Ask The Mediator Today

Child Radio Personality Comes Full Circle
Former Star on “Ask the Kids” is Now Divorce Expert on “Ask The Expert”

SAN DIEGO (January 13, 2008) – Nearly a half century ago, little “Richie” Gordon was a favorite on Rochester, NY’s TV show “Ask the Kids.”  Week after week his advice on juvenile behavioral problems was “lock ‘em in the closet.”  Today, as a successful mediator he has returned to his true calling with a role on “Ask The Expert.”

His firm, A Fair Way Mediation Center, a mediation center specializing in offering divorcing couples a way to save money by staying out of court, has been selected by Clear Channel Broadcasting as one of its initial members of its new on-line service “Ask the Expert.”

A Fair Way’s primary mediator is Rich Gordon, M.A., J.D., who left a successful law practice “back east” to focus on mediation.   As one of the first Mediation Centers in San Diego, the organization has had major impact on the growth of mediation as an alternative to judicial interventions.

“At A Fair Way we help couples resolve the ending of their relationships without having Winners or Losers but rather reaching a compromise that satisfies both parties,” says Gordon.  “On ‘Ask the Expert’ couples thinking about going through the divorce process, or those who are interested in pre-nuptial or legal separation agreements, may ask pertinent personal questions which we will be happy to address on line.  Today we fully understand that locking yourself in a closet doesn’t really make matters go away.”

According to Gordon, with both members of the couple willing to participate in the mediation process, there is more chance of a successful outcome. Heavy legal fees normally involved with lawyers and protracted litigation are prevented in mediation because costs are usually lower and clients can “pay as they go,” letting you proceed with the divorce at the same pace as finances allow.
“It is not surprising that many couples are now choosing divorce mediation to negotiate their own separation agreements,” says Gordon.  “This applies to both same-sex relationships as well as traditional marriage.  Couples dealing with Property Division, Retirement Distribution, Debt Repayment, Spousal and Child Support and Children Visitation and Custody can all benefit from breaking up nicely.”
The “Ask the Expert” link is available on all the Clear Channel radio station web sites, (http://tinyurl.com/afairway) or A Fair Way Mediation may be contacted directly at www.afairway.com or by calling 619-702-9174.  The offices are located in downtown San Diego, One America Plaza, 600 W. Broadway, San Diego, CA 92101.

Even when you have known for years that divorce is inevitable, it is still difficult. When two people reach a point where they can no longer live together, divorce may be the only thing that can put an end to an uncomfortable situation. After you decide a divorce is the only solution, it is best to dissolve the marriage quickly and smoothly.

Everyone has heard at least one divorce horror story. After 40 years of marriage, when their oldest child finished college, a friend of mine and his spouse divorced. They sat down and discussed the situation and decided to split everything down the middle so that the divorce could be as friendly as possible and avoid causing anyone grief. The husband realized that they had built up a large amount of assets, got greedy, and decided he wanted more than half.

He felt he was entitled to retain the bulk of the money because, as a doctor, he had earned a substantial income. His wife used to work in the medical office, then got a real estate license and ran the apartments they had purchased as an investment. She later gave birth to their two children and took care of their enormous house and the family. She believed that she was entitled to half of all of their assets.

They had planned to start divorce proceedings in September, when the youngest went back to college, so that things would be normal during the summer and they would all still be together. In July, the husband hired a lawyer that you could liken to a pit bull. What ensued was a calamity. A seemingly simple divorce became a bitter battle. All of the family members suffered from the emotional strain. The children were in their twenties, but they were still devastated by the divorce.

The husband’s lawyer fought over every little thing and extended the divorce, which made everyone’s pain worse, and in the end everything was split right down the middle anyway. In California all couples split their assets evenly.

A divorce does not have to be nasty or miserable for the entire family. Mediation allows for a neutral third party to help with the settlement arrangements when a couple divorces. The legal system allows for mediation to assist in negotiating an equitable settlement, to settle the details of visitation and child support, and to help make other important decisions needed during a divorce. Research shows that couples who use mediation during their divorces are happier with the end results. Reduced time in court and lower attorney fees are some of the benefits of divorce mediation.

When couples realize that divorce is inevitable, they should both look for sound legal advice. They should try to find lawyers that will work with them and take their needs into consideration. They should also look into mediation to see if it will meet their needs so that they can save time, money, and emotional strain.

By:  Andrew Tenco, posted in CyberLaw

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Unhappy couples staying together as economy makes divorcing too costly.

The economic crisis may be doing what pastors, family therapists and matrimonial counselors have long struggled to accomplish: keeping troubled marriages together.

Marriage counselors and divorce lawyers nationwide say more distressed couples are putting off divorce because the cost of splitting up is prohibitive in a time of stagnant salaries, plummeting home values and rising unemployment.

While the stress of economic uncertainty often worsens already shaky unions, it also can make couples more financially dependent on each other, said Pamela Smock, a researcher at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

“Anything of this magnitude that’s going to affect millions of people does not bode well for all sorts of families,” she said. “It could keep unhappy couples together.”

That’s what happened to a client of Robi S. Ludwig, a psychotherapist in New York.

“I had a woman say to me: ‘My God, I can’t stand my husband. Every day I just want to leave him, but I can’t afford it,’” said Ludwig, co-author of “Till Death Do Us Part,” an examination of severely dysfunctional marriages. “So they are deciding to stay together.”

eff Grumley, a marriage counselor in Loves Park, Ill., north of Rockford, said he had seen a 25 percent jump in business in recent months as couples tried to save their marriages, and their money. Ten sessions cost about $1,000, Grumley said — not exactly pocket change, but far better than the tens of thousands of dollars a divorce costs.

“I think people feel desperate,” Grumley said.

2 households? ‘They can barely pay for one’
Divorces have always been expensive. For a contested proceeding that goes to court, a couple with at least one child can expect a divorce to cost anywhere from $53,000 to $188,000, according to calculations based on census data by the Web site Divorce360, which factored in attorneys’ fees, financial advice, counseling and real-estate costs for buying or renting separate homes.

Often many of those expenses are recovered when a couple sells their home and divides the proceeds. But the disastrous real-estate market is leaving many homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their properties are worth — turning what would normally be their biggest marital asset into a liability.

“They also can’t go out and get a credit card or personal loan to pay attorney fees or to even try and find a piece of real estate because the lending market is tightening down on them,” said Kevin Hughes, a criminal and family lawyer in Cincinnati.

The evidence for a decline in divorces is primarily anecdotal, because national marriage and divorce statistics for 2008 aren’t available. But in some jurisdictions that report semi-annual figures, the trend is being borne out.

In Chicago, the Cook County Circuit Court system reported that divorce and separation filings fell by 600 — or roughly 5 percent — during the first nine months of the year, compared to the same period last year. Comparable drops have been reported in Fresno County, Calif., and Comanche County, Okla.

In South Florida, where the condominium-heavy Miami area has been described as ground zero of the mortgage crisis, Miami-Dade County reported an 18 percent drop in divorce filings from January to May, compared to the same period last year. Perhaps not coincidentally, average real-estate prices in the area fell about 20 percent over the same period.

“What the judicial officers are telling us is that people who do come in are saying they can’t afford the cost of splitting up and going into two households — they can barely pay for the one,” said Scott L. Rubin, a marital and family lawyer in Miami who is chairman of the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar.

“The housing market is down, it’s hard to sell, and when you can sell, you’re selling it at a depressed price, so a lot of people are deciding … ‘It’s not worth it to do it (at) this time. Let’s stay together. Let’s try to work through our problems and hope that the economy will spring back,’” Rubin said.

2008 downturn a reversal of history
Historically, divorce rates tend to rise during tough economic times, counselors and lawyers said, citing a 17 percent spike in divorces during the 1997 recession. But what makes this downturn different is its severity, they speculate.

That view draws support from the fact that a decline in divorces also was observed from 1930 to 1935, during the depths of the Great Depression, according to Census figures.

Divorce rates “weren’t high, but they went down,” said Jay D. Teachman, a professor of sociology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., who has studied the period. “People couldn’t afford to divorce.”

Today, with housing prices so low, it’s again cheaper for couples to “work out your differences now,” said Clinton J. David, a lawyer specializing in complex business transactions in Dallas.

“Instead of you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse fighting over how to divide up the profits from the sale (of a home), you could actually, unfortunately, end up fighting over who’s going to pay off the lender because the loan on the home is actually more than the value,” he said.

For divorce lawyers, the economic slump is beginning to have a real impact. In a nationwide survey of divorce lawyers by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 37 percent reported a drop in divorce cases during the recent tough economic times, nearly twice the 19 percent who said their business had grown. The rest cited little or no change.

“These folks are just scared, and they can’t go through with the divorce process, so yeah, they’re staying together,” said Hughes, the family lawyer in Cincinnati. “They’re staying together to try and make it work, but unfortunately living as an unhappy married couple.”

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