Video – Attorney Bill Leininger Explains Why Divorce Mediation Is A Better Choice

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Hi, this is Ray Hrdlicka, host of Attorneys.Media, and we’re here today for a legal commentary interview with Divorce Mediation Attorney, Bill Leininger, who has an office in Staten Island, New York, and Sarasota, Florida.

So, we’re going to talk about the difference—and there’s a number of factors in here—the difference between divorce, traditional divorce, and divorce mediation. I read an article recently that talked about—from a divorce attorney, who talked about what do people want? And the end result, is they wanted to be happy.

Well, it struck me, very simply that, well, wait a minute, if you can solve the problem with divorce mediation, it sure seems that you’re going to end up in that position, being a hell of a lot happier than having to go through an emotional, disturbing, very, very, let’s say, angry and contentious divorce. And in public, too. So, let’s explore that a little bit.

Bill, I want to welcome you to the legal commentary interview with Attorneys.Media. So, let’s get right into it. Do you find when somebody approaches you, you know, in a general sense, do you find they’re looking for answers on how to be happy down the road?

Bill Leininger – Divorce Mediation Attorney – Staten Island, NY and Sarasota FL

Well, I don’t think most people would approach a divorce lawyer with that idea. That’s more like going to a therapist or something of that nature. However, instead of being happy, they want to say they would feel, you know, that their life is working out better for them. A lot of it could be material goods, others could be relationships with the children because of adverse developments, husband and wife are fighting over the kids and stuff like that.

So, it’s not necessarily being happy, happy, but that they’re looking for a better way of living out their life, you know, that will fulfill them as a parent, that they gave them children, that there’s sufficient monies, that the parties can lead a decent lifestyle. So, in a general sense, yeah.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Do you find that most divorces, obviously your experience of 30 plus years, or was it 40? I don’t remember.

Bill Leininger – Divorce Mediation Attorney – Staten Island, NY and Sarasota FL

40 plus years.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Okay. 40 plus years, your experience, do you find that most, most clients that approach you, are they contentious? Do they, are they not contentious? What percentage? I mean, I’ve never been divorced, so I don’t know the answer to that question.

Bill Leininger – Divorce Mediation Attorney – Staten Island, NY and Sarasota FL

Well, you can look at different types of people who came in. I’ll never forget about six years ago, a woman who was about years of age, and she struck me as a little bit odd. She was wearing a pillbox hat that I hadn’t seen since the Catholic Church was having women wear either mantillas or veils on their head or these little hats on their head. And she wore white gloves. And I thought that was somewhat unusual. And it was very prim and proper. And I’ll never forget it.

So, I said, well, you know, why are you coming to see me? And I’ll clean it up and she says, because I want the biggest MF divorce lawyer I could find. And I thought that was kind of funny, a person who appeared on the outset to be very old-fashioned and very prim and proper. She had a goal. She had been hurt in some aspect by her husband, and she didn’t want to stop at anything, regardless of what it cost or what she had to do.

Other cases, I have people, and they’ll start like this. What attracted you to use me? Well, A, you had many, many years of experience and you had big divorce cases and stuff like that. But then at a certain point in your professional career, you decided to also emphasize what you felt was a better way, that you felt that we should try to part as friends.

Maybe you don’t love each other anymore, but part as friends, you’ve made plenty of contacts over the 5, 10, 20 years you’ve been married, that there may be relatives, there may be friends down the block, maybe friends at the, you know, fraternal organization like the KFC. Why would you want to burn your bridges? Why would you want to have a hostile divorce so that when your kids receive confirmation or graduation from high school or college, that one of you can’t attend the kid’s graduation party. Isn’t that sad?

So, and they say, no, we don’t want that. Maybe they’ve had their own experience when their parents got divorced. We don’t want that. We want to get a fair deal for both of us, but neither one is trying to screw the other person, okay? For whatever reason, the marriage didn’t work out, but now what we want, it’s a fair settlement that they can live with. There’ll be enough money for them to live a decent life. Their relationship with any children and God may have given the couple will be intact. It’s not going to be, oh, you can’t come to little Johnny’s graduation. We’ve only two tickets and it’s me and my boyfriend or me and my girlfriend and not you. That type of thing so many people want to avoid.