some experts believe the stress of divorce is second only to the death of a spouse for most people divorce marks and the relationship that was intended to last a lifetime in this edition of pro se nation we're going to explore a number of ways to lessen the anguish and the stress of divorce and how were individuals to go their separate ways with grace and dignity offices in clinton and hope in new jersey ms just sonny served as president of the new jersey association of professional mediators from two thousand and five to two thousand and seven and as a board member for a decade beginning in two thousand ellen carmen is the author of the measure of a man and the principal of carmen paralegal and mediation services in scotch plains new jersey specializing in family law is an adjunct professor at union county college also joining the discussion is marrying in ballard a certified matrimonial attorney based in hundred any county in new jersey ms bauer special this is in divorce custody and domestic violence issues and is a trained collaborative law attorney as well as a mediator and arbitrator what is the biggest mistake that most people me when they are about to enter into the divorce process i think coming to the process as an educated consumer is the biggest mistake that they make it's very important that they all are in the alternatives that are available to them it's very important that the potential client learn a little bit about the issues that they'll be facing i think people need to stop watching television and it comes to divorce they oftentimes have this idea that if i file the complaint magic will happen and in fact often times filing a complaint especially prematurely before you understand your options it's merit a saying can really create problems at that complaint for divorce often signifies the end date of the marriage is for things like a little distribution it may not be in your best interest to be filing the complaint and the other part of that is the complaint just starts that to be a divorce process but you need to still come to a settlement on your parenting issues on your division of assets and support so if it cures nothing and it often creates problems for an educated consumer going to stand how divorce works understands the different alternatives in divorce mediation collaborative law litigation comes more educated more able to negotiate ellen i think the divorce process is a very emotional process however the mistake people make is bringing the emotions into the process and i know that sounds silly but if you can somehow remove part of the emotional part of it out and think of it like you're ending a business deal that makes the process easier what happens is when the emotions start to take on a life of their own then the process gets to be very confrontational and there's a lot of conflict and it makes the process that much more difficult there are three components to every divorce there is the legal component there is the financial component and there is the emotional component and it's very important to pay attention to all three of those and that when you are correct that often the emotional component go unchecked and that has a tendency to drive the case and you end up with war of the roses correct where ultimately sadly both parties lose and in that case i mean that was a black comedy they both died but under the chandelier of mediation is a dispute resolution process in which an impartial third party the mediator facilitates negotiations among the parties to help them reach a mutually acceptable settlement the major distinction between mediation and arbitration is that unlike an arbitrator a mediator does not make a decision about the outcome of the case generally in this state and i think in many states mediation is mandatory want to file any kind of a suit lawsuit and generally it takes place sometime in  maybe in the first six months it does it make sense in terms of the divorce process to bring a mediator in before you actually file suit absolutely i've seen a trend lately and it's a positive move in that we attempt to negotiate a settlement before we file a divorce complaint so the goal of every divorce is to negotiate a successful marital settlement agreement and you can do that through as and you said mediation and collaboration arbitration is a different process however all efforts should be made to do so before entering the court system because once you enter the court system you really lose control over the timing of your case and many aspects and when someone looks at a complaint and it says so and so versus so and so that sets the tone for an adversarial proceeding but many of my clients come while they're still living in the same home and oftentimes they haven't hired attorneys and they're very cooperative and they want to work out an agreement together they want to do that for their own sake for the sake of their children for the sake of their friends and so there is this spirit of cooperation that is really becoming more pretty pervasive and but now this is first of all a court order to vent but because it's court why not come because the beginning of the process why go through our litigation why go through filing complaints going through discovery and then come to mediation we can do mediation in terms of putting sharing documents by putting me on the table we don't have to go through discovery so this is less expensive it's quicker it's kinder i have even ing appointments people don't have need to necessarily take days off from work to sit in a courtroom where they may not get h so but not everyone can mediate there is a continuum of services that are provided and so i'd say i probably have the nicest of the clients it doesn't mean that it's a love fest but my clients are able to sit in the same room together and and if you know they may not be friends but they're friendly alan what is your experience then i think the majority of the time people realize that it's probably easier and more importantly financially beneficial to mediate or come to an agreement first and the majority the time especially with clients i believe or not even though they've litigated they actually came to the same agreement that they would have come to if they had just agreement before they were really close or they had actually been in agreement but then something happened something was said the emotions ran amok and then all of a sudden there with a gating and in the very end they're right back to where they were when they first started and they agreed on those issues so i think that people take it for granted they think mediation is not something that they think is a very common thing but now it's court ordered so it's more common than people realize but they don't think of it as the first the first plan of attack instead right away they're getting their lawyers they're making phone calls they're making complaints and they're on the sun they're running up a huge legal bill this and why did this have to happen when they're going to come to the same decisions they would have come to before that even happened so i think that people need to realize that this is an avenue they can take to start out and most times it's going to end up in that same conclusion  i think what you said earlier about it you know if it's people could keep a cool enough head and look at it as any other kind of ending the ending of the business or the ending of some other kind of you know partnership unfortunately this is probably the most emotional kind of legal situation you can be in do you think or not really it no i do believe it is probably one of the most emotional areas of law but you know so we when you say you know if you take if you can take the emotion out of it but it's this is something that is you know it's like well don't take it personally but i wanted to force it right you know it's hard not to know what it is for one of the things and i've said this to a number of clients who will call me up making complaints from and one of the biggest mistakes they make is they listen to someone else who is also getting divorced and because a misery loves company type of thing and they try to relate what they're going through someone else will want to judge give me this why  not that's why we say you know what you have to take the emotion out of it and they always come back what do you mean take the emotion out of it but the fact is is that what drives the litigation is the emotion the emotional part that that segment of it because the finances to be worked out the legal work can be worked out it's it's the emotional part and it's most of time it happens when one of the parties is all of a sudden involved with someone else and  parties involved and i was called that third party intervention and all of a sudden things go awry because the concentration is on what's going on with that other party if the emotional part could just be taken out of it and it could be made to be as much like a business deal as possible a lot of the confrontation would be out of it everything would move a lot quicker and then people's biggest concern paying legal bills it wouldn't be as painful but it's difficult for people to do that without the assistance of a professional which is why i love the collaborative process we very often use divorce coaches and the collaborative process and the role of the divorced coach is to help the parties understand the emotions of the process and to communicate on a different level and when they learn to communicate it's amazing that you'll just see much less post judgment work so once they're able to communicate in a more productive way treat each other respectfully that gives them a skill set for later problem solving they may even decide not to get divorced right that's a possibility we've seen those cases where i'd say this when my clients come through a referral from a marriage counselor and they've done work with family therapy or counseling before they've come to mediation they've really mourn the loss of the death of the marriage in that process and they're ready to address their issues the sad thing when you're getting divorced it's like a death but no one brings you casseroles right you know people aren't giving you the same type of support and often times people are not in connection with their emotions that they're hurting so they hir attorney but they use that attorney as a therapist and so what marriage is saying is to get the support from the right place because your tourney is not your therapist the judge is not going to award you the children one hundred percent of the time because your husband cheated on you these are things that in a fantasy you might believe happens is but that's not how family court works in new jersey and so people in time oftentimes when they hear it listen to the greek chorus they watch television they see decisions being made quickly judge making judges making unilateral decisions you know if they watch movies they have the parent trap right there people reconcile these a fantasies but the reality is that at the end of the day it's going to take a long time to get divorced through the court process people will spend a lot of money but it's going to happen you're not going to start stop a divorce in a true see well i sort of wonder how many people how much a how many of the general public members of the general public really understand that mediation is an option before filing a divorce unfortunately i don't think that enough people are aware of the alternatives that are available you know such as mediation collaborative law or arbitration i also don't think that enough people are aware of the fact that if you're able to resolve your batter inside a marital settlement agreement you then go to an attorney who files a complaint and you're classified as an uncontested divorce as opposed to a contested divorce in an uncontested divorce many courts will process those on the papers as we say or they will sign a judgment of divorce without the parties ever having to step foot in the courthouse which is a great financial and emotional savings right i'm going to say that the internet has changed everything and so nowadays consumers don't have to go to law libraries to get information and i'm finding that the clients who come to me in are educated consumers so i'm fortunate in that because i'm not spending a lot of time on the phone explaining what mediation is anymore when i first started my practice every call would be explaining the my role as a mediator is to facilitate a resolution between two parties but people have read the mediation associations website they've read my information they've read my colleagues because you know clearly they're kind of making a short list of three mediators we're going to call and i'm mazed that how bright and how educated they are and and they have it right they're not saying to you you're going to make a decision they're saying ok you're going to help us get through this and you know we'll bring the information and it's our decision making so i before the internet it was a whole different ballgame i think that the internet and this idea of self determination of people what people have schwab accounts people who want to have self directed investments people want to have a self directed divorce barry and you're an expert in collaborative law and can you explain how that's different sure collaborative law differs in that it's a team approach so each party is represented by an attorney so they have the benefit of legal advice as the collaborative process is moving along you add other team members for example a coach or a financial specialist to i like to say for diversity the thinking which is a new term that i learned this week and it differs from mediation in that where we sign an agreement that we're not going only to gape and we're working toward a marital settlement agreement in mediation the party still need individual attorneys because the mediator neutral is not able to give legal advice right either but i mean then i do a lot of mediation is where include attorneys in the mediation process and i'm having five way meetings with the clients and the attorneys together it doesn't look that different except we're not signing an agreement that if things fall apart that the clients can't lit law they are signing a collaborative agreement but they won't to take this to trial right i think that the difference is when you bring the third party to the process the third party is someone with different skill set not to assist in the negotiating because you're not really negotiating in collaborative and collaborative it's the job of the attorneys to assist in presenting options so that the parties may decide which option works best for their family what about the aspect of prenuptial agreements does this does it make the divorce process easier and does it does it change it in any way the prenuptial agreements are great but it c also they can be thrown out depending on what the situation was and circumstances change i mean during the course of a marriage circumstance could change the meaning or what the purpose was  intended so that it may not even be you know of value however in hypothetically it should make things easier but they're really going tended to govern two different eventualities one is a divorce and the other one is the death of a spouse so we often see that in second marriages to protect children from a first marriage from with the prenup and the ones i've seen is often times they're done at the eleventh hour you know the wedding plans a maid they already had the you know whatever rehearsal dinner i'm private benjamin do i watch too much t v film and my husband is saying you know i can't get married without this and the and the wife says oh you know and i'm just saying that in most of the cases i've seen is that it's the husband who has the assets who have the might have larger earnings and the challenge is with the uniform  both supposed to have attorneys i suppose we discover you're not supposed to have this duress of the pressure of an event that's coming up right around the corner oftentimes how they constructed proved presents a problem but i have the same time i media a lot of when the people do hire attorneys as well and it's a very good process to talk about how we want to manage money in a second marriage could we're seeing more and more prenup speak as a second marriage is the most famous case in new jersey it's purported was when john de lorean presented the prenuptial agreement to christina ferrara the evening before they were married and that was held to be an invalid prenuptial agreement i really like to get to how you feel about people who want to go pro se or self represent in divorce proceedings allan i think you've had some experience with that would you like to address that i do have experience in that that's actually how i ended up doing what i'm doing from working on my own case but i had to educate myself and i did that by observing and making sure i knew what i was looking at  as far as documents i spent a lot of time in courtrooms i spent a lot of time talking to different attorneys you know who are willing to you know guide me and i sought out a lot of support groups that were educated prior so i learned a lot but what i will tell you is that as much as i am an advocate of doing pro se work i think that having the guidance of an attorney is very important i've done it both ways and i think that at times where as i personally am very comfortable litigating and i've been in front of a judge and i have great confidence in doing my own litigating i've also felt overwhelmed at times and i've watched o r people who are not comfortable in front of a judge and i think that when the time comes when you have to do oral argument i can't say enough that it's important to have a professional because when you're doing oral argument there are so many things they can go wrong and your head your life is in the judge's hands and to do it without a professional when you don't don't know what you're doing that's problematic and then when the results are not what you want them to be then you're upset about it but if you use a professional when you really need them then at least you have that guidance to go by right i i went pro se at in a case that i was involved in at times and i have to say the first time i went before the judge it was probably the scariest moment of my life one to say the most frightening moments and it's it's a very it's a very intimidating environment if you're not in that inner circle which is to you know to be a legal professional although i know lawyers who are very powerful looking figures who literally freeze up in front of a judge it takes a special kind of person to number one remain confident gather all their thoughts and be able to spew the information that they had their head and get it out the right way and present it the way needs to be presented so then if you have someone who is not an attorney who doesn't know how to get up in front of a person and present legal aspects of a case and they're fighting for their their life and their children's lives it i problematic in the fact that they are in a position they shouldn't really be in so we're as some people can do the work for saying marion has said earlier that a lot of cases are done on the papers where you never front of a  judge or never enter a courtroom you can't rely on the fact that you won't be standing in front of a judge so to put yourself at that kind of risk sometimes is not advantageous it's more advantageous to have a professional guide you through the process and well i i have i see a different subset of people they're not interested in litigating they want to do their own divorce the challenge with their own divorces they really don't know the rules of the road and so they're likely to miss something typically they're going to miss the fact that a pension is divisible in a divorce and how that gets divided usually through a qualified to messick relations order so they're coming in with their own notions of how the law should work or how assets should get divided over what the longs in the marital pot and what doesn't for instance of an inherited asset they were kept separately doesn't become part of that pop to divide but often times either they don't know that other person who knows it if it's not to their advantage ignores that information so having a neutral third party helps with that and i tell them they're going to have to live with th so greenman all time hiring separate attorneys to review an agreement that the that they put together was put together in mediation is money well spent we're not spending thousands of dollars litigating but again you're going to have to live with this agreement a long time as  constructing a house with a bad foundation to repair that later is going to be very expensive miriam if there are many instances were a party is able to be pro se or self represented for example there are forms online at the new jersey judiciary website if it's an issue of child support there are forms that can be can be completed so that when you appear in front of a child support hearing officer you're able to gain that relief however i agree with my colleagues that any to an attorney plays an important role and certainly if you had a tooth ache you wouldn't try and remedy that yourself so i think the importance is gauging how complex the issue isn't whether or not you're able to navigate the system as a self representing person somebody is approaching divorce what would you tell them what's what's important i would tell them to read crazy time by abigail trafford to look forward to them to know that it will be ok and take their time do their homework talk to different professionals take a deep breath go to a support group hire a therapist and decide what you really need allan just very simply i know i said a couple times about taking the emotions out of it and obviously you can't totally do that but i think the most important thing is not to let your emotions dictate where you go again i would say come to the process as an educated consumer do a little internet research and meet with an attorney or several attorneys so that you know what your options are and that you choose your process wisely and gather a little bit of information about the issues that come up in a divorce typically the cause of action custody child support alimony equitable distribution and maybe the lesson  all of this is the couple should seek out a mediator before they get married or some kind of neutral party to kind of work through how you know after the blush of romance and i like retainer i like what the catholics do with you know being a because they asked some very important questions you know how many children do we want i mean we all see clients where people have the sex spectator and that i was going to have a large family and then after we got married she told me she didn't want children no it puts sometimes you wonder what they were all talking about initially right well i believe that every marriage fails for an inability to communicate if you know what is the issue that you can't communicate about is it children is it money is it