It’s a new profession that assists you in your divorce to understand the decisions you are facing; help build a strategy for you and your loved ones; and prepare the evidence necessary to support your needs. Divorce Consultants also help you understand your alternatives, as there can be many ways to settle your divorce.
Divorce can be either litigious or mediated, and it also often needs to consider custody of children. It is a legal and emotionally charged event. As a working executive, you are often too time poor to appropriately deal with the conflicts that arise and the needs of the divorce process. Your Divorce Consultant will work with you to prepare what is needed and provide a well thought out, logical argument, backed by the supporting evidence, to get you a quick mediated outcome or save time briefing your lawyer.
Divorce Consultants approach custody in a child friendly manner. They take care to ensure that your children are insulated from the divorce and make sure that they are cared for. After custody is settled divorce is a negotiation of who gets how much of your assets, income and possessions that you have accumulated. The Divorce Consultant approaches these issues in a practical and methodical manner that will position you to get great results that are fair and balanced. As a result your divorce will be faster, more amicable and will cost you less; emotionally and financially.
If you are already in a highly litigious situation, a Divorce Consultant may be the factor that turns your divorce in your favor. As a working executive you are likely unable to devote the time it takes to respond to a litigious situations and failure to do so will cost you a fortune in legal fees, payments to your spouse and will cause your divorce to be unnecessarily long.
If you are contemplating divorce, a Divorce Consultant will position you with the information and alternatives to settle your divorce in mediation quickly and efficiently. The party that enters a negotiation with the greatest amount of preparation will direct the discussion and end up with the results they want. While you cannot control your spouse, a well thought out proposal that is fair and balanced will position you as “reasonable” and you will ultimately prevail.
Another consideration is that your lawyer will have a much better ability to represent you if you provide your lawyer a well thought out, logical argument, backed by the supporting evidence. Your position will be stronger and your Divorce Consultant’s work will make your lawyer’s job considerably easier. Preparing your lawyer will get you better results and save you an enormous amount in legal fees. Your Divorce Consultant will develop the supporting your arguments, prepare the financial data for the exhibits and find the copies of documents that will prove your case.
Absent a divorce consultant your lawyer will be required to do the same work but will not, typically, have had the benefit of extensive financial knowledge, an understanding of tax issues nor the ability to spend the time to dig through bank statements to find the evidence needed to support your case
Hiring a divorce consultant will take the weight off your shoulders of the tremendous amount of work needed to successfully manage and prevail in your divorce.
Irreconcilable differences is the term used in complaints for divorce in NJ as the reason for the divorce. Basically states that the relationship has reached a stage of full break down and there is no reasonable hope that you can find a way to stay married. It is a neutral way to file and is the basis most reasonable attorneys recommend to file.
The alternative to irreconcilable differences is to file on the basis of extreme mental cruelty, adultery, abuse, abandonment or drug or alcohol use for more than 12 months. The problem with this approach is that it airs your dirty laundry to the public and starts major fights. If you file on the basis of mental cruelty your spouse will file back with an equally nasty reply. This sets you up for an ugly divorce. Ugly means long and expensive; legal fees through the roof.
Unfortunately the divorce system is almost set up to make divorces more difficult than they have to be. The ability of spouses to file based on adultery or extreme mental cruelty when NJ is a no fault state is ridiculous. To explain – In a no fault state you do not need to have a reason for the divorce as you do in some states.
The other issue to consider is that what you allege will not likely change the final outcome of your divorce. You will still get roughly 50% of the assets and liabilities; and pay/get the same amount of alimony and child support irrespective of how you file. This is not something that attorney’s tell you up front.
Some attorneys’ will argue that the judge will take the basis for your complaint into consideration in their decision as they are human. Let’s put some reality to this; only 1% of cases go to trial where a judge actually decides your case. So do you set yourself up to have a long, nasty and expensive divorce or do you keep your anger and angst in your therapist’s office (where it belongs) and out of the negotiations.
The courts do not seem to care if one party had an affair or yelled at you all day when it comes to your financial settlement. A lady I recently ran into was counseled to re-file on the basis of mental cruelty as her attorney believed that it would it strengthen her position to have greater parenting time. I am dubious and think that her attorney is just setting her up for a more difficult time. Will have to follow up and see how things go for her.
It does not matter about the alleged sins of the parties in the marriage when it comes to the financial settlement. In other words it makes no difference if one party was abusive to the other you will still get the same alimony and share of assets. If there was real and permanent harm caused by the other party this would be handles in a Tevis claim, not your divorce.
So why do folks file on this basis? Does it allow them to vent in public as to how awful their marriage has been, some form of “gotcha” against their spouse, a feeling that they can tell their story? While it may initially make you feel better to have your story heard, all of these reasons do not belong in a negotiation.
Keep it simple, as neutral as possible and get out of your divorce with your money in your pockets and with your sanity intact.
I rarely publish outstanding results for my clients but this one was just awesome…
I prepared a 5 year marital lifestyle analysis according to Case Information Statement (NJ financial form) categories so that the judge would see the numbers in the standard way. In the text of the motion we referenced the exact pages of the transaction download so that every statement in the certification was backed by hard facts.
The presentation was clear and concise and the judge understood our position and gave my client an outstanding result.
The best part was that the judge turned to the lawyers and said “great papers”!
What can you do when all the court decisions seem to be against you? Your judge just seems not to get it and decisions are decidedly favoring your soon-to-be-X. How can you change your strategy to get on the “right” side of the judge?
If you are in this situation my heart goes out to you. You begin to believe that the judge is being paid off by the other side or that your legal counsel is just not good enough to beat the other side. Unfortunately in family court, the judge you get is the judge you get. You can’t change your judge unless there is a major conflict of interest.
So what do you do?
A few suggestions;
Avoid the court – which is always a good idea regardless of your judge; try to negotiate and settle via consent order.
If you really have to go to court – pick your battles. Be careful to only ask for what you can reasonably expect to get and keep the list short.
Get out of the court into mediation
Agree to binding arbitration if you believe that your spouse will not negotiate in good faith
Before you do anything on the list above you need to take a hard look at why you are in this position. What have you done, consciously or unconsciously to get you in this spot? What can you do differently? Is there a different approach that might work better? Have you been reactive rather than proactive? Have you always been on the defensive rather than the offensive? Is there a way to nudge the situation into your favor?
When you are stuck in a difficult situation getting a new set of eyes to review where you are can be very helpful, even if it costs you a few dollars. Talk to a divorce consultant, a different lawyer or forensic accountant that specialized in divorce, the questions asked by the new parties can be the key to shifting your situation.
It struck me that when folks are involved in divorce this mindset is what causes much of the troubles.
I have seen complaints for divorce that claim that the other spouse committed adultery or was emotionally abusive; certifications claiming that the other spouse has stolen money, gambles or looks at porn on the family computer. As you can imagine these types of claims cause the divorce to go into a tail spin and results in the family spending every penny they have on legal fees to prove that they are right. It goes further; many of the professionals involved in divorce jump on the bandwagon and believe what is told to them by their clients. Every single court motion done is all about how the client is right in asking for relief, all the documents attempt to prove their position to “win”.
What if we just stopped and asked the question – What if I am wrong? If you were wrong how would you change your actions?
Without question, while you are in the thick of a divorce this will be difficult to do. Perhaps you can ask the folks around you to ask the question of you on a regular basis. By folks I mean your friends, family and your lawyer.
When you are angry about what your soon-to-be-X has done “to” you; ask the question what if I am wrong about their motivations or intentions or about how I perceive this? Looking at this from a fresh perspective will allow you to pause, even if it is just for a second, and let a different view enter into your thoughts. This can be transformative.
If you discover that you are wrong it may be possible to shift the course of your divorce and end the litigation or head to a mediator and negotiate a settlement.
A few years ago I wrote a blog called “Time Kills Deals”. The blog talked about how prolonged negotiations not only cost more money in legal fees but “time” itself can cause folks to get fixed in their own positions.
I still believe that the best outcomes from a divorce happen when the parties move quickly through the process. However there are some folks who just need more time for the shock of the divorce to settle in and are just not ready to make these decisions.
This will obviously be very frustrating for the spouse who wants it done.
Unless there is tremendous wealth involved, divorce strains the finances, (same income two households), the ability to change/downsize your lifestyle to meet this challenge is not easy and usually the lower income spouse is struggling and savings are used to meet the gap. The longer the situation persists the more savings are used and, at the end, when you would like to have a nest egg available, it is gone so this delay is not only frustrating it can be costly.
A cynic might think that the spouse who is not making decisions is doing this as a negotiating ploy; your spouse states their position and then every time you try to settle the situation to make a compromise their demands just get bigger. If you believe this is the situation and want to settle just give them what they want, if you can, and be done.
If their demands are just too large wait them out. The courts will be pressuring you to settle with constant case management conferences; but if the unbending spouse still will not give in you either have to try the case in court (think $25,000 to $50,000 in legal fees) or you can opt for binding arbitration. Choosing this option will give you breathing room as you will no longer be on the court’s docket and timing is completely within your control.
The bottom line is that if you have a spouse who is not ready; they’re not ready.
Any decision you reach will be skewed their way just so you can settle. Wait them out. Let them want to come back to the table before you continue to try to modify our position just to get things done. That would be called negotiating against yourself. Clients have said “maybe if we go back to them with X they will settle”? It rarely works and all it does is give the other side an advantage.
One of my clients waited 4 years before he approached his wife for a settlement. So if your spouse just wants to fight, let them fight against themselves and just wait it out until cooler heads prevail.
