“Enhanced mediation” involves going to another divorce professional’s office to receive specialized help that furthers the work of your mediation. All information is shared with the primary mediating attorney.
Depending on a couple’s ability to communicate, our mediators may refer you to the office of one of our Licensed Mental Health Professionals to work out the details of a parenting plan, with the best interests of the children in mind. The mental health professional not only specializes in child development, but would be functioning as a neutral mediator around parenting plan issues. Once both parents approve a parenting plan, the parenting plan is drafted by the therapist, and sent back to the primary mediator, who writes it up formally as a legal document for the couple to review.
Sometimes one partner is having a harder time with the divorce and needs a Divorce Coach to help prepare him/her for mediation sessions. If the partners both agree, the Divorce Coach of one partner can communicate freely with the attorney mediator. For example, one client was so filled with self-doubt and so reluctant to assert herself, that it was crucial for the mediator to know the client’s struggles if a viable agreement was to be reached. Otherwise, the mediator would have invested time and the couple’s resources in reaching an agreement, only to discover at the last minute that one partner was not at all on board. The Divorce Coach helped to keep the mediation process more informed, while helping the client process intense fear and grief enough for her to continue participating meaningfully in mediation sessions.
Sometimes our attorney mediators may send you first to the office of one of our CPA Financial Specialist’s offices. It may save you considerable money, while increasing your mutual trust and willingness to work together to have all your financial documents held and organized by a single, neutral Financial Specialist. Before any talks begin about the division of assets and debts, you both get a neutral, detailed picture of the current state of your financial affairs. The neutral CPA then compiles all the financial documents and ensures that both parties fully understand the financial data at hand.
Often, one partner is less financially savvy than another. Because the decision to divorce is often preceded by a breakdown in trust between partners, it is often cost effective in the long run to pay a neutral financial specialist to fully explain the family’s finances to the less savvy partner, in front of the more savvy partner. The financial data compiled is then sent to the mediating attorney as the foundation from which to begin talks about how to share assets going forward.