New York Divorce Lawyer Blog

The setting in which Family Law attorneys work is often not a courtroom, but a complicated landscape of their clients' needs and emotions. Because many of these emotions are difficult to experience, it is natural that a divorcing couple might want the process to conclude quickly. But moving forward too quickly without sufficient understanding of each party's true needs and goals risks the integrity of the final product. To ensure a settlement agreement has the durability to last and keep both sides satisfied in the long term, many collaborative professionals use a roadmap that helps to illustrate for their clients the stages of the collaborative law process. This roadmap helps to slow down the tendency to prematurely rush ahead toward solutions that may have little connection to actual interests and goals by helping the parties to see where they're going in the process and also how far they've come.

A TYPICAL COLLABORATIVE ROADMAP IS COMPOSED OF THE FOLLOWING STEPS:

• Setting the Framework: This initial phase of the process involves explaining to both parties how the collaborative process works and describing each person's roles and responsibilities.The clients will discuss why they have chosen to work collaboratively and what their goals are for the process. We also "assemble the team," deciding which other professionals will be necessary to help see us through the various issues in the divorce. How can a child specialist or a divorce coach assist in this process? What issues may be more easily resolved by working with a neutral financial professional?

• Gathering Information: Here we identify the potential conflicts that need to be resolved and gather the facts and information about those issues that will help settle them. Different members of the team in place may now be called on to assist. For example, if the divorcing couple has children, at this stage the coaches and child specialist will gather information about the emotional and personal relationships between the couple and their children. We'll want to know whether there are any special needs of the children or emotional issues that must be addressed. The financial professional will start gathering information about the parties' assets, debts and income and the attorneys and clients may have an open discussion about the law at this stage as well.

• Developing a Shared Understanding: This is where we define the interests of the parties. We take a look behind the stated positions of each side to examine not what the parties claim to want, but why they need it. When one spouse insists he or she needs to "keep the house" we look to see what the reasoning behind the request is. Is the real issue that one of the parties needs to stay in this particular home because the carrying charges are low? Or is it because the grandparents live nearby and help out with the child care? The goal here is to get away from blanket positional statements and look at the underlying reasons for those positions.

• Generating and Evaluating Options: By this stage, we are looking to find an actual solution that works for both parties by looking at the available options. Each party will consider and evaluate the options to see whether they satisfy each of their main interests. We can also test out possible solutions. For example, if we're dealing with an issue that is financially related, the financial professional will "run the numbers" and do a side-by-side comparison of the different options under consideration. We can pose the question, "what amount of cash will each party have left after taxes over the next 20 years if we divide the assets this way as opposed to that?" This approach allows each spouse to see what choices are preferable in the long term and make decisions based upon this information.

• Reaching Agreement: When each party is satisfied that its concerns have been addressed and feels secure about the compromises made, it is time to actually draft and sign an agreement. As you can see, by the time we get to this last step, each party has had many opportunities to have his or her voice heard and interests addressed.

An agreement reached by following the collaborative roadmap means more than just the paper it is printed on - it is significant because it was the product of both parties making decisions with all necessary information before them, listening to each other and cooperating with one another. This not only makes the divorce process a lot less unpleasant than an adversarial action in court but can also provide the parties with a method to solve problems together in the future.

Andrea Vacca
570 Lexington Avenue
Suite 1600
New York, NY 10022
avacca@vaccalaw.com

"To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater." - Bono

In my last blog, I discussed the phenomenon of "gray divorce" and touched on some of the unique issues that older couples face when divorcing. In this post, I will share some thoughts on how effectively the mediation and collaborative law processes can meet the unique needs of these parties.

In my mediation and law practice, I have observed that unlike younger couples who are divorcing, older couples are frequently more civil toward each other and their interactions are less characterized by anger. As a mediator and collaborative lawyer, my role is to help the parties avoid court intervention and resolve their issues in a way that will keep the focus on their needs and goals, rather than their "positions." This works particularly well in cases of gray divorce. To rework a phrase popularized in the '60s, while older couples might choose to separate because they are no longer making love, it is often not because they are making war.

Mediation and Collaborative law are two cost and time effective ways to end a marriage while adding an element of grace and dignity to what could morph from a civilized discussion into volatile, emotionally and financially draining situation if not handled properly

Older couples appreciate the fact that time is extremely precious and they don't want to squander it on a lengthy and protracted court battle, nor do they wish to deplete their savings with retirement on the horizon. In addition, many find great benefit when they have the opportunity to work with mediators or collaborative lawyers trained to be creative problem solvers who can find solutions that would not necessarily be available to them if they allowed a judge to decide their fate. A particularly important issue for these couples is access to medical insurance. Additionally, as a result of the current economic climate, I have noticed that more frequently, older couples are providing some sort of support for their adult children and/or grandchildren.

I recently worked with a couple in their early 60's who, after spending the better part of a year in court with traditional divorce attorneys, came to the realization that they weren't getting any closer to a resolution. They eventually talked to each other without their lawyers and realized that they agreed on more issues than they disagreed; they then asked me as a mediator to help them to bridge their small gaps rather than continue with the long, protracted and expensive legal battle that they saw eroding the respect and care that they still had for each other after their long marriage. We reached an agreement after just two mediation sessions and in the end this couple decided that it did not actually serve their interests to divorce at this time. For them, the most viable and practical solution was to divide their assets but to stay married for another five years so that the Wife could keep the self-employed Husband on her insurance plan and then retire at a time that would maximize the amount of her pension. This solution would have been impossible in a court of law, as a judge would not be empowered to order a distribution of their assets without also ending their marriage (which would thereby end the husband's right to remain covered as a spouse under his wife's medical insurance policy).

The team approach of a collaborative divorce has also been extremely effective for my gray divorce clients where we can use a neutral divorce coach to help the couple bridge communication gaps in a non-adversarial way and we can use a neutral financial professional to help them figure out how they can utilize their assets and live on their fixed incomes in way that will allow them to both feel financially secure post-divorce.

Many later-in-life divorcing couples express to me how important it is to them to end their marriage in a way that preserves the "good times" of their long-term relationship and accomplishes the dissolution in a way that is cost effective. They might still love each other but simply want to live apart simply because they have grown apart. However, they recognize that they still have a family unit that needs to be maintained and still want to be able to share family moments as their children get married and have children of their own.

In a recent Daily Beast post about divorced couples who celebrate this next stage of their lives by jointly throwing "divorce parties," Andrew Cherlin, a professor at Johns Hopkins and author of The Marriage-Go-Round" explained that because divorce rates have been high for several decades, couples may be learning how to do divorce a little better and in a way that minimizes the pain. His theory is that happy divorces are on the rise because unlike in the past when "divorce was so stigmatized that only the most miserable left their marriages, now the 'moderately unhappy' are getting out too, which might make for some less acrimonious splits."

Divorce parties may not be every couple's goal, but neither is the desire to hate and despise each other once the divorce is over. The collaborative law and mediation processes can help these less adversarial couples preserve what was good and move into their post-divorce lives with respect for each other and dignity for themselves.

When collaborative divorce was first developed, it was a process that involved two attorneys and their clients. The attorneys not only counseled and advised their clients about the law, but also about the financial and child-related issues that needed to be resolved. And they did their best to help with the emotional and communication issues that inevitably arose during the divorce process.

Collaborative attorneys eventually realized that while they were the best source of legal information and advice for their clients, this wasn't necessarily the case when it came to financial issues, child development issues and communication issues. Instead, collaborative attorneys realized it made more sense to refer their clients to other professionals who had specialized training in these areas. And that's when the team approach to collaborative divorce began.

Today the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals and other practice groups train financial professionals, divorce coaches and child specialists alongside lawyers in collaborative practice. As a result, the team approach to collaborative divorce has become more commonplace.

How do these other professionals help the clients in a collaborative divorce?

The financial professionals help the attorneys and clients divide the marital property in a way that makes the most sense to meet the short and long-term needs of the parties and their children. They provide tax information and they can help the parties explore different property distribution and support options.

The mental health professionals can play one of three roles. They either act as a divorce coach for an individual client, they act as the neutral divorce coach for the entire team, or they act as a child specialist. Divorce coaches help the clients deal with feelings such as hurt, anger, sadness and fear that will often come up during the divorce process and that can interfere with a client's ability to make smart choices in the negotiation process. Divorce coaches can also help the clients learn how to communicate better with their spouse, their children and even their lawyers during the process. Child specialists bring the voice of the children to the collaborative process and they educate the parents about child development issues that may need to be considered and addressed. The child specialists will then help the parties arrive at a parenting arrangement and decision-making process that works best for themselves and their children.

Is the team approach more expensive than a lawyers-only approach to collaborative divorce?

Finances and cash flow are serious concerns in any divorce and the need to retain other professionals at the outset of the collaborative process can feel daunting. But when clients take their attorney's advice to bring other professionals onto the team, they will save money in the long run. Not only do the financial professionals, divorce coaches and child specialists all charge less per hour than the lawyers, but when clients receive specialized information and advice from these professionals, they are often able to come to an agreement in less time than in cases where the lawyers are being called upon to play multiple roles.