Clients in divorce or child custody cases often want to record their spouses or opposing parents. Sometimes when the other party is behaving very badly, my client should be recording. All it takes is one recording of a spouse or parent screaming and cursing and saying mean, terrible things to convince a judge that the opposing party is a really bad person and everything negative being said about him or her is probably true.

I explain the law on recording to clients and tell them not to record their children, and then I recommend two recording devices made by Plaud that are for sale on Amazon. Both devices are digital, small, and are connected to AI transcription services.

In Texas, it is legal to record if you are part of the conversation and there is no requirement to let anyone know you are recording. I tell my clients:

• You must be present and at least hearing with your own ears what is being said (or screamed) before you can record.
• Do not leave a recording device in a room or vehicle to record what is being said when you are not present – that would be illegal.
• Do not record your children. Recordings of a child cannot be used in court and they just make you look weird for doing it. If your child tells you something important, gently find out what you can and then let your lawyer know about it in detail – but do not record the kid telling the story! If a child reports what physical or sexual abuse, report it to CPS and then to the child’s therapist and then call your attorney. Do NOT record your child by saying something like, “go ahead, tell me all over again what you told me this morning about what Daddy did.”

The Plaud Note Pro AI Voice Recorder ($189 on Amazon – 4.6 stars with over 1700 reviews) is about the size of a credit card and can attach to your phone via a magnetic case. This tiny device has 5 microphones and a subscription service that creates extremely accurate AI transcriptions of conversations. The free transcription plan will transcribe up to 300 minutes per month. This device can record what is being said in the area and can also record phone conversations. The battery lasts over 30 hours.

For $368 on Amazon, you can get the Plaud Notepin and Note Pro combo, which allows even more options for recording using the small Notepin device that can go around the neck on a lanyard, be clipped to a shirt or jacket or purse, or held on the wrist like a watch.

One reviewer on Amazon wrote: So I got this several months ago, and not only does it record pretty much every conversation, but it transcribes it into hundreds of pages of perfectly printed conversations.You wear it around your neck like a necklace under your shirt it records perfectly.