Divorce Without Court: A Guide to Mediation and Collaborative Divorce

by Katherine E. Stoner

Ending a marriage is always difficult, but you don't have to be overwhelmed by financial or emotional conflict. Through mediation or a collaborative approach, you can avoid huge legal bills while protecting your kids from debilitating conflict. This book guides you through all the steps of negotiating a divorce settlement, using divorce mediation or the innovative approach called "collaborative divorce." Encouraging, straightforward and inspiring,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 141332164X
• ISBN13: 9781413321647
• Release Date: July 2015
• Publisher: NOLO
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Should have published this thirty years ago!

If they had published this thirty years ago, I could have save a lot of money and time! If you are contemplating divorce, do not proceed further until you have read this book!

Ugh! The D-word.

Divorce Without Court...if only there could be divorce without lawyers.... Until we get there, we have Nolo's second edition of Divorce Without Court: a Guide To Mediation & Collaborative Divorce. As someone who was married almost 30 years and went through the life-in-the-blender experience of an acrimonious divorce, I am wholeheartedly in favor of the concepts espoused in this book. However, if you have a contentious situation, you need a more conventional approach. The chapter on deciding whether to mediate or collaborate is excellent, even if it just helps you choose neither. The questions really make you think about your particular situation, and they are very thorough. This is an incredible resource and a great companion to their other book: Nolo's Essential Guide To Divorce. If you read both, you'll get an excellent education on what to realistically expect, whatever route you choose.

Mediation and Collaborative Divorce can make a difficult situation less stressful and difficult

Going through a divorce is an emotionally and financially taxing time. To make matters worse, the complexities of the unknown process and the adversarial conflict that often accompanies divorces increase the stresses tenfold. One has to ask, "can you have a civilized divorce and minimize the financial and emotional conflict?" Attorney - Mediator Katherine E. Stoner answers this question with an unflinching, "Yes!" Her book, "Divorce Without Court: A Guide to Mediation & Collaborative Divorce, 2nd Edition" provides a guide to the steps necessary to negotiate a divorce settlement using divorce mediation or the new innovative approach called collaborative divorce. Even if you chose to go through a divorce the traditional way with both parties "lawyering up," I believe the advice in this book could prove useful in finding resolution, especially if your state requires mediation during the process. Like all Nolo books, this guide helps make the law accessible to the layperson. It is an easy to read and user friendly guide to the mediation portion of divorce and the newer collaborative divorce. The book does a good job of explaining what mediation is and what the collaborative divorce process is, and then how to find a mediator or collaborative attorney. Then there are chapters to help you find advisers when needed in the process, gathering information to assist with the process, preparing for your first session, evaluating your progress, effective communication, and negotiation. There is also a chapter on court-sponsored mediation, and another that looks at some of the difficulties that arise during mediation and collaboration of divorce. There is a short chapter on writing up the agreement, and then a short chapter on women and men in mediation and collaborative divorce. The final chapters are on unmarried couples using the processes and using mediation and collaboration after divorce. The book concludes with an appendix that contains a few forms that will be helpful during the process. If you are going to go through a divorce without representation, this is not the ONLY guide you will need. It will be important to obtain references that include a lot of the nuts and bolts of divorce. This book is very good to help with the process, and to find a mediator or collaborative attorney to assist you. Sometimes courts will also have guides available for people that explain the nuts and bolts. If you have a complex divorce, finding a good mediator or collaborative attorney will be very beneficial, and this guide will assist. The book does not show you exactly how to divide things, just how to work together with a mediator to get it done. I do think this book will be extremely valuable as an addition to the nuts and bolts type book for anyone who wants to avoid a messy litigated divorce and attempt a mediation or collaborative approach. As an attorney-mediator myself, I believe in mediation 100%. It can be so much more effective than

A Sytematic and Reasonable Divorce....

"Collaborative and Mediating Divorcing" are different types of divorcing that are pretty recent, claims the book. This book is designed to help further and ease the processes of divorce on families that feel they need to divorce. Further reading is encouraged by the authors, but they offer some assistance on how to have a systematic divorce where a couple is able to sort most things out willfully before they present themselves to a court and reduce future regrets and remorse. Litigation (lawyers of each spouse negotiates for their respective client) and the Collaborative/Mediative (both spouses do their own pre-negotiation avoid lawyers deciding for them) approaches are compared a bit in the first chapter. It seems like collaborative approach is simply a systematic approach to divorcing where a reasonable settlement can be reached and reduce the stress divorce places on the couple and the children. Other chapters help out by detailing a bit on the process of using and finding a mediator or collaborative attorney. Advisers are also recommended to used in this process when needed, especially a Financial Adviser who can take into account fees and costs of making a legal move. There re also tips on what not to do on mediation or collaborations such as not patronizing the other spouse when introducing the options of collaboration or mediation. Information gathering is also an important part of the process and sample worksheets are provided to give an idea of how to go about this area. Court-sponsored mediation is given it's own treatment on the issue too along with systematic tips on what to when encountering difficulties in mediation and collaboration. There is even a chapter on collaboration and mediation for "unmarried" couples. Finally, the only complaint I have for this book is that thought there are some "Real world examples", there could be more to help dive the points throughout the book. Aside from this the book is a good book for anyone studying the divorcing process or is considering , unfortunately, to divorce. Since this book is about trying to make for a reasonable divorce process, it would be wise for people to consider the long term effects of divorce on children of divorce before they decide to divorce. For this I recommend a sociological 25 year study on what happens to children of divorce and what divorce creates for the next generation of potential spouses - it's not pretty. Read the study to see some effects on relationships divorce places on children of divorce in Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, The: A 25 Year Landmark Study. Divorces can get nasty, but they don't have to be

Clear language and short sections make this text very useful

Divorce Without Court contains simple headings, icons, worksheets, and highlighted text in such a way that the text is easy to follow. Some headings present questions - that are answered in the text, others give do's and do nots, while other headings give clear directions for the reader to follow. One example of how the text clarifies the issues of divorce is the "Tell It Like It Is: A Vocabulary of Emotions" chart. This helps the reader clarify language for the intended audience. For example, the emotions listed include nostalgic, inconsolable, miserable, hysterical, and bereft. This level of detail about every aspect of divorce follows throughout the book. Stoner makes the text clear and understandable through adept use of language. Headings likewise are short and clear. Readers - whether they hire an attorney or not - will find this text useful.