jarring it said forty percent to fifty percent of all first marriages and sixty percent of second marriages will end in divorce this is from the national center for health services health services they also went on to say women are more likely to initiate a divorce which was like really i wonder why today my guests are maria  million a bit about yourself if you could quite sure i've been at my firm store in store for thirty four years i started out actually when i went to law school wanting to do a state some trust because i had been a paralegal in new york city before that when i got to stark in starke i did do estates and trust but there was a opening in the family law department and so i decided to try it and i've been doing it ever since so it's a it's a very interesting difficult emotional kind of practice but i feel like i'm helping people get through a really difficult time in their lives so they definitely someone's life you know people get married is one of the most exciting times and so you know one of them was expensive to bring to more sports and where you put all your resources to really celebrate this opportunity and then what happens they say fifty fort it's time gaining momentum in new jersey but it's really starting to take off and it's a process where the parties agree in writing not to go to court and to me at a series of meetings  with the entire collaborative team and till there's an agreement reached on all of the issues ok wow and so how long in new jersey has this been have you said it's new to new jersey it's fairly narrow but i would say i belong to the collaborative law alliance which is one of the groups in new jersey and i would say that that started about twelve years ago so it's sort of come across the country since one nine hundred ninety and it took a long time to get to the east coast as as divorce attorneys who are used to litigate and that's what we do we advocate for our clients and it's a little bit hard to get your head wrapped around being colab or to and trying to reach agreements with the other side sitting at the table together so i would say that a lot of attorneys aren't cut out for it you have to have a certain type of personality i think to be able to do that and not want to fight every issue to the death so interestingly every time i look at the rosters of collaborative attorneys i would say ninety five percent of them are women really and i assume that that's because men male attorneys don't really like the collaborative process they don't want to sit down and work it out for whatever reason  but that is very interesting and unfortunate right because you know divorce is hard it's not meant to be in one word it shouldn't be in court litigation which was one of your questions how does it differ is is it it's expensive it's time consuming it's stressful and when people have to go to court five times during their divorce process for all different things you know one maybe a case management conference it may be an early settlement panel it may be an intensive settlement conference and then trial every time they have to be there they're taking off from more the e paying their attorney has to be there many times to wait their turn to to talk to the judge and they're pacing and what's going to happen and i don't know what's going to happen and this is a scary process and it's expensive and as i said time consuming so you know it can take at least an mercer county up to a year to get to trial on a divorce case and then the trial could take months because we don't get days in a row we get two days here a half a day there and then many times it takes the judge a year to make a decision you are sometimes two times that that's what that's the experience that we've been having and it's not a good one  nurturing part of us and i think to be a part to do this type of work it involves patience and try to understand what's happening i think that is all male counterparts do not have that they're not built that way put it that way and i know it's just right you know whether they want to win or they just want to be in competition as opposed to listening to what both parties are saying and trying to get to that resolution that works for both of them so is other team members depending on the case and depending on the issues them fall we usually get what's called a divorce coach which is the mental health professional involved and they meet with the parties separately as well well in terms of the divorce coach a lot of people think well isn't that going to then cost me even more money so we each have our own collaborative attorney and now you're saying bring in a divorce coach  the divorce coach is really helpful in terms of keeping the emotions at the table kind of down by either saying we'll deal with that when you have your appointment with me in my office or let's just go into the other room for a minute and they're able to deal with that escalating tension or stress or anger right away because they've gotten to know the parties just through this process they what hot button issues are going that may be pushed and how to deal with them and they deal with them very quickly you know it's not like we as attorneys can't deal with them or used to doing this with our clients all the time but it's going to take us longer that i'm going to take my client into the other room and you know talk to that person and find out what the problem is then you know sort of go through all these steps were as that mental health professional knows exactly what they're doing and knows how to deescalate the tensions i like the other piece of that where they also go and meet with them at their office without the attorneys which is saving them money in terms of dealing with those high emotions that everyone has in a divorce case and that many times stops the progress so it allows the progress to keep going well they're kind of dealing with this underlying stressor and it's very helpful it's helpful to the attorney is the other day i was one of my cases was very difficult my client was very difficult and i said i made my therapist so i called our divorce co it was wonderful in talking me through what i needed to get through with the next media day so they're there for us to process ok to have communication open hopefully honest and to get these people through the divorce process so even other mental health professionals being counselors to help them for the next you know even through this step if they need separate counsel i because as i said they're not there to counsel the people they're there for an occasion for the process right  changing a really difficult situation into you know a positive one you know any details of names of course was one particular day we were all together in one of our conference rooms and and the everything was fine and then you know some hot button issue gets put up on the table and one o f the parties is very angry and started yelling at me i was the target i don't recall the reason i'm sure whatever i said and in my mind it's like having saying it just didn't go over and so she not only turned her anger towards me which a divorce coach will step right in right then and there and say let's take a break take that person out of the room talk to that person and not to embarrass that person in front of anybody that's that's not the the goal the goal is to just say it's not appropriate it's you know i understand that you're angry or whatever it is  that you need to calm down and come back into the room and have a civil discussion so it's very helpful when things get heated and they do i mean people are going to go to for their angry and we're there to help and we are there trying to say things in the most positive way possible but that doesn't mean that they hear it that way i just a couple of weeks ago i was going through a budget of one of the parties who wasn't my client but for that person's benefit and after fifteen minutes this person says i don't understand why you're wasting all this time on my budget and i said well  we're trying to consider both of your budget not just looking at one person as opposed to the other we're trying to help you to so they don't always see it that way but the divorce coach is very good at stepping talk a little bit about that so with the collaborative process even though we both have clients to represent and you're really part of the team ok so it's not really i'm representing my client and you're representing your client we're part of the same team and we're trying to come up with solutions that address both of the parties issue so at the first meeting  the parties review what's called the participation agreement which is the agreement not to litigate and both parties come to the meeting with both of their top couple  goals and interests and we discuss what both parties are concerned about going forward what one may want to stay in the house one may want to have the children stay in the same school district and we try to find a way through the collaborative process to achieve both parties or address both parties goals and interests this also so again there's a lot of going back and forth again between both attorneys again all of actually meeting the needs of both both parties correct yeah that what i really like about it is in litigation you're kind of butting heads and you're always arguing with the other attorney we know each other's positions you know we know what the law is we don't really need to tell the other party over and over again what that position is that why but what i like about the collaborative process is i can pick up the phone and call the other attorney and let's say it's even my client who may even be being unreasonable which that happens and i may call the other the other attorney and say you know i know my client is being unreasonable but this is his or her position and we need to to deal with this together because we're never going to get it settled if you know if we don't get over that hurdle so so the two of us may come up with options or alternatives and trying to get to some resolution that may make that party happier in the long run so so we are there to help each other although there is no doubt that we're representing our own client but we are there to try to get to the endgame of an agreement  compromising our clients and we don't like to call them positions and collaborative law their goals and interests are right and we and we asked them not to take positions so we asked them you know don't don't get stuck you need to be able to move and compromise and if you move on this issue maybe the other spouse will move on another issue things will just came to mind his children and children usually or the center see do you find that that children as one of the key areas that people have disagreements abode their children and you know who's going to stay with what cost the issues and so forth that's one of the areas where the divorce coach is really helpful  because the parties can speak with a divorce coach about any concerns that they have with regard to the children and the divorce coach can help really negotiated custody parenting time arrangements and they don't always yeah i would say that for the most part any time issues of parenting time not so much custody i mean most in most new jersey cases you get joint legal custody but it's where the kids going to live or what you know what days are they going to be with which parent the divorce coach we have them go and meet with the divorce coach separately again it's saving them money by not having the attorney is there and try to reach agreements with regard to parenting time and sometimes it's not just the days of the we or you know there could be alcohol or drug issues there could be that one of the children have you know some disability or some medical issue and maybe the two parents don't see eye to eye on any of those things which is many times but here is so the divorce coach will try to work with them to to reach agreements and learn how to communicate with each other because going forward they are going to have to communicate with each other of the children i think the collaborative process works very well when children are involved because it brings in the right people so we have that mental health professional helping them deal with parenting time issues you know again whether it's just the days of the week or whether it's holidays or whether it's some medical issue in at least one of my cases meet with the children you know depending on their ages but these were high school who who had not only issues but they had something to say and so it was really helpful for the divorce coach to listen to them independently to try to help the parents craft something so that was atypical but it really worked in that case and we're all about thinking outside the box like help how can we make this case were what can we do and that worked in that case also so would you say collaborative litigate there are certain steps that you have to take and not once you file your complaint you have so many days before you enter into a case management order or attend a case management conference and then you have so many days by which you have to file  ation statement and then you have to conduct discovery and you're on a very rigid timetable where as the collaborative process you don't have to just jump through all of those hoops because the court says that you do you're working more at your own pace you can really limit discovery and really streamline met and i think on the whole it's a shorter process spent on the collaborative case is working on the case that's not driving to the courthouse it's not waiting at the courthouse for hours until it's your turn it's not preparing interop the tories are notice to produce which are documents that we do in litigated cases where we're asking for five years of bank account statements and five years of credit card statements and tax returns i mean we may need some of those things but we generally don't need five years and then you don't have an attorney going through five years on statement so so you're saving all of that as long as it's not an issue now if there's an issue that one of the parties was dissipating marital assets by i don't know going on vacations with his or her p are we might want to look at five years of stay but on the on the other hand we're going to be very keyed into what we're looking for so in most collaborative cases we're not doing all this discovery we're asking for what it is we need which is generally the last statement of you know bank accounts or retirement accounts or you know if we need something appraised we have it appraised would bring in a real estate appraiser or as korean said before maybe a  forensic accountant to a business evaluation so we still have to do some of the work but we don't have to do all all of the things that may not have been so relevant to a case but that are required in the litigation process  about the coach the force which one where some other people that sometimes you have called and you talked about have preserved any other people that sometimes you have called in to help in and i would say you know in a few cases you may want to call in a child specialist with expanded on it would be someone for the children to say so if the children are having a very difficult time with the divorce or maybe they're just acting out a child specialist would be almost their third person to talk to and we've used that in some cases we're usually headed more into the financial rina because divorce is really a almost like a business breakup you know we're allocating assets and having them valued so we might bring in a pension appraiser for example if we need if someone has a monthly pension like the state of new jersey employee we may need to have that evaluated for equitable distribution purposes so any any kind of appraiser or ballyhoo it or they're out there and the cost savings comes from that we're using one for the two of them as opposed to each getting their own so we're using one real estate appraiser more using one accountant now each of them may want to they're also these peripheral people out there one might be a financial planner so let's say that one of the parties you know didn't pay the bills and didn't make me investments and doesn't really know anything about that that person may want their own financial person helping them on the side whether it's to understand things or eventually to help them invest what they're going to get in and what will distribution how it should be allocated how they come on this budget you you know what i'm saying so do you have like a team of people or group of people you could call sort in numerous divorce coaches that you could possibly reach is that how it works where you have a specific people that you have in your team so maria mentioned that she's a member of the majors the collaborative law alliance which i recently joined as well but i'm also a member of the south jersey collaborative divorce professionals and what those groups allow us to do is to me different divorced coaches and get to know that only so in any given case we can choose which professionals we think would be best suited to that particular case it's not one group that goes from divorce to divorce a could be the divorce coach might be different different it could be like a different conglomeration of people so in one case i have this one divorce coach with one financial professional and maybe an appraiser in another case it might be or could be one or two of those same people that somebody else you know in that third spot it just depends what the case  what the attorney has to it was a sin as we meet with our clients separately and we know that it's going to proceed as a collaborative case we get on the phone with each other and try to choose the divorce coach that we think would be best for that couple because we do know who the divorce coaches are and we can have some of that might be geographic but not necessarily i mean most of the people are going to be in this majors the area but you know if somebody lives in burlington county we might want someone from there because we want to make sure that it's easy for them to get or if there's a special issue in the case and we know that one of those these divorce coaches is very good with that issue we're going to bring in that on collaborative divorce really sewn sly i've done a good option for folks in terms of their own not only off a boat the cost savings but i'm thinking in terms of just the overall process off emotions that are involved and kind of dealing but i hope people will kind of even think about this if they're deciding or thinking about getting a divorce vote no but if you so are you and if you are these ladies are available and i hope can people reach you so we're both that star can start we have a website our office is located in lawrenceville and our number is out there or website is out there you can email call our secretaries call them after and get to us and we do do consultations to meet with people to give them their options whether it's litigation they can go to mediation they can do a collaborative play so in those consultations we give them their