Family & Divorce Solutions: Getting Started With A Divorce

Step 2: War or Peace? You Decide.

You can fight or you can negotiate. Those are your choices. You can (at enormous trouble and expense) ask the Court to decide these issues, or you and your spouse can decide them for yourselves.
In my experience, litigation escalates tension, destroys relationships, and drains finances. An adversarial approach is guaranteed to be hard on you and even harder on your children. By contrast, negotiation can produce fair, reasonable and creative agreements relatively quickly and for a fraction of the cost. A negotiated solution is in everyone’s best interest. Choose to negotiate.

Step 3: Reaching Agreement

There are three ways to conduct negotiations with your spouse: on your own; in mediation; or through attorneys. At a minimum, you should seek the basic legal information you need from an attorney, and you should engage an attorney to commit the terms of your agreement to writing. There are a variety of methods available to help you reach agreement with your spouse. I offer the following services, all of which are outlined in detail on my Services page. These services include:

Legal Counsel * Collaborative Divorce * Mediation * Settlement Services * Parent Coordination

Whether I represent you in settlement negotiations, or I serve as a mediator or parent-coordinator, my goal in every case is the same: to help you reach a fair, reasonable, comprehensive agreement, so that you can move on with your life.

You are considering a separation.

Your spouse has announced that she wants a divorce.

You and your ex can’t agree on how to raise your children.

You want to make modifications to a settlement agreement.

Where do you start?