Divorce & Separation
Mediation Services

What is divorce mediation?

Divorce mediation is an entirely self-led process by which the adults in a family come together to make decisions about what their lives and the lives of their children, if any, are going to look like after a romantic separation.

This is a process that is voluntarily chosen by you.  Lindsey will lead you through the process.  You will set the terms of engagement, and you will make the ultimate decisions about what happens in your family.  This may include whether and when to file divorce or separation paperwork, how you will afford a restructured lifestyle, how to make decisions in the face of changes that are normal in the course of a family’s life, how to come together to protect your children from the most difficult parts of this process, and even how to talk to children and family members about what is happening.

Unlike court, divorce mediation empowers partners to be open, honest, communicative, and creative about their decision making.  While separating is never easy, you can do it with dignity intact.

Lindsey deeply believes in the value of this work and lives out peacemaking in her everyday life.  Through her empathic, knowledgeable, and detail-oriented approach, Lindsey at Expand Law can help you reach an agreement that you feel proud of—and that is durable and lasting.

How does the process work?

When you go through a divorce mediation with Expand Law, there are some things you may expect:

• Initial contact

• Orientation meeting

• Working sessions

• Drafting of settlement agreement

• Signatures and notarization

• Filing of settlement and divorce

After being contacted by any of the partners seeking the restructuring, Lindsey will contact all partners to set up an initial consultation.  At the initial consultation, we will go through what the process will entail, including the decisions that your specific family needs to reach, review basic ground rules for participation in mediation, and hear from you about the rules you want to mutually agree to while the mediation is ongoing.

While Lindsey is an experienced attorney, when you work with Expand Law for mediation services, Lindsey is acting in her capacity as a mediator, not an attorney—meaning she does not represent or advocate for either party, but holds the container for all parties to reach an informed decision.

After the initial orientation meeting, we will move onto working sessions.  Many families find that they are able to reach a full settlement agreement after 3-4, two-hour working sessions, while some may find that taking longer is a benefit.  During the working sessions, we will review issues related to cash flow, assets and debts, decision-making, future financial planning, decision-making for children, and other topics that are important for you to cover.  Lindsey will guide you through options that might work for you and pressure-test your decisions to make sure that when you leave, you have an agreement you don’t need to constantly revisit.

If issues come up during the working sessions that require outside consultation, including with neutral financial advisors, parenting experts, or mental health professionals, Lindsey has a vast network of colleagues she can refer you to so that you are supported during this time.

Once all the agreements that we need to make are reached, Lindsey will sit down with all of that information and codify it into a settlement agreement.  Lindsey will send you as many drafts as needed on this agreement to be sure that it truly works for you and represents the process you went through.

Parties may choose to have the agreement reviewed either by a consulting or a review attorney.  While acting as mediator, Lindsey cannot serve in that capacity for any of the partners going through the mediation, but Lindsey also offers consulting and review services for families for whom she is not serving as mediator.

When a final draft is reached, Lindsey will guide you through signing and notarizing the paperwork, which becomes a legally binding agreement.  We will also decide if the agreement will be filed in an uncontested divorce filing with the Court, and if so, how that process will unfold.

What is the benefit over family court?

Mediation holds many benefits over going to family court.

Many families often cite the significantly reduced cost of mediation over litigation.  While mediation may cost anywhere from $5,000-$10,000, divorce litigation in New York state often carries a minimum price of $30,000 and can double or triple that very quickly.  The cost of attorneys—who are trained in adversarial conflict—can balloon very quickly, and being involved in an adversarial process can be not only expensive but deeply emotionally taxing.

Another huge benefit of mediation is the abridged timeframe.  A litigated divorce in New York can take several years of expense and emotional turmoil.  By contrast, mediation can take as few as two months, and you leave with an agreement that has a higher likelihood of being followed because it was reached respectfully with the involvement and agency of all parties.

Mediation also offers the benefit of a less fraught emotional experience.  While the things that may come out in a divorce mediation can be very hard to manage, there is never the added stress of an expensive attorney screaming about a traumatic event in a family’s life, or a judge weighing in on what the judge believes to be in the best interest of the family’s children.  Mediation empowers families to engage in a fully transparent and informed process and actively choose how they want to go forward.  Many families leave mediation feeling proud of the work they accomplished and grateful that they did not seek Court involvement.  By contrast, many families who have gone through expensive and litigious divorces often cite a desire to have started with mediation so they could have avoided the turmoil and expense of the court process.

How can mediation particularly help Brooklyn LGBTQ+, queer, and/or nonmonogamous families who want to restructure?

Mediation has particular benefit for Brooklyn-based LGBTQ+, queer, and nonmonogamous or polyamorous families, which Expand Law can help expertly advise on.

While marriage equality has been established in New York since 2011, there are some aspects of the law, particularly involving divorce, that do not encapsulate the particular needs of LGBTQ+ or nonomonogamous families.  For example, legal structures regarding spousal support and child support build in timeframes for these payments that are based on the length of the marriage, but for families who have been together since before 2011 or who may have never chosen to go through a legal marriage process, the law is silent.  Having a mediator who is aware of where the legal structures have not caught up with ever-changing family dynamics can help families feel seen and understood during a difficult time.

LGBTQ+ and nonmonogamous families also benefit from mediation because it offers a way to continue to live their values of choosing a life outside an established norm that is right for them.  Mediation avoids judicial process and institutional involvement in the most intimate decisions families can make.  Mediators like Lindsey also honor the identities and lifestyles of the families in front of her, which can make all the difference.

Finally, knowing how to work with nontraditional families, and especially nonmonogamous families with children, can be pivotal in the restructuring of a family.  Lindsey can help Brooklyn-based families, as well as families nationwide, go through mediation and protect the rights of children and adults to be involved with the people who are best for them, and will work with families to include the language that is right for them.