Tag: Divorce

Can Mediation Turn Back the Clock?

Reverse clock with wooden frame isolated on white background

I’ve written before about what success means in mediation. Often it means a complete resolution of a dispute and the parties can go on their way, having saved lots of time, aggravation, and a bundle in litigation expenses. Even when there is not a complete resolution, mediation often resolves at least part of a dispute or helps the parties significantly lessen the amount of discovery needed as the case moves forward. However, can mediation undo what’s been done? Can it restore the parties to some kind of pre-dispute state of harmony?

Continue reading

Hanging Up the Cleats

stock-photo of hanging football boots with cleats isolated

{4 minutes to read}  So when is it time to hang up the cleats? Some pitchers or quarterbacks hit the wall at 30, others, far fewer, at 40. If you’re a gymnast (not that they wear cleats), forget it. Lasting past 25 can be a miracle. And when should a President hang it up? 

Continue reading

Perseverance

stock-photo-loggerhead-sea-turtle-emergence-turtles

{4 minutes to read}  Sometime back, I wrote a blog about how long divorce mediations can take. Divorce mediations typically take longer than most other mediations because people involved in divorce, especially when there are children involved, need to create new lives for themselves and their families. This can take a while. Very often it is during the mediation that a couple goes through the actual process of physically separating, working out the details of how they will handle finances, children, personal property, and whatever else may come up. It’s also common that one spouse is more eager to get divorced than the other.

Continue reading

Divorce Mediation: How Long Does it Take?

Gary Shaffer - How long does it take to mediate a divorce? It depends.{4:30 minutes to read}  One question I always get whenever someone calls about a divorce mediation is, “How long does it usually take?” The “It depends” answer to this one is far more accurate than in most other mediations.

Many non-divorce mediations take a full day. There is something about participants getting tired and it getting dark that stimulates movement. No one wants to leave after 8, 10, or 12 hours with nothing to show for it.

In divorce mediations, a similar process plays out, but never in one day. And single sessions rarely go over two hours. Couples get exhausted by that point. Plus they need to reflect on and sometimes even live with issues, emotions, and possible decisions.

Continue reading

New Tax Rules Make 2018 “The Year of the Divorce”

New Tax Rules Make 2018 The Year of the Divorce by Gary Shaffer{4 minutes to read}  Breakin’ up is not just hard to do—it’s often expensive. But for the past 75 years or so, alimony has been deductible for the payor and income to the payee. This often helped soften the economic fallout of divorce by allowing the higher-earning spouse to pay alimony to the lower-earning spouse so the “family” could reduce its overall tax burden. Since child support is neither income nor deductible, couples often agreed to allocate more money to alimony and less to child support to increase the overall pot available to the family post divorce.

Continue reading

Family Disputes: Selling the Family Home

{3:54 minutes to read} Our mental attics can store lots of emotional content when it comes to a family home. For Family Disputes: Selling The Family Home by Gary Shaffermany families, selling that home may be sad, but not otherwise a source of contention. It can even be a relief. But for others, selling the home can create conflict. While there can be an almost infinite source of such conflicts, mediation can provide a way to ease or even resolve them.

Money and emotion are almost always intertwined in a dispute over the family home, and any attempt at resolution must address both. Ideally, the issue is addressed before a dispute arises:

Continue reading

Getting Divorced but Living Together?

{3:54 minutes to read} When most people get divorced the last thing they want to do is continue living together in  Getting Divorced but Living Together? by Gary Shafferthe same house. One of the prime reasons to get divorced is so you no longer have to live with that crackpot, jerk, cheat, ne’er-do-well, liar, energy-sucker.

When there are no kids, this is usually an easy decision. Hasta la vista, baby. But life isn’t always neat, and when there are children and limited resources, keeping the family home may be the best way to harness those resources and maintain stability.

Continue reading

Mediation: Post-Nup as Marriage Counseling and Marriage Preservation

Mediation Post-Nup as Marriage Counseling and Marriage Preservation By Gary Shaffer{4:12 minutes to read} Sometimes couples who come to mediation are unsure if they really want to get divorced. They may not even know they are unsure.  

There are all sorts of reasons for people in a rocky relationship to stay together. The two that stand out are kids and financial resources. Even for well-off couples, the cost of post-divorce life is often surprising.

Bickering parents, of course, can be a source of great strain for children and sometimes breaking up can bring a measure of relief to everyone. But the strains in a relationship may not be ones that require breaking up and many couples might ideally like to stay together permanently, or at least until the kids are grown—meaning after high school or college—when financial pressures are reduced.

Continue reading

Appellate Mediations – Part 2

Appellate Mediations - Part 2 By Gary Shaffer{3:30 minutes to read}

In my last blogI discussed why mediating a case on appeal often makes sense, even to the party that has won Round 1. This time I want to focus on the potential risks and benefits that winners and losers face in the appeal process and how that affects their willingness to mediate.

Losers

If you lose on appeal, you really lose, and perhaps with greater consequences.  No one wants to lose at the trial court level, but having an appellate court give it a stamp of approval can be even worse. The loser may then be living with the consequences for years to come. However, mediating the case before there is a decision on the appeal, can result in reducing damages for a defendant, obtaining some damages for a plaintiff, or designing a resolution where the outcome is more secure, slightly less onerous, and works in the long run.

Continue reading

Mediate an Appeal? Wait, Didn't Someone Already Win?

Mediate an Appeal Wait, Didn't Someone Already Win By Gary Shaffer{3:12 minutes to read} One might think that mediating cases on appeal would be a losing proposition. After all, someone has already won. What’s the motivation for the winner to mediate? Oftentimes, plenty.

Cases on appeal arise in many different contexts: after a full trial, after a successful summary judgment motion or motion to dismiss, even, occasionally, on a discovery matter. The winning party typically has the upper hand. But this is usually only one aspect of the mediation. It turns out that parties who have won the first round are often still interested in resolving a matter, and mediation may be the easiest and most efficient way to do it.

Appeals, like many other aspects of our legal system, can be costly and time consuming. And the outcome isn’t guaranteed. Lower courts get reversed or judgments are modified. This can mean even more litigation. Both the winning and losing parties need to consider these factors. Even on appeal, parties often want to wrap things up, and mediating at this stage can provide an unusual opportunity to do that. The legal issues may be clearly framed, the litigants know their case very well, and the facts will often have been developed through discovery, motion submissions, or a trial.

Continue reading

  • 1
  • 2

About Us

An honors graduate of Harvard University and the Cardozo Law School of Yeshiva University, where he also served on the Law Review, Gary brings more than 30 years of litigation and negotiation experience to his practice as a mediator. He has successfully negotiated and mediated resolutions in family matters, employment cases, commercial disputes, personal injury cases, and major civil rights matters.

Contact Us

Phone :- 347.314.2163
Email :- gary@shaffermediation.com

Copyright © 2017. Created and Maintained by Page One Marketing LLC.