By Skinner, on April 22nd, 2012 If you are looking for a caring and competent divorce professional in South Carolina, you have come to a good place. My office in Columbia, SC, is a central and neutral location for clients who come from all over the state — with or without attorneys — for help in settling divorce, parenting, elder care, and other family issues outside of court. With help of a neutral mediator, divorcing couples and families reach voluntary, fair, and amicable settlement agreements. But mediation is a relatively new way of settling divorce and family conflict. What if one spouse needs more protection? How will you know if an agreement is fair? How can you know if your case is appropriate to settle outside of court, at all? These are important concerns. My very first step as a professional is to help you gain the knowledge you need to answer all those questions. You cannot know what is needed in your individual situation until you have learned about the benefits and drawbacks of the four main approaches to divorce: litigated divorce, collaborative divorce, mediated divorce, and uncontested divorce. Therefore, my first role as a divorce professional in any case will be to assist you in learning about your divorce options and then to help you discern what options might be best in your case.
What to Expect at the Initial Consultation
At the initial consultation, I will learn enough about your circumstances to gain a clear idea of what issues you are facing. Then we will discuss the various ways of deciding those issues, pro’s and con’s of each method, and ballpark estimates of costs. My goal for the initial consultation is to help you take a hard, realistic look at your situation, to help you discern what your major challenges and needs will be, and to help you understand the different methods for establishing rights and obligations between divorcing parties (adversarial litigation, collaborative divorce, divorce mediation, single lawyer divorce, and pro se divorce). Then, if you like, I will help you develop of list of “next steps” to get the ball rolling. The entire goal of this practical discussion is to get you started on the right path.
Divorce is a high stakes matter. Every aspect of your future life is at stake: your finances, your living circumstances, how your children are raised. Contested litigation of divorce can cost between $30,000 and $100,000, but failure to protect your interests could be even more costly. How do you know if you need to litigate, or not? Is mediation, or some other avenue for getting divorced, appropriate? This consultation will help you know the answer to that question.
I charge $200 for the initial meeting, whether one or both spouses come to the meeting. (If you are considering mediation, it is best if both spouses attend the initial session together.) For an initial consultation (or to ask a question) fill out this form:
Continue reading Choosing the Best Divorce Process
By Skinner, on September 22nd, 2009 Whether you are an elder, or the adult child of an elderly person, mediation can help with family stress. Continue reading Elder Mediation
By Skinner, on December 24th, 2009 The first thing I’d advise someone seeking a divorce is to consider, “how you will pay for it?” In addition to calculating how to run two households on a budget that has previously been used to run one household, another question relevant to the immediate question of divorce is, “How will you pay the attorney’s fees for the divorce?” Reducing the initial outlay of cost is one significant reason to choose mediation in your divorce case. Continue reading The Price For A Divorce
By Skinner, on January 3rd, 2010 I highly recommend the book The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes by William Ury. (I’ve linked to the paperback edition on Amazon.) I won’t try to review the whole book right now. I just want to mention one concept that this book highlights that is crucial to negotiation. Namely, the importance of having a workable “Plan B”.
Continue reading What’s Your “Plan B”?
By Skinner, on January 15th, 2011 Elder law is about more than old age. Elder law is about the planning and care that every person needs in order to be prepared for disability or illness. Disability Planning 101: Regardless of age, each of us must prepare for the worst. “What are some of these needs,” you ask? Every legal jurisdiction is different, and this article is not intended as specific legal advice. Nevertheless, there are some common themes that everyone must think about if they want to ease the stress of some of life’s worst case scenarios.
By Skinner, on January 2nd, 2012 Imagine that the road to divorce is like getting from one side of New York City (married) to the other side of New York City (divorced). You’re not sure how to get there, so you need some help from someone who does.
Most people just go hire an attorney. This is effective, but it might be a bit like hiring a Sherman Tank and a contingent of marines to guide your way.
Continue reading Divorce Mediation as a NYC Taxi?
By Skinner, on May 12th, 2012 When a divorce is truly uncontested, then I am happy to take your divorce agreement (if you have one), write it into a separation agreement, and then walk your uncontested divorce through the court process to achieve a final order of divorce. If you think you have an uncontested divorce and just want legal representation to walk it through the court process, please call 803-414-0185 to discuss the process for achieving this in the most cost-effective manner possible.
By Skinner, on May 12th, 2012 In today’s economy, many unhappily married people are seeking the cheapest way possible to get divorced. If you fall in this category, you have come to the right place, but maybe not for the reasons you think.
Uncontested divorce may seem the easiest way out. But, before you seek an uncontested divorce, please answer two questions:
- Do you understand the issues well enough to know for certain that you have reached genuine agreement on every aspect of your divorce settlement and parenting plan?
- If it is uncontested, should it be? Are you giving up important rights or values that you shouldn’t?
If you get the answers to these two questions wrong, then a “cheap” divorce can turn out to be devastatingly expensive in the long run. Mediation with a divorce professional need not be expensive, and it helps ensure that you are entering into divorce with full knowledge of the issues and voluntary agreement on all of them. Continue reading Mediation for an Uncontested Divorce
By Skinner, on May 12th, 2012 You are right to be concerned for the effect your divorce will have on your children. There is good news and bad news. First the good news. Children do not have to be traumatized by divorce. While changes in living circumstances can be stressful, what traumatizes children the most is parental conflict. It can actually be a relief to children when parents separate and they are no longer subjected to the stress and anxiety of daily parental conflict. Now for the bad news. Exposure to parental conflict has devastating effects on children. Parents who engage in high conflict litigation and who use their children as pawns in the divorce process do all kinds of emotional damage to their children. Mediation of child custody and parenting plans can stop this damaging conflict. Mediation helps parents get back on the same page as parents.
If you or your children are experiencing the effects of parental conflict, please call me today at 803-414-0185, to see if I can help. Continue reading Mediation of Child Custody and Parenting Plans
By Skinner, on March 31st, 2012 The purpose of this post is to answer the question, “What is a mediator?” A mediator is a trusted, neutral person who facilitates a process designed to empower parties to recognize find their own, satisfactory solutions to intractable conflict. Each word in the sentence above has important meaning.
Continue reading What Is A Mediator?
By Skinner, on March 13th, 2012 It is said that holding a grudge is like eating poison and then expecting the other person to die. As we all know from experience, it’s very easy to hold grudges. Yet, we know there are very damaging consequences to our entire being when we fail to forgive. There are mental consequences, emotional consequences, and physical consequences. Conversely, perhaps the opposite is also true. The spiritual journey to forgiveness is steep and rocky and challenging. Yet, when we reach the summit of the path to forgiveness, the view is spectacular. This blog post is about the journey. Continue reading The Link Between Forgiveness and Peace
By Skinner, on February 19th, 2012 Jesus had a remarkable gift for seeing through everything superficial, for peeling back the layers of the dusty, superficial robes of identity we wear, to peer into a person’s inner soul. Whether speaking to a Roman Centurian, to a Samaritan adulteress, or to a distinguished Rabbi, Jesus always seemed to see beyond title or position and to respond to the deeper thoughts and real need of the individual he was relating to.
Continue reading Conflict Transformation As A Spiritual Practice
By Skinner, on February 6th, 2012 I help families manage transitions (divorce, elder planning, adoptions, custody issues, etc.) in ways that are intended to reduce conflict and build consensus. Mediation is a new paradigm for conflict resolution, and I encourage you to learn more.
You do not need to already be in agreement to use a mediator! It is my job to help you reach authentic agreement – peacefully, respectfully, and confidentially.
While I cannot guarantee a particular result in a particular case, I sincerely believe most clients find that non-adversarial processes result in less stress, better long term relationships, more understanding, hopefully truly better results, and (as a side effect) lower cost.
Feel free to ask any questions (or to request an appointment) by calling 803-414-0185 during business hours, or by filling out the form below.
By Skinner, on January 28th, 2012 The term mediation doesn’t describe a particular type of meeting. It is more accurate to say that the term “mediation” describes a new and fundamentally different approach to conflict.
Mediation is a collaborative and consensus building model of conflict resolution. Instead of deciding a dispute between parties and making a ruling, as a judge or arbitrator does, a mediator will attempt to lead the parties to agreement among themselves.
Thus, while mediation is typically described as a “meeting,” and mediation does indeed often take place in the context of a meeting, there are many different forms of mediation and many different types of meetings used in mediation.
Continue reading What Is Mediation?
By Skinner, on January 18th, 2012
Divorce mediation and collaborative divorce are options for people who want to avoid courtroom battle, but who at the same time don’t want to cut corners on thoroughness or fairness.
Mediated divorce, in general, costs significantly less than the cost of a litigated divorce. How much? Rumor is that it’s somewhere in the range of 10 – 20% the cost of litigation. Collaborative divorce costs roughly half the cost of litigation. But while this cannot be guaranteed in any given case, the primary goal of mediation isn’t to save money.
Continue reading Would You Like to Learn More About Mediated Divorce or Collaborative Divorce?
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