Divorce Mediation and the New Jersey Case Information Statement

mediation CIS

Alice was surprised when her consulting attorney gave her a blank New Jersey Family Law Case Information Statement (CIS) and recommended that she fill it out before her first mediation session. “Ask your husband to complete it also,” the attorney added. “It will really help you organize your financial issues right off the bat.”

Alice took the form home and looked it over and now she is feeling a bit overwhelmed. It’s so official looking and so detailed. Alice and her husband Blake chose mediation partly so that they didn’t have to deal with all the red tape of court. Do they really need to bother with this form? Read more

College Planning and Mediation: Part I

As parents of high school seniors already know, January and February are the deadline months for many college applications. This can be a financially stressful time for any family. For families going through divorce, the stakes can be even higher.

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Mediation: A Holiday Gift for Everyone on Your List

The winter holidays can be full of joy, but its common knowledge that they can also generate a great deal of stress. For those facing divorce, mustering up any holiday spirit at all can be a challenge. You may find yourself surrounded by high expectations at the exact same time that you must confront the end of one of your most important relationships and the prospect of restructuring your entire family. Read more

Parenting Agreements and Holiday Pressure: Mediation Can Help

holiday parenting plansAs the end of the year ushers in another holiday season, many divorcing parents find themselves at odds. Finalizing parenting agreements can be challenging when it includes dividing holiday time. To make matters worse, the 2018 holiday season brings extra pressure for many divorcing couples. Those with alimony provisions need to finalize their divorce agreements by the end of the year to avoid big tax changes.

None of this is easy, but you can at least feel confident that if you and your spouse are negotiating a settlement in mediation, you have a good chance of staying on schedule. Read more

Mediating Prenuptial Agreements – Part II

In our last post, we discussed how individual and shared interests often come into conflict in negotiating prenuptial agreements. We saw how an aggressive attorney representing the wealthier of two engaged partners might produce an initial draft prenup with the potential to derail what would otherwise be a happy marriage. In this post we will talk about how the mediation process can provide a better alternative. Read more

Prenuptial Agreements: How Mediation Can Help – Part I

Situations where parties have both opposing interests and shared interests are well-suited to mediation. Divorce settlements generally fall into this category. As we will discuss in this post, prenuptial agreements — often called “prenups”— fall into it even more squarely. This makes mediation a potentially useful process for negotiating such agreements. Read more

Three Approaches to Divorce: How Mediation Can Play a Role

If you are just reaching a decision about ending your marriage, you may be confused about the best way to go about it.

Perhaps you have friends urging you to hire an aggressive attorney to prevent your soon-to-be-ex from trying to take advantage of you. Or maybe your friends are urging you to steer clear of expensive attorneys and just handle everything yourself. Perhaps you and your spouse are fairly amicable and you are both interested in divorce mediation, but you aren’t sure which issues you actually need a mediator to help you resolve. Is mediation the right answer? Read more

Jeff and Yvonne Build a Parenting Plan using Child Inclusive Mediation

In our last post, we discussed how a couple with three children between 12 and 15 years of age made the decision to pursue child inclusive mediation (CI). Both Jeff, a high school math teacher and basketball coach, and Yvonne, an IT professional, wanted primary residential custody of 15-year-old Kyle and 12-year-old twins, Katie and Kayla. Their mediator, Brian Hill, suggested that they try CI, a process that brings a mutually agreed upon child specialist into the mediation. Yvonne and Jeff agreed that this seemed like a positive way to move forward with a successful parenting plan. They chose Dr. Jasmine Landers as their specialist. Read more

Parenting Time:  Which Dispute Resolution Process Fits Your Family?

Couple meeting with divorce mediatorRecently we have been discussing different procedural options for resolving child custody disputes in New Jersey. We followed one family through litigation and another through mediation with a child-focused approach. Today we will look at a third option, child-inclusive mediation. Read more

Parenting Time: Derek and Megan Pursue Child Focused Mediation

Last month we discussed the predicament of Alan and Cherie, a couple who took their parenting dispute to court. Each of them hired a separate child custody evaluator, and while neither parent was dissatisfied with the ultimate result, both were highly dissatisfied with the level of conflict involved and with both the complexity and the high cost of the procedures. Today, we will look at another couple with a parenting dispute who have decided to take a different approach. Read more