Domestic Violence — It’s Everybody’s Business!

Domestic Violence. It’s in the papers every single day. There is a beating or a rape or a murder, and the person committing the crime and the victim of the crime know each other. They are husband and wife, or boyfriend and girlfriend, or maybe they have a child together.

And that’s what makes this so hard to grasp for most of us. We do not expect the person we care about, the person we are married to or have a child with, to be abusive to us. We do not expect that person to yell at …

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3 Steps to Surviving Christmas

Let’s face it. For folks newly separated or divorced, the holidays can really suck.

Every year people separate and divorce and have to figure out how to negotiate Christmas from a different place. It can be immensely painful and sad, but it can also be a time of new experiences and traditions. How it goes is all up to you and will be the result of the three steps outlined in this article. Keeping reading.

My former husband and I separated in early November. That first year, I had the kids for Thanksgiving, and he had them the first …

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Why Soon-To-Be Exes Should Stay Out of Court

Recently I had a difficult conversation with one of my clients. He and his wife had recently separated, and he just discovered some cell phone bills showing phone calls and texts messages, hundreds of them, to another man. He was furious with her, fuming actually, and I couldn’t blame him.

Of course, he wanted to go to court and expose her for the bad person she was and get divorced as soon as possible. I had the unpleasant task of explaining to him that, in his situation, he would probably spend a lot of money and get very …

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Collaborative Divorce – Splitting Up But Staying Whole

Splitting up but staying whole . . . . Is that possible? With a conventional litigated divorce, it’s highly unlikely. Going to court and fighting over children and money brings out the worst in people. Collaborative divorce, though, is a new and different ball game. It allows people to go through the divorce process in a way that helps them to maintain a good relationship with each other and to protect their children. This is what is meant by “splitting up but staying whole.” And it is possible.

Collaborative divorce has been around for over 20 years now, but …

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Choosing a Divorce Lawyer – Getting the Right Fit for You (Part II)

In this article, I promised that I would be sending along Four Tips to consider when deciding on the best lawyer for you. I have written about this before in other articles and in my book, Graceful Divorce Solutions, but I’m emphasizing it again because I feel it is so important.

Just as there is no “one size fits all” process choice for divorce (collaboration, mediation, litigation), there is definitely no “one size fits all” lawyer for your divorce. The lawyer you choose will depend on the process you hope to use, so that’s the decision you need to make first.

Once …

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Choosing a Divorce Lawyer – Helping or Hurting?

This week I had a consultation with a man who has been separated from his wife for more than a year and had just been served with a complaint for divorce. He and his wife have been getting along well over the past year, sharing custody of their teenage son and working out the paying of bills and money issues. In fact, they’ve had a number of good conversations about how they wanted to divide up their assets and debts. They’ve managed to maintain a good relationship and even go out for lunch as a family every Sunday.

What has happened, …

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Choosing a Divorce Lawyer – Getting the Right Fit For You (Part I)

One of the most important decisions you’ll make when going through your divorce is whether to use a lawyer, and if so, whom to hire. The lawyer you choose can make a big difference in how your case goes.

Some lawyers are very collaborative and good at settlement, and others are good at litigating. Some have more experience than others in family law practice. Some have been practicing for many years and have what I call the “old school” approach to representing people in divorce (prepare …

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