Bill Leininger – Divorce Mediation Attorney – Richmond County, NY
There is a related process which has come about in the last 10 or 12 years to divorce mediation and that is called collaborative divorce law. And without spending a lot of time on it, I’m trained in collaborative divorce.
The basic difference between divorce mediation and collaborative law is in divorce mediation 99% of people do not come with attorneys, okay?
Why?
Well, I charge by the hour. Each lawyer charges by hour. Do you want to have the clock running at about $1,300 an hour? So, most people don’t do it.
In my New York practice over 31 years, I’ve had two people asked to have their lawyer, and one of them, the lawyer called me, I’d known him for many years, and I said, Paul, nothing personal, but you don’t run the show here. The clients run the show. If they both say I have no objection to one of them bringing in your lawyer, I have no objection. But what usually happens is, well, if you’re going to bring a lawyer, then I’m going to bring a lawyer and we’re spending $1,300 an hour.
Does that make any sense? And it doesn’t.
So, there is a way of protecting that person who’s afraid for domestic violence reasons, and that’s called collaborative divorce.
And what’s the big difference?
There’s communications back and forth in the room, but each party has a lawyer sitting next to them. So, if someone threatens the spouse, the lawyer would get up and say, that’s it, this is over. Any further negotiations will be conducted via Zoom. I am not going to have my client sit in the same room.
So, there is a method to use many of the benefits of divorce mediation but without one person risking their life.
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