MarksLawyers.com

Introduction: ATTORNEY ADVERTISING: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Take the war out of your divorce. Michael N. Marks, Esq. is an attorney with extensive training and experience in commercial and divorce law, litigation, and mediation. For over twenty years, Mr. Marks has successfully guided couples to fairly and sensibly resolve all of the issues that are addressed during a legal separation, annulment, or divorce. Prior affiliation as a practitioner member of the Academy of Family Mediators; New York State Unified Court System, New York County, Commercial Division Mediation Panel; A Better Solution Professional Mediation and Arbitration Services. My litigation and mediation practice also includes cases arising out of commercial contracts, business partnerships, licencing agreements, consumer debt, labor law, and New York State no-fault insurance disputes. You can avoid the high cost and emotional trauma of a bitter adversarial divorce by calling Michael N. Marks, Esq. ATTORNEY ADVERTISING: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Divorce mediation is a positive process that has allowed me to help couples avoid the high cost and emotional trauma of a bitter adversarial divorce. I enable couples to fairly preserves their assets, and educate parents to protect their children from suffering much of the emotional confusion and pain caused during a divorce. During the mediation process, the parties first realize that without giving up any of their legal rights, they can end the war, agree to be good co-parents to their children, find a fair division of their assets, and provide for support when necessary. It is in that moment, I see faces change expression and present impossibilities, distrusts, and fears fade before new found solutions for a better future. Here are ten factors to consider when choosing among mediation and litigation as a process for divorce: 1. In the litigation process, a court addresses your issues on their own schedule and a judge decides the future disposition of your family matters for you. In the mediation process, facilitated by a skilled divorce mediator, the parties are coached to consider the legal standards relating to each issue and are empowered to craft their own decisions and make their agreements based upon what they find as important for their future. The parties are empowered to address issues in the order of their importance to the parties. 2. All of the legal rights you have in a litigated divorce action apply equally to the mediation process. In mediation, all issues of child support, custody, parenting time, equitable distribution of marital assets, and the issues of spousal maintenance (alimony), estate planning, retirement funds, separate property, and physical protections are resolved upon the same laws and principles applied by a judge presiding over litigation in court. 3. Litigated divorces tend to become a protracted affair, continuing for months and years, while mediation provides a streamlined path to resolving the issues. 4. Litigators aim to persuade a third party judge, which often plays out on the emotions and manipulation of the parties’ differences, pining children in the center of an emotional storm. The mediation process also addresses the emotional factors and underlying differences of the parties. However, with no third party judge to impress, the mediation process avoids much of the emotional trauma by identifying objective standards upon which the parties can agree to govern their future conduct. 5. In litigation, a judge decides how you will relate to and spend time with your minor children. A mediated agreement crafts a parenting schedule that fits right to the parenting goals and abilities of each parent. Moreover, courtrooms do not typically educate parents about how to help children deal with the confusion and trauma created by divorce. Mediators, in contrast, are trained to help craft parenting agreements focused on the needs of children, which facilitate healthy parenting for children within the reality of the divorce. A mediated agreement encourages parents, as best as possible, to respect their children’s need for two parents without anger, blame, or apology. 6. In litigation, a judge decides how your marital assets will be distributed. A mediated agreement crafts a fair distribution of the marital property with deference to the wishes and future needs of the parties. The parties are empowered to consider all their assets and to freely barter and exchange value among property that is considered important to each side. While the same formula used by the Court is applied in mediation to distribute retirement funds, parties in mediation may choose to make such exchanges that consider the present and future needs of each party. 7. The same distinction between litigation and mediation applies to orders of child and spousal support. While the same formula is applied to mediated support Agreements, the parties are free to negotiate offsets, upward or downward that result from collateral financial arrangements, which better serve the needs of children or the supported spouse. The difference is that a negotiated support order can be achieved without the costly and emotional showmanship associated with arguing such support demands before a judge. 8. Mediated Agreements and Stipulations, signed by a judge, and So Ordered, carry the same, if not greater force and effect, than a non-stipulated judicial decision and order entered after a litigated proceeding. 9. Parties in mediation are often encouraged by the mediator to consult with separate, independent legal counsel to support their decision making process. 10. In any family there is only one collection of marital of assets. The emotional time and financial expense of cutting up that pie just leaves less for the family. Litigation forces a judge to make decisions for you while conflicting advocates eat from the pie. Mediation empowers you to govern your future conduct, objectively get what you need to move on and how your family will conduct itself in the future after divorce. These are but of few of the important reasons why family court and divorce cases should be mediated. Please call me to learn more about how I can help mediate your case. Very truly, Michael Marks, Esq.