption of parentage in California, um, then we can petition the court and say it would, it would be detrimental to these children for any one of these three parents, using that as an example, taken away from them. And we’ve done that, I don’t know, dozens of ti– We, we have– I don’t keep track of the count, but, um, we have countless cl-clients who now have a birth certificate with all three parents’ on the birth certificate
Alonzo banx: You mentioned California. Um,
Toby Adams, Esq.: Mm-hmm.
Alonzo banx: in a very diverse country, as has been, um, really illustrated lately. Um, does this apply nationwide, [00:06:00] or h- how do you figure that out? Yeah, Allegra, please go ahead
Allegra Pescatore: So no. Um, in fact, protections for poly families and poly parents are very few and far between. California is definitely leading the charge in that regard. Um, very few other states have any provisions on the books f- uh, polyamory. Although, of course, as we all know, provisions legally for multiple parents being involved in a child’s life are huge.
I mean, divorced couples who then remarry often have legal rights to each other’s children through adoption, and there’s a, a myriad of different ways where you have situations that mirror poly life that have far more protections nationally than poly families
Alonzo banx: So are
Toby Adams, Esq.: mentioned that there, that California’s leading the charge. So there are other, um, there are some other states that have protections, and it is growing. Um, as far as for third [00:07:00] parents, there are either something on the books or individual cases that have been, um, won in, uh, including Connecticut, Delaware, um, Maine, Massachusetts.
We’ll probably talk about Massachusetts again tonight with other, other, uh, protections. New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Oregon and Verm- Oregon and Washington are really growing also in terms of providing rights for poly families
Alonzo banx: What do people need to know and how do they find out for their area? I’m listening to this podcast from Utah. How do I find out what applies to me?
Toby Adams, Esq.: Well, it’s difficult to find attorneys who work in this area. there– I, I know I’m here on the West Coast. There are a couple of, uh, there, there’s one other law firm that I know that reg- and in, they’re in [00:08:00] Southern California, and they refer people to me. I’m in Northern California. Um, I take cases all over the state. Um, there’s another, uh, organization on the East Coast that is run by Diana Adams. No relationship. Um, we are, have been on, on, um, on, uh, presentations before together. And so you c- organiz- their organization is the Chosen Family Law Center, um, and they have a lot of research. Um, are other organizations that have some information. Um, you can always reach out to me at tobyadamslaw.com and, uh, I can try and point you in the right direction. Um, obviously, I don’t practice law outside of California, so I can’t provide legal advice or legal [00:09:00] services outside of California. But if somebody’s in Utah, you know, I would probably Recommend that they move out of Utah. That’s not a very good answer, but
Alonzo banx: You know, when I was grabbing for the name of a state, it was the first one I came up with.
Toby Adams, Esq.: Yeah.
Alonzo banx: I said it, I’m like, “Yeah.”
Captain Lynn: Utah?
Alonzo banx: Okay. So l- let’s move on from there. Is, is this a state jurisdiction or is it city or county centric? If I’m looking for an attorney, can I find one in California and they can answer all of California or do I need to find one in San Francisco or LA?
Captain Lynn: County
Toby Adams, Esq.: it’s state-wise. Well, the representation as far as be, uh, being licensed to practice is in a state. And so for instance, our firm, we practice in all states. Uh, Katherine Lynn, you just said county. You [00:10:00] cases in a specific county, and a lot of attorneys will only practice in their county. We don’t do that.
We practice, uh, we’ve got clients from Del Norte County down to San Diego, um, and everywhere in between. Uh, every county acts a little different, but they’re all supposed to be following the same family law statutes. Um, so the different kinds of things that people can come to us for not just family law, parentage, things like that, um, but also estate planning, which is another way that people protect their families. But there there are local Rights in some places. Massachusetts, for instance, they have domestic partnership at a [00:11:00] municipal level the cities of Somerville, Cambridge, and Arlington. Um, and I love this because my, one of my siblings lives in Somerville, and there’s somebody with a poly pride flag on his street, um, which I love.
I go to visit. Somerville’s a great, great place. So people… I’ve known people in California who have gone to Massachusetts to get a domestic partnership for the three of them, even though it didn’t provide them with any specific legal rights. Because as we found when we were fighting for marriage equality for queer people, for same-sex couples, it mattered. mattered to be married even when there weren’t rights attached to it yet. I became an attorney to fight for marriage equality. [00:12:00] would not be an attorney otherwise. Um, so there are places, and there are now starting to be places in California, where there are not partnerships, but, um, non-discrimination ordinances.
So Berkeley and Oakland up here in Northern California and West Hollywood, um, down south all have non-discrimination ordinances at a local level, and those l- legal effect. You cannot discriminate on the basis of housing in Berkeley because a poly family wants to move into your apartment comp-comp-complex. Um, you can’t. It is a protected category in that municipality, statewide
Captain Lynn: I, [00:13:00] I’m super curious. Um, like when you’re talking about family, um, the, these documents or these, these rights that you’re talking about, I’m envisioning some challenges where, say, one part of the polycule, they are actually married to each other on paper legally, and you’ve got the third or the, or the other two that come in. like, how is that seen today general? Like, what, what creates the equality from a legal standpoint? Like, what are you doing to create that equality? And, and do they have to have some kind of written document, like a charter or some kind of agreement between them that you can really vet to make sure it’s gonna stand up legally?
Um, those two are two different questions, but I’m curious about that
Toby Adams, Esq.: Allegra’s nodding. Did you wanna jump in or should I go ahead?
Allegra Pescatore: Um, all I can say is that, know, I’m not the lawyer, I don’t know all the laws, but I do know that when we send out planning forms for all of our [00:14:00] various cases, they are in depth and really do serve as kind of a blueprint because every poly family is different. There, there is no standard, even among configurations that look standard like a triad.
As you said, two people could be married, none of them could be married, two people could be divorced and have decided that legally they don’t want any kind of hierarchy in their, in their arrangement. So a complicating factor in what we do is that there is no cookie cutter solution for every family
Toby Adams, Esq.: And one of the things that, that has helped put together at our firm is that those questionnaires that go out for a new client consultation ask for your… Has- have room for, like, multiple spouses, spice. Um, include legal name, preferred name, gender, gender, uh, pronouns, um, children, [00:15:00] whether those child- whether you are the biological or adoptive or other parent of the child. All the relationships regardless of the legal status, but we need to know the legal status. So the paperwork, the documents, like one of the things we can do is people own a house. in a house together. M- maybe they have children, but I’ll, you know, I sort of talked about that a little bit, but I’ll talk about that some more. But they need to have an estate plan that represents their family and what they want to do. If you have no will and you have no trust, you’re gonna go through proba- your property is gonna go to your s- legal spouse. If you have children, it’ll go to your legal spouse and your children. There’s this whole basically what the government has handed out as, “Here’s the default will that you get.” If you come to me and I can write a trust for your [00:16:00] family, does not have to be the hierarchy. There can be, “If I’m gone, then these two people are getting my property. If one of them is gone, the one who’s left is gonna get my property. If both of them are gone, then here are the people I wanna have get my pro- property.” um, we can write into those, situations where, uh, there’s all kinds of… I’m not gonna go too far down into the depth of, of estate planning because it can be very complicated. But for me, I find it really interesting to do estate planning for triads and quads because it’s so much more interesting.
There’s so many more perm- permutations of people to get stuff. And the thing is that once you have a notarized, a drafted and notarized trust in place, that supersedes any of the, am the husband, [00:17:00] I am the wife, I get the stuff.” Or your parents coming in and saying, “Hey, you know, you weren’t married to them. They’re my kid, I get their stuff.” Um, and that can happen.
Alonzo banx: Yeah, Allegra, please
Toby Adams, Esq.: a library you want to
Allegra Pescatore: I had a personal situation where this happened. Um, I lost a partner tragically and, um, and there was no will and there was nothing. And that’s exactly the situation that unfolded. We had to fight tooth and nail to get anything. I mean, fortunately, we were on good terms with the family, and we were able to work out, you know, how best to take care of everyone. But it was an emotionally charged situation with people who were not part of the community, who didn’t fully understand the community. um, and it can be really messy and hurtful and damaging to not just [00:18:00] the partners, but friends and relatives and onlookers seeing a situation where you sh- it should be a moment of unity and coming together in, you know, in grief or in celebration of a life, instead being torn apart by the legal messiness that is an estate without proper estate planning in a poly situation
Alonzo banx: Yeah, we always point out that poly situations are always end up more complex. That the same situations that everyone goes through multiplied. Toby, uh, if you don’t mind, I wanna ask a, a clarification question. We talk about California having a lot of protections and, uh, things in place for poly families.
If we are outside of California, is it worth seeing an attorney to get the estate planning and that kind of probate done, uh, so that when if something happens, you’re prepared? Or outside of California, is this gonna get thrown away, doesn’t matter?
Toby Adams, Esq.: No, absolutely. Absolutely. I, I, I’m sure I would have to look into [00:19:00] the specifics of other states, whether… I’m sure there are states where a spouse can override, um, a will or a trust like that, but most states I, I would, I would say probably don’t, and once you have a will or a trust in place. Like, one of the things in California is that when I’m doing, say I’m doing, um, uh, f- so I’ll do a trust and then I’ll do what I call pour-over wills, which is a thing.
But basically you get a will, and I’ll be doing a will for, wills for three people who are in a relationship together, two of them are legally married. The two that are legally married have to sign each other’s wills saying, “Yes, I agree and understand that this is my spouse’s will.” The one who’s not legally married doesn’t have to sign anybody else’s will or have anybody else sign their will.
So there are differences even in [00:20:00] California the way… But once those documents are in place, they are binding. And I’m pretty sure that most other states the same thing is true. you have a will, it’s binding if it’s a, if it’s been created the right way, you know, with whether you need to have it witnessed and by how many people and, you know, all of the rules around it. But once you have that in place. So people, I mean, you could be in Utah and you’re not gonna be able to get three legal parents for your kids under state law in Utah, but you are gonna be able to get estate planning-
Alonzo banx: How are judges looking at things nowadays? I, I assume, uh, well, let me back up with a question. How long have you been doing this now? How long have you been involved in Holly law?
Toby Adams, Esq.: 14
Alonzo banx: 14.
Toby Adams, Esq.: I’m a member of the community, and so it w- always, uh, [00:21:00] it always just made sense to me. You know, some exes asked us to do their divorce, and it was very friendly, and they sat down at a coffee table with me, and I did the divorce paperwork for them and handled their divorce, and that was the first divorce I handled.
Um, you know, uh, um, so What was… Now tell me what the question
Alonzo banx: the question, uh, the, the foundation was how long have you been in this? ‘Cause the question is, how many changes have you seen? Are we getting better, or are we getting worse? How… And, and a subsection to that is, now I’m standing in front of the judge. Are they getting to be more understanding? Is it something more accepted?
Or are you still branded a heretic because you thought about something that didn’t fit the norm?
Toby Adams, Esq.: It is getting better, as shown by some of these new municipal laws that are coming through. It’s a little bit more difficult in California as far as the, [00:22:00] um, being able to do domestic partnerships for, on a municipal level for more than two people because of, ironically, marriage equality. So I became an attorney to fight for marriage equality. It was happening right as I was, um, as I was becoming a lawyer. I actually worked on the Ober- you know, wrote an amicus brief in the Obergefell case, which is the federal, um, Supreme Court marriage equality case. And one of the things that happened in California was that during that process of winning marriage equality, there was a lot of, “Well, we don’t want a slippery slope.
If we give you marriage rights, the next thing you know, they’re gonna be asking for…” And so r- registered domestic partnerships, California registered domestic partnerships were added to the bigamy statutes in the criminal code, which is making it very difficult for us to [00:23:00] get anything that even smells like domestic partnership at a municipal level in California.
I know they’re working on it in West Hollywood, and I hope that they are successful there. Um, and it would definitely be a, a, a, for moving forward. um, know, we’ve seen things moving forward with rights. We’ve seen them recently moving backwards in some area. I don’t think the current administration knows anything about poly.
They are too busy trampling all over the rights of trans people and immigrants and, uh, and reproductive rights, and I, I don’t even think we’re on their radar yet. Um, but it is, it is– are, you know, the arc of history… The– I don’t know what the saying is. Please, Allegra
Allegra Pescatore: I don’t know what the saying is [00:24:00] either, but I will say, um, in response to your question about judges, uh, that is definitely one of the situations where, uh, judges do cycle through. And part of our job is being aware of who’s where, when, um, and doing our best to match up the case with judges that are going to be I can’t– we can’t always, um, but as a whole, I feel like our society in general is moving towards normalizing and accepting polyamory more and more. Now, is, is that true everywhere? No. But there are pockets and, you know, I think you see it in the media. When something starts permeating the media and permeating p- you know, popular culture, it’s becoming more accepted and more normal, and we have seen a lot of that
Toby Adams, Esq.: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Captain Lynn: Send it.
Toby Adams, Esq.: the, um… go ahead. I’m sorry.
Captain Lynn: Well, I just, um, something that’s coming up, I’m curious. I know it speaks directly to my own [00:25:00] ex-experience, but if somebody has– owns property with one person and they have a certain level of intimacy or an agreement in their relationship, and then they go buy property with another person, it’s starting to be like that poly dynamic because of even a property share. So listening to you, I’m surmising that the right way to make sure equality, if any of those parties pass away, is the estate and will formulas, is what you’re saying. It sounds like the cleanest way to deal with that
Toby Adams, Esq.: Absolutely. And we, I mean, we’ve had cases that were so, the fam- the polycule was so complicated looking in terms of property that, you know, we had to do a diagram up on the wall, and there was a quad made up of two different couples, and they owned property together, but one member of that quad was involved with the partner who hired us, and they were buying another piece of [00:26:00] property together, and there were rule…
And, and they, you know, people, the thing we have to do is get people to tell us, “What do you…” Have the conversation, “What do you want to do with your stuff? How do you want to raise your children? How do you want to set up your life? Tell us what you want, and we will do whatever we can to put the legal structure in place in terms of wills, trust, judgment of parentage,” um, all of those things. And, and it’s possible to do that with any kind of configuration.
Allegra Pescatore: And,
Captain Lynn: I, I may add… Yeah.
Allegra Pescatore: sorry.
Captain Lynn: go ahead, Oliver
Allegra Pescatore: outside of wills and states, I mean, just speaking from personal experience in the community, I’ve seen people form LLCs to buy properties. Um,
Captain Lynn: I never thought about that.
Allegra Pescatore: a lot of work under business licenses [00:27:00] that allow you to own shares and buy each other out if a relationship falls apart or things like that.
So I do think that, that what it really boils down to is having those open lines of communication, which are make or break it for any poly relationship in all, in all areas of life, and being clear what people’s priorities are, what happens when things go wrong, whether, you know, it’s a thing that goes wrong that affects everyone and everyone’s working together, or a thing that goes wrong that splits you apart. Um, a big, big fan of planning your breakup while you’re still in love with
Toby Adams, Esq.: That’s, that’s a really good thing to bring up because we haven’t really talked about divorce,
Alonzo banx: I don’t
Toby Adams, Esq.: we’ve handled divorces, and I have, I have done successful mediation divorces only ever for poly fa- poly couples. I have never been able to get a monogamous couple to successfully go through a mediation divorce. Um, [00:28:00] it’s, um… And there are people who come to us get a divorce because their relationship is breaking up. There are people who have come to us because their, you know, polycule is splitting off in a different way as far as who wants to be legally bound to whom. have worked with a triad where two of the people were married to each other.
The third person was a biological parent of their child. after going through a couple of different stages of their, their reques- their legal needs, one of the things that we did was that the two people who were married to each other got divorced. They weren’t splitting up, but legally they got divorced so the other two people could get married, because that helped them in terms of some immigration things and, um, and it wasn’t changing the structure of their [00:29:00] family, it was changing the legal structure of their family. And so divorce and marriage and regis- I’ve had people come to me and say, “None of us is married to each other or in a registered domestic partnership, but we’re willing to if it’ll help with the parentage thing. What should we do?” And I said, “Okay, well, let’s see. you’re gonna give birth, and you’re gonna be the, the biological, um, person with the other gametes, the sperm, the sperm provider, and this other person is not going to be providing any of the biological components.” So that person getting in a registered domestic partnership with the person who is giving birth set them up the best for easily being able to show that they had, uh, parentage, they, they had potential [00:30:00] parentage rights there. So
Alonzo banx: Voices.
Captain Lynn: could see
Alonzo banx: Oh, go ahead, Kevin
Captain Lynn: Well, I could, I could just, uh, the thing that I didn’t get to go through any of that, but the thing I could see happening is like at schools. Like, the school regis- recognizing all of the, all of the people in the polycule, the poly dynamic or the poly family as having rights to step into the school and pick up the child and respond to a nurse call, like all of those things that comes with being a parent, um, easily
Toby Adams, Esq.: One of the, one of the things that we’ve actually done that technically has no legal, no legal, uh, rights attached to it, but it has practical rights attached to it, which is everybody in the family changing their last name, either hyphenating or, uh, everybody picking a new last name or something so that they share a last name with the child. if you have [00:31:00] four people named Smith, and the child’s last name is Smith, and you show up and say, “I’m John Smith, and I am parent of Bobby Smith, and I’m picking him up from daycare or from school,” gonna be a lot less questions when the last names are the same. So I’ve had people who’ve come to me where we do parentage agreements in advance so that we have proof that people have– were intending to form their families this way. then we’ve changed the last name so that everybody had a shared last name of some sort. And then when they actually had their first kid, it wasn’t that hard with the proof that they always intended it and the last names to get the judge to say, “Oh, yeah, of course, you’re a family.” And then when they had their second kid, it was like, “Hey, Judge, you already did this once.” And then it just kind of [00:32:00] flew right through court because it’s like, oh yeah, this is an existing family. Like, you know, this kid already has a big sister who is already has the three parents. And, and so that’s, you know… Th- and, and there’s all kinds of situations, Allegra
Allegra Pescatore: And it, it is an important thing to do. I think that, you know, there is, in some communities there’s this feeling of, “Well, the law doesn’t, doesn’t like us, so we’re just going to skirt under the law instead of trying to, you know, grab every right that we possibly have with our claws and holding onto it.”
But it does harm, you know, the wellbeing of a child when they believe that someone is their parent and that parent is not recognized as such. It harms a child when parents aren’t allowed in spaces when they need them the most. And, um, and you know, in times of tragedy and in times of, you know, of, of heartbreak, having all those legal protections [00:33:00] makes it so that you’re not worried about the law, you’re worried about each other, and you’re able to take care of each other and love each other, and that is so intrinsic.
I feel like a lot of us are scared to approach law because we’re k- um, maybe e- I mean, and for good reason. There are cases in states where, you know, people have gotten into trouble for being poly and for raising children in poly families. So, uh, you know, to anyone who lives in California, do look into your rights because you do have some you should absolutely be taking advantage of them.
Toby Adams, Esq.: And if you don’t live in California, look into them anyway because there are some things you can do anywhere
Alonzo banx: So I should go onto ChatGPT and ask it all my law questions
Allegra Pescatore: Oh no,
Toby Adams, Esq.: No. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Allegra Pescatore: it with
Toby Adams, Esq.: Reach, reach out, reach out to us at tobyadamslaw.com, [00:34:00] um, or toby@tobyadamslaw, uh, is my email. reach out to the Chosen Family Law Center if you’re on the East Coast and you wanna You know, if you’re l- looking for a nonprofit that is, um… And, and the way the Chosen Family Law Center, uh, talks about families isn’t just poly it’s all families.
I think people are starting to realize that the, uh, the, the, know, Leave It to Beaver, the, the, you know, Warden June Cleaver, the, the married p- monogamous straight with their biological children is the minority of families in this country. are foster parents, there are adoptive parents, there are grandparents, there are aunts and uncles raising kids.
There are, there are every kind of family under the sun. [00:35:00] This is important for… This is, this is the kind of thing that’s important for all kinds of families. There’s a lot of talk right now, and having nothing to do with poly, just immigrant families having a parenting plan for their kids in case they end up getting, you know,
Captain Lynn: reported
Toby Adams, Esq.: deported.
I mean, there’s, y- you know, having protections for your partners, for your children, for your parents. It, it’s… You know, I, I love working for families. Um, and one of the things that, um, that I hope that you edit these because that just went completely out of my head, whatever I was gonna say.
Alonzo banx: Let me, let me take us a little sideways for a minute. Um, if you listen to our podcast, you know that we get kind of in depth. Tonight, in an hour from now, we’re gonna have nine of our members back on [00:36:00] for another one of our weekly round tables. We talk frequently about transitioning and, and life is messy.
The conversation we had last week was that moment when people realized they were transitioning from a monogamous relationship into a poly relationship. Many of those transitioned with divorce from an original primary partner, and a few of the people that were on last week had children during that process How do you see that transition?
How does it work? What, what, what should people know about divorces and poly and transitioning? And again, I know we’ve talked about getting help, you know, just go to ChatGPT, and yes, I’m setting you up again to say, yeah.
Toby Adams, Esq.: Don’t go to ChatGPT. Um, have conversations and put things in writing. I loved what Allegra said about planning your breakup when you’re still in love. Um, planning your [00:37:00] children when you’re just starting to talk about it. Um, and don’t just talk about it, listen. Have the conversation with all of the people who are affected, and put it in writing. Even if don’t have anything legal in writing, just the fact that you have it in writing, then when you go to talk to a lawyer, you have something. “Oh yeah, I forgot what we said we were gonna do. Oh, this is what we were s- Oh, okay. I was gonna get the salt and pepper shaker that looked like a chicken, and you were gonna get the salt and pepper shaker that looked like a cow.”
I couldn’t remember which it was, but we wrote it down. Like, a- and I, I say that just because when my parents got divorced, there was a huge thing about some salt shaker or honey jar or something, and people get into arguments about strangest things when they’re getting [00:38:00] divorced. So, you know, some decisions in advance. Write things down, have conversations. Um, and when you’re going through– And I’ve gone through the trans- I’m, I’m in what is called a currently closed dyad. Um, when my, when my, uh, when my child was at a certain age that was requiring a lot of attention, spouse and I said, “You know what? We have this much energy, and we’re spending this much energy on our kid.”
And I’m doing this with my hands and realizing this is a, radio show. But, um, uh, very small amount of energy and s- spending a huge amount of energy on our kid. And we didn’t have the energy to spend on additional partners. So even though I still consider myself poly, I’ve been in a closed dyad relationship for…
Well, we’ve been married for 22 years, but we’ve been, you know, a closed dyad for maybe the last 10 [00:39:00] or so. Um, but that was a transition. How did we have that transition? We had a conversation. We have a lot of conversations. We wrote down notes from our conversations. We thought about, “What’s gonna happen if this changes?
What’s gonna happen down the r- Let’s talk about how we’re going to talk about it when this does ch-” You know. Because people grow and change no matter what
Alonzo banx: As we’re starting to get near the end of our time, what’s the single best piece of advice you can give our poly couples?
Toby Adams, Esq.: Seek legal help if you have any questions about your legal rights to your children, to your property, to your partner’s children and property. Allegra, please fill in what am I missing [00:40:00] here? on Allegra a lot
Allegra Pescatore: I mean, I would, I would say that the best piece of advice is that you should put everything in place before of change. If you can get ahead of a legal issue, it is always better than playing catch-up. So if you’re planning on having a child and you are in a poly relationship, in with a lawyer beforehand and see what can be done to ensure the, the future of your child.
If you’re planning on adding another partner legally into your family, talk to someone. What’s the best way to do that? It is so much easier get things done ahead of time than retro- r- retroactively
Alonzo banx: Yeah, Mlyne, what are your thoughts on tonight?
Captain Lynn: It’s fascinating. It’s not something I would h- have ever considered, but I did watch, um, other couples be challenged with having, having children, like a poly and somebody got pregnant with another partner, and there was a lot of drama that happened around that. And [00:41:00] really appreciate what Allegra’s saying about having those conversations early.
I think once they realized they were pregnant, like that’s the time they go, “Okay, this is a big deal. How do we wanna handle it?” And be, come into the conversation as adults, and, communicate, communicate, communicate.
Toby Adams, Esq.: Mm-hmm.
Allegra Pescatore: back to that
Toby Adams, Esq.: Right
Captain Lynn: But I do appreciate that what you two are offering for insight around the legal piece of it, because why not…
You know, I think it deepens the connection too. Like if we’re gonna step into this and we’re gonna make it legally legitimate, it really legitimites, it legitimizes the, um, the polycule dynamic a deeper level.
Toby Adams, Esq.: does.
Captain Lynn: Yeah
Toby Adams, Esq.: does
Allegra Pescatore: h- human beings have been marrying for so long. Ritual matters. your parents are matters. Who you live with matters. Like, it- not just on a legal basis, but emotionally, socially. [00:42:00] Uh, it, these are the people who are the foundation of your life or the pillars that you are going to rely on, and the people you’re going to consider your home. That is worth protecting. That is worth acknowledging
Captain Lynn: Yes. Yes. Yes
Toby Adams, Esq.: better. I couldn’t have said it better. And please reach out to us. Um, we are tobyadamslaw.com, and, uh, we’re a very small law firm. I am the lawyer. We’re hoping to have a- another lawyer soon. Um, and, uh, we’re, we’re all culturally competent members of the community, communities that we serve, polyamorous, queer, kink community, um, the community, neurodiverse, neurospicy, I love that term. Um, and, and I think that, uh, I think that, uh, you know, people should reach out if you have questions or [00:43:00] need help
Alonzo banx: Thank you, and make sure to get us all the links. We’ll put them up on the webpage and put them up in the bio so that everyone can get ahold of you
Toby Adams, Esq.: and you should read Allegra’s books ’cause they’re awesome. That’s how we first got connected,
Alonzo banx: you gotta make s- you gotta make sure to get me the links so we can put ’em up on our stuff. Please do.
Toby Adams, Esq.: I’m a fan of her books.
Alonzo banx: Kathelyn, Allegra, thank you for being on tonight. Um, Toby Adams, thank, thank you very much for gracing us tonight with a conversation. Greatly appreciate you and your time. It’s been an honor to have you on
Toby Adams, Esq.: Thank you
Allegra Pescatore: Thank
Alonzo banx: This has been another episode of the Poly SoCal Podcast.
I’m still Alonzo Banks. Thank you very much everyone. Good night
Toby Adams, Esq.: Good night
Allegra Pescatore: Bye.