Articles Posted in Separation

Preparing for Divorce Mediation

Hopefully your mediation won’t look like this picture (at least because the mediator should be in the picture too), but following these suggestions might help for a smooth process.  For some people, mediation will be the preferred legal process that they can take to access the results that they want, while maintaining an agreeable relationship with other parties involved. Mediation can be a possible way to ensure that your relationship ends in a healthy way, promoting an easier future for yourself, and any children involved. However, even if you have decided that professional mediation is the ideal option for you, this doesn’t mean that you won’t be nervous about your first session. The chances are you’ll find yourself wondering what you should expect, how you should prepare, and what might be expected from you.

The first thing to recognize is that the mediation process is intended to help people manage or resolve disputes by reaching mutual agreements about a situation. In order to reach an agreement with the other party involved, you will need him/her to cooperate with you on the pursuit of conclusions that are beneficial to both of you. Mediation is not a debating practice that requires individuals to prove that their stance is the right one. You don’t need to convince the other party to think differently or ignore what he or she thinks is important. The mediation process is not intended to assign blame, find fault or punish any party, and it must be done on a voluntary basis, otherwise it is less likely to end in a successful outcome. Continue reading ›

Approaching and Understanding the Emotional Aspects of Divorce

In the materials from my mediation training at the Center for Mediation and Training (which this blog article summarizes and is based upon), and as my years of practice as a matrimonial attorney and mediator confirmed, I learned there are the following emotional parts of a divorce. Divorce can be a significant life event in any circumstance. Statistics have frequently shown that even in a divorce that appears to be relatively peaceful, the parties involved can take between three and five years to recover from the ordeal and feel comfortable in their lives again. Just like any other life crisis, divorce can be a process that stirs up unresolved issues and feelings from the past, adding them onto present emotions and creating an intense experience which can translate into outward behavior.

Adjusting to divorce can happen in a number of predictable stages that cannot be rushed or avoided. Similarly to any other developmental process, the successful resolution of each stage will depend fundamentally on the resolution of the preceding one. An important thing to keep in mind when you are dealing with the impact that a divorce has had on you, is that your whole family system will be affected. What’s more, the process of adjusting to a divorce can differ depending on where your current family is in its life cycle. For example, a divorce can feel a lot different to a family with adolescent children than it would to a family with very young children. Continue reading ›

I am a big fan of alternative dispute resolution such as mediation and collaborative law. Lawyers in New York are guided by the Code of Professional Responsibility. When I am in my role as a mediator, however, I am not acting as a lawyer at that time. Although I am both a matrimonial / family law attorney and also a mediator, mediators do not have to be lawyers. To guide mediators, in 2005 The American Bar Association and the American Arbitration adopted standards of conduct. The purpose of this blog entry is to summarize these standards and how they might apply to a New York Divorce Mediation.

The first standard is the principle of self determination. What this means to is that the decisions in mediation are to be made by the parties to the case, not the mediator. The mediator’s role is to guide and educate about the different options to settle the issues. For example, the mediator can explain different options for child custody like shared custody, joint legal custody, sole custody and joint custody with spheres of influence. Please click around my website or other blog entries for more information about any of these topics.

The second standard is that the mediator should have the qualifications to be able to properly handle the mediation be it from education, experience or training. In the context of divorce and family law this means: having matrimonial and family law knowledge; understanding how conflict impacts families and children; mediation process training as well as experience; and the ability to see how diversity and backgrounds impact people and situations. Mediators should be able to answer questions and provide information about their qualifications to potential mediation participants. Continue reading ›

Separation agreements, pre-nuptial agreements, post-nuptial agreements, and stipulations of settlement may largely contain the same contents, and serve a lot of the same purposes, but vary in the timing that they are made. One purpose is invariably to define the respective rights of each marital partner in the event of a dissolution of the marital partnership. As a divorce mediator, New York City and  Long Island divorce lawyer, marital agreements are a big part of my practice.

Pre-nuptial agreements are made prior to the marriage.  Post-nuptial agreements are made after the parties are already married.  Separation agreements are a form of a post-nuptial agreements but have the added element that the husband and wife may become legally separated after the execution of the document.  Stipulations of settlement of a divorce are made after a divorce case is filed to settle the issues necessary to be decided to get the parties divorced.

Pre-nuptial agreements can help couples enter into a marriage with the knowledge that  their rights have been defined in the unfortunate event that it doesn’t work out.  As a mediator, matrimonial and family law attorney, pre-nuptial agreements are an opportunity to work with a party or couples in love that could stay married forever.  The stress of the financial uncertainty that could result from a divorce can be removed.  Pre-nuptial agreements commonly identify how the property that the parties have already, going into the marriage, will be split up or retained as separate property, in case of divorce.  It can provide how much maintenance (alimony), if any, there will be upon a divorce.  Child custody, parenting time and child support matters become trickier to try to outline in a pre-nuptial agreement since a court always has discretion when it comes to what the custody and parenting time arrangements will be with a child.  Also, the dissolution of a marriage would in most instances qualify as a substantial change of circumstances to look at what custody and parenting time arrangements are, despite an earlier agreement, in the best interests of the children moving forward.  Still, the agreement could be used as a starting point on these issues and might prove influential if there is a dispute about the determination of the matter in the future. Continue reading ›

After agreeing upon the terms of a settlement in a divorce mediation, the drafting attorney usually will put together the settlement agreement. It might be in the form of a separation agreement or a stipulation of settlement. Since I am a New York City area, Suffolk County and Nassau County divorce lawyer and divorce mediator, I have always been the drafting attorney on my mediated cases. It is recommended that each party take that settlement agreement and have it reviewed with their own attorneys. The purpose of the review attorneys is to make sure that each party understands their rights, understands what they are signing and that what they agreed upon is in fact in the agreement. This is the person that could give them the legal advice they need.

Everyone that goes through alternative dispute resolution has questions. Would I do better if I went to court? Is this a fair agreement? People that go through collaborative law or litigated cases receive the advice and representation of an attorney throughout the process. Collaborative law, for those, who have not heard about it, is another non-adversarial way to resolve matrimonial and family law cases. I like to think of collaborative law as a method somewhere in between mediation and litigation however it is non-adversarial, like mediation. Feel free to click around my blog, website or call to talk about collaborative law. This blog entry is geared more so about divorce mediation.

The divorce mediator’s role is as a neutral to help people settle their differences and formulate an agreement to move on with their lives. When I shift gears into my role as drafting attorney my job is to ensure that the understanding that the parties made is put into proper form to be a legally binding agreement that settles the case. Usually, in the case of a divorce, that means to settle all of the issues that a Judge would have to decide had the case proceeded to litigation and a trial. In this blog I will go through topics that I include in my settlement agreements when acting as a drafting attorney. For each topic I will touch upon some of the considerations that a review attorney, which is sometimes my role, can address with their clients to make sure their client is armed with the legal information they would need to making a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary agreement for their divorce or other family law issue that is mediated. Continue reading ›

A party to a divorce can change their last name back to a prior surname once the divorce is granted.  There will be language in the Judgment of Divorce which either specifies the last name that can be resumed or that in general they may start to use whatever their maiden name used to be.  That Judgment of Divorce can then be brought to the Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security office and other important places, to have them issue a drivers license with the proper new name.  The Judgment of Divorce will reflect this regardless of the method utilized to get the divorce.  This means that if you go through divorce mediation, collaborative divorce, or the traditional adversarial model the same language about the name change should be in the Judgment of Divorce.  Your New York City or Long Island Divorce Lawyer that drafts the documents to submit to the Supreme Court as part of the divorce package should include the last name change language in the papers that are submitted to finalize the divorce.

People that want to change their first and/or last name or are not going through a divorce can apply to change their names as well.  On Long Island and other locations outside of New York City, such as Westchester and Rockland Counties, name change petitions are done in the Supreme Court.  In New York City they are done in the New York City Civil Court.  The application should be done in the County that the person applying for the name change lives in.  You do not necessarily need to have been born in New York to do your name change application here, it is however necessary that you are now a New York resident to file the case here. The filing fee to start the case in the Suffolk County or Nassau County Supreme Court is $210.00 while it costs $65.00 in a New York City Civil Court.

With the filing fee, you or your family law attorney can submit a name change petition and the order you would like the judge to sign granting the name change.  A birth certificate or other proof of birth needs to be submitted with the papers.  If the name change petition is approved, the Judge will require the notification of the name change to be published in a newspaper.  Name change applications are public record, but at times, a court might dispense with the publication requirement and seal the request for the name change if there are personal safety issues shown to the court. Continue reading ›