parenting agreement

so then the question is — if you're goingto go to mediation, do you wanna go, just the two of you, or do you want to bring lawyers?and there's pros and cons to whether you want to have your lawyers come to mediation withyou or if you want to go by yourselves. some people just decide that they think theycan work through the issues themselves. they don't have very complicated assets; they havebasically mutually decided to divorce. they feel very comfortable coming up with a custodyplan for their children. now, that said, if you go to a mediator, andespecially some people think if you go to a lawyer/mediator that they're going to giveyou legal advice, like tell you what might be your separate property, or --um-- questionsabout alimony or maintenance. maybe you go

in and you don't realize that you could qualifyfor alimony or spousal maintenance. it's not really the job of that lawyer/mediator totell you that for mediation in the pure sense of the word. so don't go to a lawyer/mediatorlooking for legal advice if you're just going to go without lawyers. lawyers rarely go to mediations with mentalhealth workers for parenting plans; those are usually more collaborative process betweenthe mental health professional and the parties. that's why the mental health mediators canbe really helpful with that, because they're very patient about going through what bestfor your kids. so, sometimes you need — sometimes you needa lawyer to either coach you before you go

to mediation, or most people, or a lot ofpeople, actually, bring their lawyers to mediation. and there's a certain mediation style forthat. and its always a good idea to consult with a lawyer before you do anything, evenif you just go buy and hour or two of a lawyer's time, because there's issues that you mightnot see, that you should really address. and if you see there's an issue that you canmake a separate property claim about your house, but you just choose not to, at leastyou knew going into the mediation that you had that option. i have people come to me pretty frequentlywho say, "my husband and i are going to go to mediation. i need to know what my rightsare. i want to know what my divorce rights

are. i want to know about the divorce process."or maybe they come in and they just say... i actually had a women come in the other daywho didn't realize that since she had — owned a house in europe, and she sold that houseand bought a house here, and she and her husband had been living in that house for a few years,didn't even occur to her that the equity in their house — which was a lot — was opento a separate property claim on her part. so she was getting ready to go to one of thosemediators who didn't have any training in the legal perspective, and we were able towork through how she could make her separate property claim. so we went through that wholesituation so when she got to the mediator, she had an understanding of the laws in ourstate as they pertained to her situation.

so, that's mediation process if you have alawyer as a coach outside of the process. then there's mediation where you bring yourlawyers, and in those mediations, it's typically a situation where you don't sit all togetherin the same room. you are in... this kind of mediation - is called -- it's technicallymore of a settlement conference. so you and your lawyer would be in one room, and yourhusband and his lawyer would be in another room and the mediator, who's typically inthis case either a retired judge or a lawyer, goes back and forth between the rooms andtries to work with the parties sort of independently and separately to compromise. so there's alittle bit of compromise here, and bring an offer over to this room, and there's a littlebit of compromise here, bring an offer back

over to this room. and then the lawyer/mediatorwill come up with some ideas, "well, how about if we do this?" sometimes when you're in amediation, you may want to bring with you — like a — a cpa who can help you figureout the tax consequences of any decisions you might be making. there's other kinds ofexperts you may want to either consult before you go and --um-- have them available to youby phone. but for now, what i want you to remember is, when you get to mediation, youshould be very prepared. you should know exactly what your assets are. you should know kindawhat you think is appropriate in terms of a parenting plan. and even if you're in amediation where you have your lawyer and their lawyer and you're all in separate rooms, youknow — sometimes these rooms look like these

huge conference rooms with you know, laptops,and spreadsheets and the cpa is there and maybe a parenting evaluator might be availableby phone, or there might be a vocational person. so, it turns into a very collaborative processfor you and your team, and then your husband and his team is over in another room and there'sa lot of back-and-forth. so that's when you go to mediation with lawyers. so when you trying to decide — one thingthat drives what kind of mediation you want to go to — has a lot to do with the complexityof your situation. and situations can be complex because of the finances. or they can be complexbecause of challenges with your parenting plan. so, if you have financial complexities,that's usually regarding... maybe you own

a business, maybe you need retirement planning— um — spousal maintenance and alimony is always a big deal. when you have to doa lot of negotiating to come to a place where you make a decision about alimony or spousalsupport. so, one last thing i want to say about mediationis, that is in most states, at the end of a mediation or settlement conference, um — there'san opportunity to sign a binding contract. and in most states, that's a binding contractthat you can't really go back on. so you've got to find out in your state if that's thecase, but if you're going to go do a mediation and if you get tired and you let the otherside pressure you into accepting a settlement that might not be in your best interest, sometimesit's almost impossible to unravel that settlement.

and i don't know how it is in your state becausei don't practice there, but i do know in many states, in most states, there are legallybinding contracts that get signed in mediation that you're stuck with. and so — you shouldfind that out before you go to mediation, certainly find out if that's the case in yourstate because you want to know exactly what you're going to be signing at the end theprocess. which doesn't mean you have to sign it — it means... a lot of people go to mediation,and then they want to walk away and go back and talk to their lawyer, and that's perfectlyok, but a lot of people get pressured under the circumstances. so those are the types of mediation and alternativedispute resolution. and again, there's arbitration,

which is where a professional makes the decisionfor you. there's mediation, where it's a facilitated process and the parties actually make theirown decision, either by sitting in the same room with each other and working through theirissues — or being in separate rooms and having the mediator going back and forth betweenrooms, helping to come to a settlement. and then there's the mediation/arbitration, whichpeople call med/arb, which is where you do the back-and-forth thing, either in the sameroom together with your mediator or in separate rooms with your mediator going back and forth.and at the end of the med/arb session — and it might take a couple of sessions and youmight come back several times — but at the end of it all, if there are some things thatyou haven't been able to resolve, you turn

that over to the arbitrator, who makes thedecision — and in most jurisdictions, those decisions — you enter those in court andthey become legally binding decisions. so as you can tell, there's a lot of homeworkyou have to do before you get to mediation. and one of the biggest cautions i can giveyou is — some people come into the divorce process and they really just want to get done.they really don't want to go through anything ugly, they don't want to have — in a bigfight. you don't have to have a big fight just to get a good result. what you have todo is you have to be educated, and you have to empower yourself. and that's the whole purpose of this divorganizeseries that we're putting together — is

to give you the resources and give you theability to spot the issues that are important in your case, so by the time you get to themediation session, you should have a very good idea of exactly what you've got, andexactly what the issues are, and exactly how you think a fair resolution would be.