I had a couple come in to see me a couple of days ago to negotiate a separation. They appeared to be in agreement about most of the major issues and it did not look to  be a complicated set of problems to resolve. However, they kept beating about the ...

Too often, in the emotional turmoil of divorce, the financial realities get ignored by everyone involved. You and your spouse are dealing with years of resentment and fear of the unknown. Your lawyers are using whatever legal maneuvers are available to...

My previous post discussed the issue of staying in the house while young children are growing up. This post is a continuation of that discussion. Often, one or both parents believe very strongly that the children should be able to stay in "their" ho...

A couple came in today to consult about going the divorce mediation rather than the litigation route. The major issue on the wife's mind was this: how could she stay in the house? It was not clear what the husband was thinking on this issue; he had com...

It has been a while since I posted a new entry. Life has just been a bit too busy. It has now been a few weeks since the no-fault divorce provisions went into effect, and I have some observations on them. First, there has been an uptick in the nu...

Major Changes in Divorce Law Effect Divorce Mediation.    As I mentioned in my previous post, New York state has enacted major changes in the law of divorce and effect divorce mediation on Long Island. In this post I will lay out briefly what eac...

Divorce laws modernized to no-fault -- makes divorce mediation an obvious choice.   The New York state assembly has passed a bill authorizing no-fault divorce in New York. Governor David Patterson signed the bill on August 15; it goes into eff...

Financial Troubles Resulting From Serious Illness Bring Couple to Divorce Mediation.    In the middle of last year a couple came to see me to mediate their divorce. They were amicable, it appeared, at least at the beginning. The husband was an at...

Once again, the New York Courts have held that grounds for divorce count; we do not have no fault divorce and the Courts will not make it up. The Second Department Appellate Division, sitting in Brooklyn, held in Davis v. Davis that "The plaintiff's...

A couple came in this past Saturday, at 5:00 pm, to begin the process of Long Island divorce mediation. Now, ordinarily, I would not meet with people at 5:00 pm on a Saturday, but the wife was insistent and the husband was unwilling to come in during t...

I read an article today on the Internet called "The Myth of Divorce Mediation", published by one of the major divorce law firms on Long Island. It's basic premise is that mediation sounds great in theory, but in practice you will get hurt and would be ...

Major Changes in Divorce Law Effect Divorce Mediation.    As I mentioned in my previous post, New York state has enacted major changes in the law of divorce and effect divorce mediation on Long Island. In this post I will lay out briefly what eac...

Divorce laws modernized to no-fault -- makes divorce mediation an obvious choice.   The New York state assembly has passed a bill authorizing no-fault divorce in New York. Governor David Patterson signed the bill on August 15; it goes into eff...

I had a couple come in to see me a couple of days ago to negotiate a separation. They appeared to be in agreement about most of the major issues and it did not look to  be a complicated set of problems to resolve. However, they kept beating about the ...

Too often, in the emotional turmoil of divorce, the financial realities get ignored by everyone involved. You and your spouse are dealing with years of resentment and fear of the unknown. Your lawyers are using whatever legal maneuvers are available to...

A common set of facts in a divorce mediation on Long Island is that one of the parties -- typically the husband, has what both he and his wife call a small business. It might be a landscaping business, or a remodeling business, or a construction busine...

The Appellate Division for the Second Department recently held (October 5, 2009), in Howe v. Howe, that a September 11th Victim Compensation Award was 100% the separate property of the fireman-husband, even though some portion of the award was for econ...

Divorce Mediation Is Successful With Full Financial Disclosure.   Obviously, the husband could have been presenting a partial picture; I told him that his initial failure to provide financial disclosure to his wife's attorney had probably cost him s...

Divorce Mediation Appears to Be a Better Option than Divorce Litigation to Long Island Couple.   A couple came in to see me two weeks ago, hoping to avoid a disastrous litigated divorce. The wife already had an attorney; the husband is a lawyer -- n...

Financial Troubles Resulting From Serious Illness Bring Couple to Divorce Mediation.    In the middle of last year a couple came to see me to mediate their divorce. They were amicable, it appeared, at least at the beginning. The husband was an at...

A potential client (let's call her Mary) came to me late last week with the following problem: her friends are all telling her to go for the jugular, hire the shark with the sharpest teeth, and rip her husband apart and take everything he has. Her ther...

Too often, in the emotional turmoil of divorce, the financial realities get ignored by everyone involved. You and your spouse are dealing with years of resentment and fear of the unknown. Your lawyers are using whatever legal maneuvers are available to...

Most people have not been through a divorce before. Suddenly your world is turned upside down. Couples you have been friendly with suddenly don't answer the phone -- not sure which side to take. Someone who you thought was a best friend suddenly takes ...

Once again, the New York Courts have held that grounds for divorce count; we do not have no fault divorce and the Courts will not make it up. The Second Department Appellate Division, sitting in Brooklyn, held in Davis v. Davis that "The plaintiff's...

I had a second couple come in during the past two weeks where the wife was all set to go with divorce mediation for a separation and the husband had come in to participate but had a completely different view of what he was there for. He was willing ...

Justice Robert A. Ross, of Nassau Supreme Court, has refused to award legal fees to the investment banker husband for his wife's "stonewalling" and "manipulation" during their divorce proceeding. Mr. Molinari, in Molinari v. Molinari alleged that his w...

A couple came in this past Saturday, at 5:00 pm, to begin the process of Long Island divorce mediation. Now, ordinarily, I would not meet with people at 5:00 pm on a Saturday, but the wife was insistent and the husband was unwilling to come in during t...

The Appellate Division in Manhattan has ruled that parents cannot agree in a separation agreement to a definition of emancipation of a child that is narrower than that provided by the New York state statutes. In Thomas B. v. Lydia D, the parents had ag...

In my previous post I discussed some of the basis issue in evaluating a small business in a divorce. We left off at the suggestion of using a business appraisor to evaluate a small business that has a few years of audited accounts and a history of busi...

A common set of facts in a divorce mediation on Long Island is that one of the parties -- typically the husband, has what both he and his wife call a small business. It might be a landscaping business, or a remodeling business, or a construction busine...

The Appellate Division for the Second Department recently held (October 5, 2009), in Howe v. Howe, that a September 11th Victim Compensation Award was 100% the separate property of the fireman-husband, even though some portion of the award was for econ...

I read an article today on the Internet called "The Myth of Divorce Mediation", published by one of the major divorce law firms on Long Island. It's basic premise is that mediation sounds great in theory, but in practice you will get hurt and would be ...

I had a couple come in to see me a couple of days ago to negotiate a separation. They appeared to be in agreement about most of the major issues and it did not look to  be a complicated set of problems to resolve. However, they kept beating about the ...

Christmas is a week away. Hanukkah is right now. Families are gathering to celebrate their most intimate times as a family. Your marriage may not be in the best of shape; you wouldn't be on this site if it were. But your children don't need to be expos...

The Appellate Division in Manhattan has ruled that parents cannot agree in a separation agreement to a definition of emancipation of a child that is narrower than that provided by the New York state statutes. In Thomas B. v. Lydia D, the parents had ag...

My previous post discussed the issue of staying in the house while young children are growing up. This post is a continuation of that discussion. Often, one or both parents believe very strongly that the children should be able to stay in "their" ho...

A couple came in today to consult about going the divorce mediation rather than the litigation route. The major issue on the wife's mind was this: how could she stay in the house? It was not clear what the husband was thinking on this issue; he had com...

As you may know, the Child Support Standards Act, as it is embodied in the Family Court Act and the Domestic Relations Law, provides a dollar cap in calculating child support, above which a judge can only vary from the provided formula far calculating ...

Your Spouse's New York State Teacher's Retirement System Pension is Marital Property If your spouse was employed by a New York State public school system and earned any part of a pension during the marriage you are probably entitled to share in that ...

It has been a while since I posted a new entry. Life has just been a bit too busy. It has now been a few weeks since the no-fault divorce provisions went into effect, and I have some observations on them. First, there has been an uptick in the nu...

Divorce laws modernized to no-fault -- makes divorce mediation an obvious choice.   The New York state assembly has passed a bill authorizing no-fault divorce in New York. Governor David Patterson signed the bill on August 15; it goes into eff...

Divorce Mediation Is Successful With Full Financial Disclosure.   Obviously, the husband could have been presenting a partial picture; I told him that his initial failure to provide financial disclosure to his wife's attorney had probably cost him s...

Divorce Mediation Appears to Be a Better Option than Divorce Litigation to Long Island Couple.   A couple came in to see me two weeks ago, hoping to avoid a disastrous litigated divorce. The wife already had an attorney; the husband is a lawyer -- n...

Financial Troubles Resulting From Serious Illness Bring Couple to Divorce Mediation.    In the middle of last year a couple came to see me to mediate their divorce. They were amicable, it appeared, at least at the beginning. The husband was an at...

A potential client (let's call her Mary) came to me late last week with the following problem: her friends are all telling her to go for the jugular, hire the shark with the sharpest teeth, and rip her husband apart and take everything he has. Her ther...

Too often, in the emotional turmoil of divorce, the financial realities get ignored by everyone involved. You and your spouse are dealing with years of resentment and fear of the unknown. Your lawyers are using whatever legal maneuvers are available to...

Most people have not been through a divorce before. Suddenly your world is turned upside down. Couples you have been friendly with suddenly don't answer the phone -- not sure which side to take. Someone who you thought was a best friend suddenly takes ...

Once again, the New York Courts have held that grounds for divorce count; we do not have no fault divorce and the Courts will not make it up. The Second Department Appellate Division, sitting in Brooklyn, held in Davis v. Davis that "The plaintiff's...

I had a second couple come in during the past two weeks where the wife was all set to go with divorce mediation for a separation and the husband had come in to participate but had a completely different view of what he was there for. He was willing ...

Justice Robert A. Ross, of Nassau Supreme Court, has refused to award legal fees to the investment banker husband for his wife's "stonewalling" and "manipulation" during their divorce proceeding. Mr. Molinari, in Molinari v. Molinari alleged that his w...

A couple came in this past Saturday, at 5:00 pm, to begin the process of Long Island divorce mediation. Now, ordinarily, I would not meet with people at 5:00 pm on a Saturday, but the wife was insistent and the husband was unwilling to come in during t...

I read an article today on the Internet called "The Myth of Divorce Mediation", published by one of the major divorce law firms on Long Island. It's basic premise is that mediation sounds great in theory, but in practice you will get hurt and would be ...

What do you do in a divorce mediation when one spouse is intimidated by the other and will not stand up for (usually) herself? It is true that the divorce mediator's job is to be a neutral, but I take the position of aggressive neutrality. My job is to...

A mediation prospect came to see me yesterday and presented a common problem from my perspective. She was very eager to pursue mediation rather than to hire separate attorneys. However, her husband had not come with her to the initial consultation. ...

Often people are afraid that in mediation they will be overwhelmed or intimidated by their spouse to agree to terms that they really don't want or that they perceive as unfair.  It is the job of the mediator to make sure that neither party is intim...

Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDRO) are expensive; they are required in order to transfer pension assets in a divorce without incurring the 10% penalty for early withdrawal. But many financial institutions will transfer a 401(k) without a QDRO, ...

Your Spouse's New York State Teacher's Retirement System Pension is Marital Property If your spouse was employed by a New York State public school system and earned any part of a pension during the marriage you are probably entitled to share in that ...

Major Changes in Divorce Law Effect Divorce Mediation.    As I mentioned in my previous post, New York state has enacted major changes in the law of divorce and effect divorce mediation on Long Island. In this post I will lay out briefly what eac...

Divorce laws modernized to no-fault -- makes divorce mediation an obvious choice.   The New York state assembly has passed a bill authorizing no-fault divorce in New York. Governor David Patterson signed the bill on August 15; it goes into eff...

I had a couple come in to see me a couple of days ago to negotiate a separation. They appeared to be in agreement about most of the major issues and it did not look to  be a complicated set of problems to resolve. However, they kept beating about the ...

Too often, in the emotional turmoil of divorce, the financial realities get ignored by everyone involved. You and your spouse are dealing with years of resentment and fear of the unknown. Your lawyers are using whatever legal maneuvers are available to...

Justice Robert A. Ross, of Nassau Supreme Court, has refused to award legal fees to the investment banker husband for his wife's "stonewalling" and "manipulation" during their divorce proceeding. Mr. Molinari, in Molinari v. Molinari alleged that his w...

A couple came in this past Saturday, at 5:00 pm, to begin the process of Long Island divorce mediation. Now, ordinarily, I would not meet with people at 5:00 pm on a Saturday, but the wife was insistent and the husband was unwilling to come in during t...

My previous post discussed the issue of staying in the house while young children are growing up. This post is a continuation of that discussion. Often, one or both parents believe very strongly that the children should be able to stay in "their" ho...

A couple came in today to consult about going the divorce mediation rather than the litigation route. The major issue on the wife's mind was this: how could she stay in the house? It was not clear what the husband was thinking on this issue; he had com...

In my previous post I discussed some of the basis issue in evaluating a small business in a divorce. We left off at the suggestion of using a business appraisor to evaluate a small business that has a few years of audited accounts and a history of busi...

A common set of facts in a divorce mediation on Long Island is that one of the parties -- typically the husband, has what both he and his wife call a small business. It might be a landscaping business, or a remodeling business, or a construction busine...

The Appellate Division for the Second Department recently held (October 5, 2009), in Howe v. Howe, that a September 11th Victim Compensation Award was 100% the separate property of the fireman-husband, even though some portion of the award was for econ...

Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDRO) are expensive; they are required in order to transfer pension assets in a divorce without incurring the 10% penalty for early withdrawal. But many financial institutions will transfer a 401(k) without a QDRO, ...

Your Spouse's New York State Teacher's Retirement System Pension is Marital Property If your spouse was employed by a New York State public school system and earned any part of a pension during the marriage you are probably entitled to share in that ...

Too often, in the emotional turmoil of divorce, the financial realities get ignored by everyone involved. You and your spouse are dealing with years of resentment and fear of the unknown. Your lawyers are using whatever legal maneuvers are available to...

In my previous post I discussed some of the basis issue in evaluating a small business in a divorce. We left off at the suggestion of using a business appraisor to evaluate a small business that has a few years of audited accounts and a history of busi...

A common set of facts in a divorce mediation on Long Island is that one of the parties -- typically the husband, has what both he and his wife call a small business. It might be a landscaping business, or a remodeling business, or a construction busine...

The Appellate Division for the Second Department recently held (October 5, 2009), in Howe v. Howe, that a September 11th Victim Compensation Award was 100% the separate property of the fireman-husband, even though some portion of the award was for econ...