Holl Mediation

Divorce mediation is a two part process. Part one is negotiating and drafting a separation agreement that covers all the checklist items relevant to your family. Part two is when I draft and submit the divorce papers that need to be submitted to the court to get a divorce decree.

Divorce mediation is a cooperative, private and sensible way to resolve conflicts that arise when a relationship ends between those who are married, have children together and/or are in a committed long-term relationship. This event is typically one of the most emotionally charged and consequential conflicts one may encounter in their life. Mediation is a positive, cost-effective and completely confidential process.

As opposed to the process of using lawyers, in mediation neither the courts, nor the IRS nor anyone else will determine the agreement you come to. First we work to negotiate a separation agreement, which you must both work to come to a consensus on and then I help you navigate the process for a divorce, file your paperwork and some months later you will receive a divorce decree from the court.

The end product of our work in mediation is a formal separation agreement, which in New York is the name for the legally binding contract that determines all your financial and parenting rights and responsibilities.

This contract includes but is not limited to: how you’re going to handle the parenting schedule and logistics; family decision-making process, and considerations of financial support for your children; how you’ll deal with all your assets and liabilities; whether one of you needs financial support from the other; and, if you decide to, how to proceed with a formal divorce.

The two of you can make all the decisions about your money and your family in that agreement in privacy and at your own pace. The one thing you can’t do privately is to legally change your marital status from married to single; in other words, to get divorced. Just as you need a license from a state official to get married, you need a piece of paper from a judge to become unmarried.

If you do come to terms on all the points, however, it will be memorialized in a formal, legal contract that’s identical to the one that would have been drafted if you’d negotiated the settlement through attorneys. Once you sign that document, the agreement is a binding and enforceable contract, and will serve as the terms of any Divorce Judgment.

Absolutely! Your partner will have to agree to mediate, but de-escalating from having spoken to lawyers is not only possible but will likely save you a lot of time, money and animosity. In fact, many courts now have “presumptive mediation” policies and require divorcing couples try mediation first, before litigation can begin. Either you can speak with your partner directly and provide them my contact info or I can reach out to them to explain the mediation process and their options and see if they are willing to go forward with the mediation process.

The cost will really be a function of two things: how complicated your situation is, and to what extent the two of you can talk constructively on your own outside the sessions. Mediation sessions are charged at an hourly rate for the time spent working with you; that same rate applies for time expended in drafting any agreement that you reach, and preparing the papers for your divorce. Couples can expect the entire process — the mediation sessions and preparation of the papers for an Agreement and the Divorce — to cost somewhere between $ 3,500 and $ 5,000, depending on the presence or absence of children in the discussions, the complexity of the family finances, and your ability to resolve some of the issues on your own between mediation sessions. I operate on a sliding scale relative to your income and other factors, but for detailed pricing and packages, please contact me directly.

Yes, you may always consult with a lawyer and sometimes I will advise both of you to do so. You can however usually consult briefly with them at a much lower cost than if you fully retain them.

Roughly half of couples consult with attorneys, at some point in the process and the other half don’t. I don’t insist you have counsel, but may suggest you each consult with a lawyer during the process if you’d feel it would make you more comfortable in determining what your obligations and expectations are. While I am an attorney and here to help the two of you work towards an agreement together, I don’t represent either of you, and cannot ethically help each of you with your personal negotiation strategy, or advise you as to what you ultimately should or shouldn’t do. If you want to, it may help to have someone who’s acting as your individual advocate or consultant. The purpose of mediation is to avoid the unpleasant and costly experience of dealing with lawyers; and if they are used, to limit their roles to one of advisers, rather than acting as surrogates to make decisions for you.

Thankfully not! If the two of you can work the specifics and come to agreements in mediation, you’ll sign papers that will be submitted to obtain a divorce judgment, and you’ll never have to see a judge or testify at a trial or hearing.

By signing an agreement, you avoid giving discretion to a judge to make any decisions regarding your future, but you still must go through the formal filing for a divorce to become legally single again, if that’s what you want.

Mediation is a series of meetings during which I help you both to negotiate all the terms of a formal separation agreement and file for a divorce decree if you wish. We cover all the relevant items on a “checklist” which is the list of decisions the courts require couples to address before they will accept a separation agreement. I am not acting as a lawyer for either of you but as a neutral to inform both of you of what the state requires you to do and to explain how the courts are currently interpreting the laws.

No commitment is required for a phone consultation. If we agree to try mediation, both of you must sign a confidentiality agreement that means you cannot use what we discuss against one another. I ask that you arrive to sessions on time and earnestly try to have constructive dialogue. However, either of you can choose to end the mediation and use lawyers if the process is not working.

Sessions are generally conducted online via secure video conferencing platforms, ensuring convenience and accessibility. In person sessions can be arranged on a case by case basis if desired. All sessions are completely confidential and nothing you say can be used in future court proceedings should they occur.

We’ll talk about all the specifics for how you’re going to handle assets and liabilities; how both of you will have enough to live on; health insurance, tax filings, life insurance, tax exemptions and all the other financial issues you’ll need to address to have a complete and practical separation agreement. If you have children I will also help you to decide the children’s schedule, how you’ll make decisions for them while living in two separate households, and how you’ll meet their financial needs. (If you’d like a specific outline of the questions that will be considered you can find them in the “Decisions Checklist.”

You’ll decide that; if you don’t believe something is fair, you simply won’t agree to it and won’t accept those terms. Importantly, mediators, unlike judges, don’t make decisions for couples. I’ll be responsible for the questions, but you two will be fully in charge of arriving at the answers. Remember that I’m not an arbitrator, or a private judge; I won’t listen to each of you for a minute and then declare what you must do, or assert what I think is fair.

You’ve been making financial (and parenting) decisions together during the time you’ve been together, so you don’t become incompetent to continue to do so simply because your marriage or partnership may not be going forward. I’ll provide and manage the process, but you retain the ability to decide for yourselves if the agreements you negotiate are fair for you.

We generally work in sessions of about an hour and a half. I will ask you to block out two hours in your schedules so that we won’t have to stop abruptly if we’re in the middle of a discussion. Some people seem to work best in longer sessions, and others fatigue after an hour. Overall, most couples reach a point of diminishing returns after about an hour and a half.

Generally we schedule meetings every 2-3 weeks which is how long most people seem to require to gather the information they need, consult with others, have their own discussions, and process the ideas and issues that will come up during the mediation process. That being said, scheduling depends on many factors and is tailored to your needs; you can choose to meet as frequently as you both decide.

It varies widely, but assuming that the two of you can deal with particular topics in direct conversations between mediation meetings, on average it takes three to six working sessions to reach agreement on all the necessary points. It will then take a few weeks to draft, review and sign the formal papers. Start to finish, most couples have the Separation Agreement signed and in effect within two to three months from when they start. The receipt of the actual decree of divorce will take several months and is based on congestion in New York courts.

Most of the discussions will take place with everyone talking together. There may be times, though, that I may speak with each of you separately. Many couples also speak directly with each other between appointments, which is something we can discuss at our first session, to see if it makes sense for the two of you to try.

Most of the discussions will take place with everyone talking together. There may be times, though, that I may speak with each of you separately. Many couples also speak directly with each other between appointments, which is something we can discuss at our first session, to see if it makes sense for the two of you to try.

You don’t need anything in the first session but it is helpful to have written out a very informal statement of your assets and liabilities. This need only be a very rough estimate to help us establish the broad financial situation initially. If you have copies of last year’s tax returns, that is also very helpful but not necessary at the first session. Sessions are generally conducted online via secure video conferencing platforms, ensuring convenience and accessibility. In person sessions can be arranged on a case by case basis if desired. All sessions are completely confidential and nothing you say can be used in future court proceeding should they occur.

You’ll know the process is working if we are moving along the required checklist and coming to consensus on some of the items. Progress can occur both during and in-between sessions and usually does. Typically after one to two sessions the path to successful resolution will reveal itself.

I provide guidance and a framework for people to resolve their family conflicts and problems in an efficient and healthy manner.

Working with a mediator allows you to determine what is best for your family rather than leaving it up to a judge who knows nothing about you or your family. The base cost for most lawyers is astronomical and their practice is grounded in a place of retribution and punishment, both of which have been proven ineffective for resolving problems in a healthy or lasting manner.

Every day couples spend many thousands of dollars fighting through lawyers. Particularly when children are involved, hurting your partner through a long and contentious divorce IS hurting your children. One of the best decisions one can make for their children’s present and future wellbeing is to avoid a long and contentious divorce which is typically the only model attorneys are comfortable with. Worse yet, lawyers often have fee structures that do not incentivize or motivate them to resolve disputes efficiently.

I am a licensed attorney and have received substantial training in mediation and negotiation strategies at a university level. I will not be acting as a lawyer but rather as a committed neutral, drawing on a unique personal and professional experience and a host of strategies and techniques which foster creative problem-solving, constructive and efficient communication and a sensitive and sensible approach that typically allows me to lower the temperature in highly contentious situations and effectively maintain and return focus to the problem at hand.

I have a demonstrated ability to bridge the gap that often keeps people fighting with each other to the detriment of everyone, particularly the children.

I’m here to help both of you maintain focus in your discussions and to ensure that you’re aware of all the topics you’ll need to consider. I will also point both of you towards the sources of information on each issue that you might need to make intelligent and fully informed choices. I can also share with you solutions that other couples have used in the past, for any given issue, or ideas that occur to me, specific to your situation, with the understanding that you don’t have to adopt any of those.

If you’ve already been separated I can also look at any solutions that you’ve already sketched out, to see if there might be concerns based on my experience with other divorcing couples.

Finally, I can also share with you the range of outcomes you might expect in court on a given issue, just to keep the discussions grounded in the real world possibilities of how the state determines their decisions if it ends up in court.