Ask The Mediator Today

by:  Lee Rosen

Here’s a simple test to determine if your mediator knows how to mediate. It involves one question. Answer the question, score your test and if your mediator stinks then find a new mediator.

What time did the mediation end?

Note – this test only applies if the mediation started before lunch. If it started after lunch then you’ll have to do some math to compensate for the late start. Also, if you have a complicated case involving a multi-day mediation, the test applies only to the final day of the mediation.

Now, lets socre the test.

Score sheet:

_____ Mediation was over before 5 PM and the case was resoved – you have a great mediator.

_____ Mediation ended between 5 PM and 6 PM – you have a pretty good mediator.

_____ Mediation ended between 6 PM and 7 PM – you’re mediator is questionable.

_____ Mediation ended after 7 PM and the case was resolved – your mediator sucks.

_____ Mediation ended after 7 PM and the case was not resolved – your mediator really, really sucks.

Mediators that finish their cases, resolved or not, after 7 PM are relying on the parties getting hungry and tired – that’s their primary dispute resolution skill. That’s not good enough. Mediators should be trained in conflict resolution. They should be digging deep. They should know that the “issue is not the issue” and be adding value to the lives of the parties and helping them find a new way of dealing with one another.

If the mediator’s toolkit has just one tool (hungry and tired) then they need to go back to mediator class and listen this time. Some mediators will argue that they shouldn’t be judged by how quickly they resolve disputes. I’m not judging them by that standard. If they need more time they should simply continue the mediation on another day when the parties are rested and fed.

Of course, this analysis doesn’t apply every time, in every case, but, if your mediator is consistently wrapping up after dark then it’s time to find a new mediator.

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For more information, please visit A Fair Way Mediation at:  http://www.afairway.com.  There is a free online evaluation form to see if mediation is right for you.  Or please feel free to call us at:  619-702-9174

www.afairway.com

by Kara G. Morrison - Jun. 15, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

When Michelle Campbell filed for divorce last year after 13 years of marriage, she underestimated its toll on her finances.

“I went from Nordstrom to Walmart in like 24 hours,” the Scottsdale Realtor said. “I have friends who are not getting divorced because they see what it’s done to me.”

The economy appears to be doing what marriage counselors struggle to do: keep couples together. Spouses are hesitating to divorce because of the high cost of breaking up.

Local divorce attorneys said they’re hearing of more people who feel they can’t afford to leave spouses and move on with their lives. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which holds that divorce rates rise with economic stress.

In Arizona, total granted divorces and annulments dropped by 530, or 2.2 percent, last year vs. 2007. In January and February of this year, there were 2,551 granted divorces and annulments in Maricopa County, down 1 percent over the same period in 2008.

However, the county’s latest numbers have just started to show a sharp rise, with granted divorces and annulments rising by 178 - 16.6 percent - in March over that month last year.

“It’s difficult (to divorce), because the housing market is so terrible right now,” Phoenix divorce attorney Daniel Siegel said. “For the average person, the house is their biggest asset. When that is worth significantly less, and in a lot of cases underwater, it makes it a lot harder to figure out what is going to happen with that asset. It certainly makes it more difficult to try to come up with solutions for people.”

Phoenix life coach Vickie Champion knows of at least one marriage saved by the downturn. She said a client “was dead set on leaving” her husband, but after realizing she couldn’t support herself in the current economy, she worked on the marriage.

“Most people who are married don’t communicate,” Champion said. “The easy way out before would be to leave them, but now the easy way out is not to leave them.”

Angela Hallier, a Phoenix family-law attorney, said divorce trends have shifted in the past year. She’s seeing more people who feel they can’t proceed for financial reasons. She also has had couples who live together through their divorce because they can’t sell their homes.

“There are many cases where we are coming up with rules of engagement for the household,” Hallier said. “It’s like roommate rules.”

In these cases, she said, soon-to-be ex-spouses are dividing up square footage, along with belongings and household duties.

“We’ve gone as far as to say who gets what mattress,” Hallier said.

Nationally and locally, divorce rates have been heading downward since the 1980s. Statistics don’t adhere to conventional wisdom about recessions triggering divorces, either. Although national divorce rates (the number of divorces per 1,000 population) climbed during the 1970s recessions, they fell during downturns in the 1980s. Still, Siegel believes in normal economic dips, money problems place a huge stress on marriages.

“I think financial stress is something that, for some reason, is much, much more difficult to get through and to deal with,” he said, adding that this downturn doesn’t seem to follow the typical rules. “During the recession in 2000-2001, we didn’t see this type of impact on the real-estate market. This is certainly a lot different than a normal recession.”

Phoenix family-law attorney William Bishop also expected to see the divorce rate rise slightly when the economy started to contract last year.

Many of his divorce cases are more complex because of couples’ financial circumstances. Bishop said he has had to refer more clients to financial planners, and some have had to go through separate bankruptcy proceedings.

“It’s a lot easier to divide an asset than a debt,” Bishop said. “It really does take more creative thinking to get people separated when you have debt.”

On the flip side, one demographic may not be so hesitant to part ways. Affluent couples are finding it easier to split right now than middle- and lower-income couples.

“If you have a lot of cash on hand, the assets you’re dividing now are (worth) a lot less,” Siegel said. “I don’t want to say it’s a bargain situation, but you can buy the assets for a lot less.”

Hallier also said she has seen an increase in divorce cases among affluent couples where the sole working spouse recently lost significant income.

“It brings to the forefront the dysfunction of the marriage,” Hallier said. “While they had a high and substantial income, it was easier to live with (problems).”

Among her divorcing clients, Hallier said it’s staggering how many have a direct connection to the state’s hardest-hit industry.

“The percent of divorces where one spouse is involved in real estate is huge,” she said.

If there’s any silver lining in current trends, it’s that some couples are getting more creative and exploring more-amicable settlements. Mediation - a process in which spouses agree to work with a mediator and settle out of court - has been on the rise for the past three to five years, said Rich Gordon, principal mediator at A Fair Way Mediation Center in San Diego.

Hallier also said more divorcing couples also are undertaking a “collaborative divorce” where each spouse hires his or her own attorney and agrees to settle out of court. The collaboration helps couples - especially those with children - work through lingering issues, sometimes with help from a therapist, child psychologist or even a CPA when complex finances are difficult to separate.

“It’s sometimes less expensive, and almost always a better emotional process,” Hallier said.

Still, Gordon said, mediation also is slow right now as couples navigate financial woes. Although he has gotten more calls recently, he expects divorces to stall for at least the next year, until the housing market and unemployment rates stabilize.

“Mediation is a lot less economically painful than adversarial lawyering, but it almost doesn’t matter,” Gordon said. “What I am finding is, unlike other slow periods over the course of my career, this one really has people scared, because they’re looking over their shoulder about their jobs and they don’t have a large reservoir of money.”

Campbell, meanwhile, hasn’t regretted her decision to divorce. She would like to be a consultant to other women in her position (she was a stay-at-home mom when she filed for divorce) to let them know they can get through it - as long as they research all the household finances.

“At some point, you have to say, ‘I’m intelligent and I can make more money, but I can’t live in misery,’ ” Campbell said.

It’s still unclear what effect, if any, the recession ultimately will have on the divorce rate. But Phoenix attorney Bishop said one thing is certain.

“Most people, if they want a divorce, they’re going to find a way to get a divorce,” he said.

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For more information, please visit A Fair Way Mediation at:  http://www.afairway.com.  There is a free online evaluation form to see if mediation is right for you.  Or please feel free to call us at:  619-702-9174

www.afairway.com

Came across this wonderful article from a New Jersey Divorce Mediator:

In today’s Wall Street Journal, there was an article about the fight over revealing divorce details and the potential damage it could do to the individuals involved and their children.  The author’s point was that it was difficult to tell where the first amendment and the public’s “right to know” ended and the seemingly insatiable interest in gossip we have now-a-days begins.  Just walk by a newsstand or search the Internet for a celebrity’s name and an endless stream of information will appear before your eyes on everything from what they had for dinner last night to the latest rumor about their sexuality.  But if you think it’s just limited to celebrities, think again. It seems these days that there is no such thing as private information given how much data is publicly available on us.  Just do a search on your name in Google and be prepared for what you find.  Do you really want this information out there when it comes to your divorce?

As you may already know, divorce proceedings are open to the public and anyone including your co-workers, neighbors and relatives can sit in the gallery and listen to every sordid detail.  All of this is happening while you pay your attorneys tens of thousands of dollars to come to a settlement you and your ex could have pretty much put together yourself with the help of a New Jersey divorce mediator so what it really comes down to is personal choice.  Do you go the adversarial route and fight this out in public or do you go the mediation route and resolve your differences in private?

There are many benefits of mediation and if you’re like me, privacy is a big one because what happened during my marriage is my business and should remain only my business.   When you use a mediation service, there is no such breech as everything we do is behind closed doors and stays in the confines of our mediation sessions, keeping the details of your settlement completely private as opposed to the alternative which (well read this article and see what I mean) isn’t exactly ideal.  And if you think grandstanding in open court is going to get you a more favorable settlement, think again.  I can’t imagine when you and your soon to be ex are screaming at each other in front of dozens of total strangers, you are going to end up with a good result.  As much as we’d like to think we’re adults, divorce can make us do crazy things and cooler heads don’t always prevail.  But with the help of a divorce mediator in New Jersey you and your spouse will be surprised at just how much progress you can make towards peacefully ending your marriage.  It doesn’t have to be as hard as the movies and television would like you to believe and by making the decision to keep your divorce details to yourself, I promise you, both you and your children will be better off in the long run.

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For more information, please visit A Fair Way Mediation at:  http://www.afairway.com.  There is a free online evaluation form to see if mediation is right for you.  Or please feel free to call us at:  619-702-9174

www.afairway.com

Divorce is never easy.  It has taken a long time for you to make the decision to split up.  And even if you and your spouse are still on “good terms”, you’ll still encounter problems when you attempt to work out the details of your separation. Rarely is there equal bargaining power in a marriage. Plus, it is very difficult to make rational decisions when emotions are running high.  Few situations are as emotionally charged as the end of a relationship.

Mediation is a voluntary settlement process which allows you to control your own destiny rather than leaving your fate up to a judge who knows nothing about your or your spouse.  You need never step foot into a courtroom as all discussions are held in the safety and comfort of the mediator’s office.  Because of this mediation is far less costly in both economic and emotional terms.  Couples can save up to 90% over a traditional courtroom battle by using the mediation process.

HOW IT WORKS:

Divorce Mediation is a step by step process through which separating couples arrive at a fair agreement which is acceptable to both parties.  It is conducted under the guidance of a trained professional who helps the couple to make their own important decisions concerning their changing and uncertain future.  The mediator need not be a lawyer.  A psychologist with some knowledge of divorce law can be
quite effective in dealing with a couple going through a breakup of their marriage.

The mediator helps you identify the points upon which you already agree and  works from there, with cooperative problem solving, to work on the issues which are not so easily disposed of.  Some examples of typical questions which come up during the process are:

Who will the children live with?
How much visitation will the non-residential parent enjoy?
How much support will be paid?
What does support cover?
Who gets to stay in the house?
How will I get my money from the property we own?
How will our investments be divided?
Do I have to share my retirement?
Who will pay the credit card debt?
What about health insurance?
Will the kids get to go to college?

A skilled and experienced mediator is able to create a safe and cooperative environment which encourages open and honest discussion.  The mediator’s role is an impartial one, identifying issues exploring underlying interests, suggesting options and balancing power.

The mediator is neutral, does not represent either party and does not make decisions.  They are trained to listen and help both parties stay focused on the task at hand.  There is no need to being “dirty laundry” into the room or the discussions. Mediators encourage the couple to search for a solution to their unique problems and support them once a decision is made.

The mediation process culminates (usually after an average of five sessions) in the preparation of a Marital Settlement Agreement which details the specifics of your mutually agreed upon decisions.  This agreement is the basis of the divorce decree.

A Final Note

It is important to understand that mediation is not the arena for deciding whether or not to separate or divorce.  That should be done in the office of a mental health professional.  However, once the decision is reached, mediation can help the separating couple and their children avoid unnecessary scars and return much sooner to the business of living.

A Fair Way Mediation Center

The principal mediator at A Fair Way Mediation Center is Richard M. Gordon, B.A., M.A. and J.D.  Mr. Gordon is a highly trained mediator. In addition to mediating divorces he has served as a mediator, arbitrator, consensus builder, trainer and consultant to individuals, corporations, foundations and public organizations.

Mr. Gordon is a member of the Academy of Family Mediators, the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution and C.A.L.M.  He is also on the panels of several associations including NASDAQ and the San Diego Superior Court.

Mr. Gordon’s clients welcome his ability to establish an atmosphere of trust and cooperation.  He encourages creative problem solving, assists in making issues clear and intervenes when emotions hinder the mediation process.

For more information about A FAIR WAY MEDIATION CENTER, look at the web site at www.afairway.com.

www.afairway.com