Divorce Mediation With A Consulting Attorney - How To Keep The Peace While Protecting Your Interests

Hi everybody, this is Scott Levin. I'm the Chief Peacekeeper and founding partner at San Diego Divorce Mediation and Family Law, and I am joined today by my good friend Patricia VanHaren. How are you, Patricia?

I'm good, Scott, thank you. I am Patricia VanHaren. I'm the owner and operator of the Law Office of Patricia VanHaren up in Irvine, California.

And Patricia and I are We work a lot together and we've been speaking a lot lately because I exclusively practice in mediation and collaborative law. So I am not an attorney that goes into court and represents just one person in litigation. Patricia serves as a mediator, as a participant in collaborative law, and in litigation. But one of the things that often comes up when people call me and Patricia And then we've been kind of talking about this lately, is that they— people think that you don't get a lawyer when you opt for mediation. And so we wanted to kind of have this video out on the worldwide web and kind of put that misconception to rest, because when you go into mediation, you absolutely can have an attorney represent you. Your spouse can have a separate attorney that represents just them. Now the mediator is neutral and is kind of representing your futures in a way. But Patricia, can you kind of talk a little bit about if someone hires me as their mediator, and so I'm working with both parties, and then one of those parties, how would you work with them as just their attorney?

So whenever I have a case where I'm a consulting attorney is what we call it, so The client will retain me as a consultant, and there's 2 approaches to that. Sometimes when both of the parties have an attorney, they may want their attorney to attend the mediations with them. In a lot of cases, we really recommend that the parties just go on their own to the mediator so that there can be free-flowing communication. So in a situation like that, The client would come to me and we would have a discussion about what are their goals, what are their objectives, you know, what do they want for child custody, and I can help them come up with proposals and then they can take that into the mediation session.

And so when would you say the ideal time is to— for someone to engage you that's in mediation? I often We'll say, let's get your financial disclosures filled out and completed and then come into mediation and let's confirm that, yes, you guys both agree that these are all the assets and debts. And if they're not, and there's disagreement about, hey, where's that extra million dollars that we had, or whatever it is, let's do some homework and get that situated. And then I say, now that you have the complete list of assets and debts, I will have already inputted that information into family law software and given the reports to the 2 clients, then go out and meet with your attorney so that they can actually substantively help you. But if that's not the ideal time when someone should bring you on, what do you— what's your opinion as to that?

So each case is going to be different. Sometimes we're going to have cases where there's child custody or we need some sort of temporary support orders in place just to get to that disclosure phase. So in cases like that, a client may want to come and sit down, um, understanding that this may not be a permanent parenting plan or a permanent support arrangement. And we can take a look at what are the finances of the marriage, especially if we have one of the parties who's been the wage earner and the other party is unemployed. Maybe they're looking for a job, they don't have a job. So coming in and finding out what can I request in my initial mediation so that I've got those temporary orders in place to get me where I need to get with the financial disclosures. And in other cases, you know, we wouldn't be talking about property division until we saw those disclosures. And then permanent support. So I would have them come after the disclosures, once we saw what property is there, and find out what are the goals, what are the objectives. What do they feel is a fair resolution to the property? And at that time, you would begin to discuss any permanent support orders or permanent custody orders that are going to go in the judgment.

And, you know, one of the reasons that I— and so when my clients ask me for attorneys, I have like a short list of attorneys that, that I refer or recommend. I don't refer to them, but Patricia's at the top of that list. And one of the reasons that I have worked so well with her In a sense, I'm not working with her when I'm the mediator and she's representing counsel, but she doesn't blow up the mediation. The goal of someone in her role as a consulting attorney, it's important because if, if they come on too heavy, then, you know, you could send these 2 people that have worked hard to come to whatever that arrangement is. And it might not be perfect. It might, might be 90% perfect, but Patricia is really great at advising her clients on, you know, let's tweak these things, but she doesn't try to blow up the whole deal. How do you— is that a conscious effort by you, or how do you approach consulting attorney representation when there's a mediation versus someone that's just hiring you for litigation?

So, Scott, that's an interesting question. So even in our litigation cases, I'm very settlement-minded. So my goal is really to find a creative solution in any case. And I believe orders are going to be more likely to be complied with when a party's in agreement with the orders. And I believe that compromise comes a lot into play, whether it's a litigation case or mediation case. And the other thing I keep in mind first and foremost is the way you conduct yourself in a divorce when you have children is going to really set the pace for these children's lives long after the divorce is done. So my goal when working as a consulting attorney is to help my client be prepared to come up with compromises, to bring in that reality, and to continue to reinforce that wherever possible, we should always be settling our cases. Outside of the courtroom.

So do you think that that is kind of a rare perspective, or do you find that most of your colleagues, you know, most of the folks that you're litigating against in the family law community kind of have a similar frame of mind, or is that kind of unique to your practice?

Um, I think our practice is very unique in that that is our first and foremost priority is to try to be settlement-minded and to settle the cases. I do have a lot of attorneys that I work well with, even in litigation cases. When I see that they're the opposing attorney, I get really excited because then I can tell my client, hey, I think there's an opportunity to settle this case. And even in our really highly conflictual cases that involve domestic violence or substance abuse, If we have a good attorney on the other side, we can settle. Now, there is a lot of attorneys out there that are litigation attorneys, and their goal is to bring the case to litigation. They love hearing themselves speak in the courtroom. They love adding that fuel to the fire. And litigation just means more fees for the attorneys. And you end up in a situation a lot of times in a litigation case where Only the attorneys are winning. And I would much rather have you have money to pay for your children's education than to pay for my children's education.

Yeah, well, that's really unique, and in my opinion, unique. And of course, I am a full-time mediator, so I have not been in a courtroom since 2012. But when I think back in the back of my mind, back to those days, It wasn't always a pleasant experience dealing with those, those other attorneys. So, Patricia, lastly, let me just ask you, another way that a lot of my clients will wait to engage a consulting attorney is when we have a draft of their settlement agreement ready. Is that something that you also can review for clients and advise them at that point? Or do you think that you typically should come on before, before there's a draft agreement?

I can always come on if the parties are working well together and with the mediator and they come up with the agreements. We have a lot of cases where a person will come into our office, the agreement will be finalized, and, you know, I'm sure your settlement agreements are many pages with a lot of language that clients don't understand. And a lot of times my role in those cases are I'm going to review line by line with them and make sure that they understand what they're signing, make sure that they understand how does this translate to my life as a whole. If we've got a holiday schedule in, what does this mean for future holidays? If we have a parenting plan in, what does this mean? Um, if there's Means of communication. Maybe the parents are going to use our Family Wizard or Talking Parents. I would help guide them in being able to get those tools set up. And also to let them know how it's carried out. So we're more than happy to review an agreement if there's questions and making sure the client really understands and does in fact agree to what they're signing. The last thing any of us want is somebody to come back years later and say, I didn't know I was signing that, I didn't know what that meant. So I'm able to make sure that they do know and they do understand.

Yeah, well, I, I want to kind of keep this video— Patricia and I are going to do some other videos in the coming weeks and months, but for this video, we want you to understand that Building a team is a really important step during your divorce. So if you're going to opt for the mediation route, that gives you an opportunity to really add to your team. You know, when you go in for surgery in the medical field, you're going to be greeted by nurses, physical therapists, surgeons, emergency room docs. It's not just one person that's cutting and doing all the work. And then helping you with the recovery. And we really believe that in divorce, you know, you building that team can only help you educate yourself and be a better party to the process. And hiring a consulting attorney, Patricia, is certainly a great option. Patricia, how do— how would you like people to reach out to you? What's the best way to connect?

So they can either email our office. It's PCVs So petercharlesvictor@pcvlawyer.com, or they can call us at 949-891-0091.

All right, everybody. Well, thank you for joining us and look out for some more videos with Patricia and I, Scott Levin, San Diego Divorce Mediation and Family Law. And we appreciate it and we'll see you soon.