Sastow Law & Mediation

Experienced Online Mediation Services

Collaborative Divorce

A different and respectful approach to divorce.

What is collaborative divorce?

Collaborative (team) divorce works well for individuals who feel more comfortable having an attorney represent them throughout the divorce process, to feel secure that their legal rights are being considered and protected, but simultaneously, helping you and your spouse peacefully create the term of your divorce. Specifically, collaborative divorce may work well for you in the following situations:

  • When you want your attorney to protect your interests during the meetings
  • When you want to stay out of court
  • When you don’t want to fight with your spouse
  • When you want to participate in creating your agreement
  • When you want to tailor the agreement to your and your children’s needs and interests
  • When you want to divorce peacefully
  • When you may want to hire a neutral financial planner
  • When you may want to hire a divorce coach
  • When you want to protect your children

The Key Benefits of Collaborative Divorce

There’s no “win-lose” in this approach

Both attorneys are committed to helping you achieve an agreement that represents the interests of all members of the family. They understand that there’s nothing gained by being adversarial. Your attorney advocates for you, but at the same time, he or she is working with—not against—your spouse’s attorney.

Help at each point

Attorneys are familiar with the legal requirements of divorce and the issues that need to be resolved. Attorneys practicing collaborative law cooperate with each other and with their individual clients to reach resolution. Significantly, you must hire an attorney specifically trained in Collaborative Divorce Practice, not an attorney who tells you they are collaborative! That is very different.

Attorneys are in it for the right reasons

The collaborative attorneys don’t have any incentive to encourage an “us-against-them” situation. In fact, in true collaborative practice, you all sign what’s called a Collaborative Law Participation Agreement where everyone pledges that they will not go to court. Both attorneys pledge that they will not represent you in court.

Keeping everything in perspective

Sometimes, couples can get stuck arguing about relatively insignificant items and lose focus on what’s really important. Collaborative attorneys will help their clients—and their clients’ spouses—stay on track.

Your financial commitment to reaching an agreement is greater

If you don’t sign the Collaborative Law Participation Agreement, both you and your spouse would have to start all over again and find new attorneys to fight in court.

You still save money

While collaborative divorce is typically more expensive than mediation, it still represents very significant cost savings of time and money and emotional turmoil. Both spouses typically agree that the two attorneys will work together, rather than against each other, that they will engage a single financial consultant and/or parent-child professional, if necessary, rather than each spouse having to retain their own experts.

How do mediation and collaborative divorce differ?

The key difference between mediation and collaborative divorce is that in mediation, the mediator runs the show as she works with the couple to create an agreement. In collaborative divorce, the attorneys run the show as they protect their clients’ rights but simultaneously work with (not against) each other.

In other words, with collaborative divorce, the goal of reaching an agreement remains the same as it is with mediation. However, each spouse has his or her own attorney present at all meetings. Everyone works together as a team to find a resolution. In either approach, a neutral financial professional, a therapist, or a divorce coach may be part of the process.

Why should you call me?

Because I don’t just offer Mediation and Collaborative services because it’s the new trend. I’ve been specializing in this for over 20 years, and I can help you with any and all services that relate to your family conflicts, including divorce or separation and elder care agreements.

In addition, I am not only a highly trained and experienced attorney and mediator, but I also know exactly what you’re going through. As a result of my own experiences, I have chosen to work helping couples and families avoid the enormous amount of time, expense and emotional turmoil that litigation brings—and that I, myself, endured.

If Mediation is your best option, I can help you begin the process of working to reach a win-win agreement that addresses the needs of all involved, very cost-effectively. You don’t have to worry about having to spend a great deal of time and money, only to have a judge, who doesn’t even know you, dictate a win-lose decision that does nothing to help you move forward peacefully.

If Collaborative Divorce is right for you, I can represent you and help you, and work with your spouse’s attorney to reach a win-win agreement that addresses both of your needs, the needs of your spouse, and the needs of your children far more cost-effectively than litigation. You don’t have to worry about having to waste years and very significant amounts of money, only to have a judge, who doesn’t even know you, dictate a win-lose decision that does nothing to help you move forward peacefully.

Divorce is one of the most difficult and gut-wrenching experiences one can have. If you’re planning to divorce, or already involved in divorce proceedings, you already know that.

You’re unhappy. You’re worried. You’re under a great deal of stress. You’ve got a million decisions to make. Your children have been hurt enough. And you want to end all of the conflict, reduce tensions and divorce as peacefully as possible.

Case study 1: Carole and Jack

Jack had been having an affair. Carole found out. As far as she was concerned, their marriage was over.

Neither of them wanted to talk about it. Actually, I still don’t know the nature of the affair or its length. But I did need to know the overall dynamics of the situation, to understand what was in their heads, since they’d stopped communicating with each other.

The couple weren’t speaking

The fact that he’d had an affair slipped out of Carole’s mouth. Then she clammed up. Resentment and anger were filling the room, but they didn’t want to talk about it. In cases like this, I sometimes find it’s essential to talk to them separately. I sometimes just say, “It would help me if I spoke to you individually.”

Clients know they can speak to me separately. Our conversation will be private and confidential, unless they tell me it’s OK to share.

If I can help her get past the anger, or at least put it aside momentarily, and acknowledge what she’s feeling, we’re likely to get to a resolution sooner.

In this case, during the mediation, I said to Carole, “What I hear from the tone of your voice is that you’re very hurt. Is that right? Her acknowledging her emotional anguish was critical. For the first time, the injurer, Jack, didn’t hear, “You bastard, look what you’ve done.” Instead, he realized that he’d caused her a great deal of pain. In such circumstances, it’s not unusual for the injurer to respond—as Jack did—with "I didn’t mean to hurt you. It happened, and I feel terrible about it.”

At last, a breakthrough

I knew we could move forward.

In this case, Carole and Jack had two kids under the age of 10. So we addressed the parenting plan first. Once we figured out access to the children, then we went to the financial stuff. It turns out that Jack had a substantial pension. He hadn’t realized that because it was earned during the marriage, it was considered a marital asset. The pension was so important to him that we worked out a solution in which Carole kept the house and received a lump sum of money. He kept his pension.

No court would have created such a solution. Courts are not designed to be creative. They make decisions that have little to do with your life. Unlike how they would have felt at the end of a court process, at the end of the mediation process, this couple was pleased with their Agreement.

Case study 2: Susan and Donald

Susan and Donald had been working in the same business, but she was getting tired of it. Susan started taking courses so she could begin another independent business. Once she started to disassociate herself from the business somewhat, Donald told her not to come in any more.

Their marriage deteriorated quickly. When it became obvious that they were splitting up, Susan told Donald that she wanted half of the business “My blood, sweat and tears are in that business,” she told him. “The only reason I didn’t come in was because you told me not to."

In addition to half of the business, Susan wanted the house. Donald said that she had a rich grandmother in whose house she could live, plus a trust account. He maintained that he had nowhere to go.

A shared bond: their own and each others' kids

Both Susan and Donald had children from previous marriages.

The kids really liked each other. So I had them focus on the fact that they didn’t want to hurt the children. They’d been living together for 15 years, and each child regarded the other as a parent. Both acknowledged that they had, indeed, been good parents to each other’s kids. So we definitely had some positive feelings to build on.

Since the kids were now teenagers, we didn’t try to arrange a formal parenting plan. In fact, there are no legal rights or obligations to see an ex-spouse’s previous children—even though her kids called him “Dad,” and his kids called her “Mom”.

I helped them understand that it was important for the kids to retain relationships with both of them, and not to be cut off, even though there was no legal obligation to do so. In fact, Donald had been paying for Susan’s college-aged child’s college expenses.

Financial security concerns

For this particular family, there were bonds that still existed. So parenting issues were the first subjects that we addressed. She was hesitant to get divorced because of the financial implications. I explained in private and joint meetings that there was common ground on which to begin building a settlement.

Eventually, they negotiated an arrangement in which he continued to pay for her daughter’s tuition and college expenses. She, in turn, agreed to take less of the business than she had originally asked for.

There’s no way a court would have enforced his paying for the tuition. The settlement truly was one borne of negotiation and compromise. It worked out well for them.

Case study 3: Maria and Ed

This is the type of case I see fairly often: A woman walks in. She’s tired of doing everything. She has spent her life working, and also taking care of the kids. Often one child is in college, and the woman wants a life of her own, now.

The woman in cases like this is often strong, and in some cases, earns more money than her husband. Also it’s common for her husband to resist the divorce. In fact, he will only agree to a divorce if he makes sure he is financially secure. However, his sense of pride makes him unable to explain why he doesn’t want the divorce. In this case, Ed was embarrassed and depressed.

Hidden fears

I said to Ed, “I’m hearing that you don’t want the divorce, but I don’t have a sense of why. I see anger. I see body language indicating that you’re fearful. But I don’t understand what it is. Can you please help me understand?”

That’s when Ed mentioned finances. Maria immediately said, "I’m not trying to hurt you." Maria’s parents had given her money. She said, “My parents really liked you, Ed. They would have wanted you to have some of it.”

In Maria’s mind, she was paying her way out of her marriage. To her, this was a business decision and a logical one. She figured that the amount of money she would end up giving him was less than one third of what they would have blown on attorneys. She knew that if they went to court, there would be escalating conflict. And the divorce would take a far longer period of time. Maria decided to buy her freedom and keep the marital assets intact—for them, rather than give the money to attorneys.

In 4 hours, we were done.

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During COVID-19, we are open and resolving your conflicts via Zoom and in person.
Looking forward to hearing from you!

(516) 314-6116 | [email protected] ​​​​​​​

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