The Good Divorce

It’s the five-year anniversary of my divorce this week.

Listening to just one, two or three of the songs from my personal soundtrack for that period takes me right back to the lessons I learned during my Year of the Paid Professional.

If you take away just one thing from my experience, make it this: It pays to mediate. Especially if you have kids.

If you have the world’s most amenable spouse and are completely in agreement on how to divide the assets and raise the kids, it’s possible to legally divorce for $300. A pair of my good friends did just that using forms they downloaded from the Internet that are also available at Staples (SPLS). They spent $200 on tuition for a co-parenting course required by the state of Connecticut. The rest was filing fees.

I had an unwilling spouse, and one factor leading to the divorce was his financial illiteracy (ever wonder what drove me to help build MinyanLand?). I was able to take things only so far with a mediator before my husband wanted attorneys involved. He just didn’t trust that, and couldn’t evaluate if, he was getting a fair deal.

But my guesstimate is that getting through all the preliminary disclosure and account organization using a mediator saved at least $10,000 - probably double that. And it took all of three weeks to complete.

Divorce mediators typically segue into the role from a background in finance or psychotherapy. Increasing numbers of divorce attorneys are also licensed mediators or practice something more family friendly called collaborative law (as opposed to adversarial).

We used a former Wall Street executive with an MBA from Wharton for our joint work. She got into mediation after her own divorce, was remarried and had a young child with her second husband when we met her. She was also local, so she understood the issues and vibe of our community.

Team Laurie (as my girlfriends took to calling it) also included a mediator from the therapeutic realm. He was my family therapist, but I tapped his negotiation acumen when trying to minimize the bill for my divorce attorney. Compare his rate of $125 per billable hour, pre-tax with my flexible spending account, to my attorney’s $200. Plus, he took my calls in the wee hours, when I faced down the terror of the unknown and feared we would all be left with nothing if things dragged on too long.

My counselor on the side was instrumental in helping me craft a fair and practical settlement that I sold to my husband by laying out for him the tens of thousands we’d be lining our lawyers’ pockets with if we didn’t settle. I took him to the corner dry cleaners the following morning to sign and notarize the deal!

The greatest benefit to mediation is really the most important. You -- the parents -- decide all the details about how you will conduct your post-divorce life with your children. It’s not left to some court to determine the intimate details of your most critical relationship and who spends which holidays where.

The value is fitting of a Master Card (MA) commercial. Priceless.

Are you divorced with kids? What was your approach to the legal services and fees? Weigh in on The Exchange.