Attorney or Mediator

​Which one do I need for my divorce?

I offer mediation services for family disputes.  Those include divorce mediation, custody mediation, parenting time mediation, child support and spousal support, conflict coaching, and a number of other categories of family law disputes.

​divorce

custody, parenting time and child support

While divorces are complicated and can be overwhelming, they can be greatly simplified through mediation.  In most cases there are between 10 and 15 decisions that need to be made, followed by approximately 10 legal documents that need to be prepared.  

The decisions that need to be made, or the terms of the divorce, include what to do with money, with property, with everything from the house and cars to the dishes and silverware.  

​When there are kids involved, there are decisions to be made about custody, parenting time, child support and about how the kids will be raised in two households rather than one.  

Once the terms of the divorce are decided upon, the next step is to prepare the legal documentation necessary to make the divorce official and legal.  This is important partially because the terms need to be enforceable.  That means that those 10 legal documents referenced above need to be prepared.  My office has a relationship with an attorney who makes sure that the documents are prepared correctly and enforceably, at a significantly reduced rate for clients of my office.  

That means that a divorce can be handled in its entirety within my office, and can be done outside of court and at a fraction of the cost of the alternative.

conflict coaching

Conflict coaching is a one-on-one approach to finding ways through the issue.  Click HERE for more information on this approach.  

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When parents have to figure out issues such as custody, parenting time or child support, the conversation can turn into an argument very quickly.  

Often, a little information about how those decisions are made and some help in communicating about those decision can mean the difference between a strong co-parenting relationship and a lifetime of arguments.  

Custody is one of the most frequently misunderstood topics in this field.  Many people think of the person with custody as the person physically with the child or children.  People tend to think of custody and parenting time as interchangeable terms.  

In reality, a parent could conceivably have full custody and yet zero parenting time.  While it never happens this way, the two topics are that distinct from one another.  

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while on the topic of parenting plans...

Parenting plans are necessarily very complex, and tend to be a lot of what I work with parties to figure out.

Parenting plans need to include a level of detail that exceeds what most people, in their effort to be amicable, would think to put into their plans.  

I have helped parents negotiate both simple and complex parenting plans in such a way that they meet the necessities of their unique situations, and yet are also complete, detailed enough and enforceable.