|
Recent Posts in Family Law Category
| February 11, 2012 |
| Announcing WEBSITE DESIGN and SEO For Mediators By Thurman Arnold |
| Posted By Thurman W. Arnold, III |
 |
Website Design, Development and Optimization for
Divorce and Family Law Mediation
This blog article is written for anyone who is a mediator, or who is beginning to seriously consider making the commitment to establishing a mediation practice within their community. In order to be successful, you need to be visible to the public you would serve. However, for most legal professionals how to accomplish that visibility on the Web is a deep mystery.
I believe so passionately in mediation as a highly productive, relatively inexpensive, and richly satisfying alternative to family court litigation that I want to do everything within my sphere of influence to popularize it, including helping other lawyer-mediators and nonlawyer mediators to establish and develop their own dispute resolution practices. The internet is an incredible tool for reaching out to legal consumers and educating them about the availability and benefits of this option. It is an excellent setting for showcasing our own mediation philosophies and styles. Those of us who love to mediate because of the positive differences it makes in people's lives - and in our own professional practices to the extent that we divorce attorneys become an active part of the solution, rather than problem generators - have the opportunity and possibly even the responsibility to do everything we can to have an on-line conversation with disputants about the economic and emotional perils of adversary litigation. Mediator websites are a powerful platform from which to begin that dialogue. Not only do our on-line identities represent an ethical vehicle for attracting business and so earning a living, they are tools for change in how society, and people at the end of relationship in particular, make choices about what we value. If we value relationship warfare, that is what we will experience together with all the harm it causes ourselves and others. If people recognize that it is natural to be conflicted and reactive when the emotional and economic relationship implodes, but that it is possible to manage those feelings and to choose not to let them rule our lives, then another world of choices and outcomes opens up. The goal of dissolution related mediation is to alleviate human suffering, one couple at a time.
For these reasons I've decided to offer my services to legal and mental health professionals who wish to develop a sophisticated on-line presence in the field of divorce and family law mediation. After having invested hundreds and hundreds of hours developing my own sites, and sites for others (including two nationally recognized mediation trainers), I have gained a powerful intimacy with how Google and other search engines operate. I want to apply that expertise to your advantage. I can assist you with website design, in choosing and negotiating with the right website design company (for instance, Scorpion Designs), with important feedback concerning whether to incur costs with website developers like Findlaw.com and Mediate.com, and with search engine optimization techniques and content writing. My websites speak for themselves (please feel free to browse the links at the bottom of this page, and www.LosAngelesFamilyMediationServices.com). And they speak to potential mediation clients 24/7.
If you wish to know more about the types of services I can offer you, and the reasons why utilizing these services will have a far higher impact on your customer base and the success of your mediation practices, please visit me at www.FamilyLawSEOSpecialists.com.
Thurman Arnold, III
Mediation Website Design and Optimization
Email:
twarnold@verizon.net
|
|
| Continue reading "Announcing WEBSITE DESIGN and SEO For Mediators By Thurman Arnold" » |
|
Permalink | Comments(0)  |
| |
| June 10, 2011 |
| LITIGATION Verses MEDIATION: ADVERSARY REALITIES Worth Considering Before Pulling the Trigger |
| Posted By Thurman Arnold, III, CFLS |
|
Litigation Is The Default Strategy For Adjudicating Conflict
Some people believe that mediators don't hold the American legal system or the judges who play their role within it in high regard. That isn't the case. Speaking for myself, I feel that divorce court ought be the option of last, and not first, resort. We accept the status quo because it has a long history within the American cultural identity as being the only method for resolving disputes. This is not true in many countries, which is why foreigners sometimes look at our courtroom antics as a source of amusement and derision. The United States is the most litigious nation in the world. But it is also a fact that our freedoms depend upon our legal infra-structure, including the roles that judges and lawyers play. We just need to add the mediators to our organic view of our family law legal system.
Professional mediators value our legal system. Both litigation and mediation have as their ultimate goals the peaceful resolving of conflicts and disputes, and the equalization of power as between disputants so that weaker parties, or segments of the population, are not disadvantaged or oppressed by those who hold greater status, larger wallets, or the majority view. Without the safety valve that the symbols and procedures of justice provide, conflict could erupt into violence and the functioning of society would be imperiled. Watching the world and local news, it seems we are often on the edge of this escalation anyway, making the justice system even more crucial to how we manage and conduct our lives. Not only do courts help ensure order and some semblance of fairness between people or entities that are 'in argument' with one another, our belief that they fulfill this function is elemental to our sense of safety and our willingness and consent to submit to authority, governmental or otherwise.
Divorce was largely unknown in American legal society until the mid-1800's. Our governing system simply was not designed to address the financial and emotional consequences of divorce, and has been playing catch-up ever since. We superimposed the structures for resolving political and business disputes upon families for lack of another choice, and there was no other paradigm to apply until the last few decades when forward thinkers pioneered the first wave of alternative dispute resolution options. It is that same disconnect that inspired collaborative law and mediation processes within the family law arena as the second wave of non-court possibilities, but these processes are not yet mainstream.
Now another movement is gaining momentum that incorporates mediation in the center of our dispute solution thinking. Understanding the dangers and limitations of court divorce is foundational to making informed decisions today about what to do. This is one reason why I keep blogging about it.
____________
Family court judges and commissioners are passionate about serving the family law litigants who appear in their courtrooms, as are mediators specializing in these disputes. But unlike the limitations that judges find themselves enshrined within (rules, rules, rules), mediation contains only the barest of limitations. The minimal constraints for mediation are transparency between the parties and open disclosure about all relevant matters, consent to engage the process, and respectful speech between the parties. While simple, these rules are not so easy to follow which is one reason why adversary litigation for some people aren't going away any time soon. But I believe that a fresh outlook that incorporates integrity into relationship transition may be just a shift in thinking away.
Realities of Divorce Court and Limits On What Judges Can Achieve
- Although a marriage or domestic partnership dissolution is only about the parties lives and their children, if any, at all times the parties themselves are the least empowered and important persons in the court process.
- Judges are the most important decision-maker in family courts. They are adorned by the symbols of power. These include robes, a bench that is placed higher than any other seat in the room which focuses every occupant's eyes on their august presence, deputies who carry loaded weapons, the flags of government, titles of honor, Latin phrasings and more.
- As the deciders and dispensers of "justice," as a practical matter they are beyond challenge, cannot be questioned, and rule the process much like any mini head of state. There is some reason for all of this within the adversary process, if we are to consent to being governed (requiring that we hold faith in the governor's fairness and wisdom). Judges should be viewed as the personification of justice and the utmost decorum must be maintained; moreover, these symbols are also hoped to remind the judges that they serve by the will of the people who appear before them.
- At the same time, judges are merely people like every one of us. They have all the same biases, quirks, temptations, personal histories, and vulnerabilities. Judges have specialized training about ethics, bias, and managing the power they are granted in a manner that instills confidence. But no matter how you slice it, when power is ceded there is always a risk of abuse. With family court judges in particular, many of whom actually dread the assignment, being faced with stubborn disputes day in and day out carries the risk of reactivity, cynicism and sadness, tendencies of becoming lost in self-importance, frustration, and general burn-out and even a desire to flee. Whenever we grant people with power over us we tend to imbue them with god-like qualities. Although understandable this imposes quite a burden which is neither fair nor realistic. Judges are not gods.
- The fact is that some family court judges have no particular expertise in family law. We make a leap to faith that they do, but I am telling you this is not true. Should a well-meaning carpenter repair your car?
For these reasons I believe any person who wishes to control their own destiny will not place an unreasonable faith in the ability and power of judges, except as a last resort, to decide their fates. However, I admit that some people just cannot overcome their conflicts on their own, or are married to spouses that suffer from what borders on personality disorders. It is near impossible to mediate such couples successfully.
But for a vast portion of our divorcing population, where there is understandable distrust and conflict, mediation holds real promise in getting people through the end of relationship economically and with dignity. I hope that you might be one of the lucky ones.
TWA
|
|
| Continue reading "LITIGATION Verses MEDIATION: ADVERSARY REALITIES Worth Considering Before Pulling the Trigger" » |
|
| Permalink | Comments(0) |
| |
| March 27, 2011 |
| Announcing LOS ANGELES FAMILY MEDIATION SERVICES in Beverly Hills, California |
| Posted By Los Angeles Family Mediation Services |
|
310-948-6408The DFMS Team is pleased to announce that we are launching Los Angeles Family Mediation Services (LAFMS) from our offices at 9400 Brighton Way, Suite 207, Beverly Hills, California, 90210, effective June 1, 2011.
Specializing in divorce and family law collaborative mediation, the LAFMS members consist of a retired Los Angeles family law judge, a psychologist, two certified family law specialists, and two M.F.T.'s and mental health professionals. Added together the experience of our Team exceeds 100 years of legal and mental health expertise and wisdom, accumulated in the trenches of family law, custody, and relationship conflict.
Our goal is to provide a complementary, interdisciplinary, and cost-effective resource for assisting families to move forward in constructive ways when marriages and domestic partnerships dissolve in all the cities neighboring downtown Los Angeles.
Our LAFMS website went on-line on May 26, 2011. Please visit us there if you live in the cities surrounding Los Angeles.
We want you to know that we are deeply passionate and eager to help people who would like to avoid the destruction that until very recently all soon-to-be former partners assumed was their rite of passage at relationship end, something that just isn't true. We believe that instead separating couples and partners have other positive and creative choices available to them that may serve not only the domestic disputants themselves, but also their children, their parents and siblings, and every one else with whom they come into contact.
We make a difference in people's lives, and we have a secret to share - You don't have to have an insane dissolution or other familial dispute. There exists fertile middle ground if you care to dig a bit deeper. Allow us to point the way!
The LAFMS Team is comprised of:
*Let us help get you out of this mess, intact!
Los Angeles Family Law Mediation Services |
|
| Continue reading "Announcing LOS ANGELES FAMILY MEDIATION SERVICES in Beverly Hills, California" » |
|
| Permalink | Comments(0) |
| |
| December 05, 2010 |
| 2011 AMENDMENTS to the FAMILY CODE: MEDIATION Becomes Even MORE ECONOMIC |
| Posted By Thurman Arnold III, CFLS |
|
A disaster may be looming in 2011 for some of the California family law disputants who don't realize they are free to opt out of the litigation experience by employing mediation or collaborative law processes as an alternate method for resolving their divorce, domestic partnership dissolution, or custody conflicts.
On January 1, 2011, the Elkins Task Force recommendations take effect as newly enacted Family Code section 217, along with other sections like
revised FC 2030 and
FC 3121 which are specifically intended to increase attorney fee awards so that both sides have equal access to justice. While these changes may improve the adversary and litigation experience for the wealthiest Californians in some senses, it is not going to help most family court participants. Indeed these "improvements" if they are to materialize will only come after hugely increased lawyer's fees, frustrating calender delays and continuances, increased acrimony between the parties, and strong dissatisfaction by at least one side with a judge's rulings. These changes in the law go to the core of the administration of justice in the Family Courts. As a result mediation becomes even more practical and sensible than ever before.
The Elkins committee which authored these changes was formed in response to Chief Justice Ronald George's 2007 California Supreme Court decision which overturned a policy of the Contra Costa Superior Court that essentially required family law and divorce matters to be heard by declarations, with very little ability for either party to present direct, live testimony or to cross-examine opposing witnesses. Jeffrey Elkins v. Superior Court (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1337.
In many ways the Court's ruling was inevitable and appropriate. The adversarial system is premised on ideas of due process and evidentiary rules. We assume that when a judicial officer as the "trier of fact" is able to watch and listen to people as they tell their stories, and to allow each side to test the claims of those others who contradict them, that that judge or family court commissioner is able to discern the Truth. Family court judges tend to be extremely dedicated and wise, but the best of intentions cannot necessarily overcome budgetary and time constraints in terms of decision-making on a crowded court docket. This is one reason why many seasoned litigators present their client's cases as a series of "sound-bytes," often with inflammatory rhetoric. Sometimes this obscures the truth.
We are all familiar with "profiling," and to a less dramatic extent the unconscious biases that people - be them governmental officials or ordinary citizens - bring to the analysis of any question, but especially those involving other humans. We all have accumulated preferences and biases, and no matter how sincerely and diligently we work to overcome this trait it seems generally impossible to eliminate. There is danger in giving up the power of decision-making about your marriage, your divorce, your children, etc., to others (including mediators). This is why many mediators resist acting like Solomon and persistently attempt to hand this power back to both parties. Mediators serve as guides - judges do not.
Nonetheless, in America we have been taught to assume that the best way to resolve conflict is by permitting litigants to compete in the telling of their differing views, and to allow some presumably wiser person to umpire the contest and declare the victor. My opinion is that this adversary courtroom system is the best that exists, but only when all else fails and then as a last and never as a first resort. But I've become cynical about government's ability to do better as an entity in deciding matters affecting our lives than we do for each other as individuals. You are free to disagree.
Family Code section 217 directs family courts in all hearings, including OSC's and Motion proceedings, which are where temporary orders are obtained before cases reach a Final Judgment (and also again when people seek to modify judgments later), to hear live testimony except where the parties themselves stipulate to allow their matter to proceed by declaration alone or where the court makes a finding on the record of "good cause" to dispense with oral testimony. Oral testimony takes place in something called an "evidentiary hearing."
Because evidentiary hearings take considerable time - anywhere from 30 minutes on simple issues to several days in complex or high-conflict situations, whenever one party refuses to stipulate to forego their right to testify and confront the witnesses on the other side, special hearing dates will need to be scheduled. They certainly won't happen when the parties first arrive in court. Instead courts will have to set aside special days and times for hearing testimony, or to assign the matter to other courtrooms [which newly revised Family Code section 2330.3 seems to discourage since it recognizes the benefit of assigning cases to one judge throughout the proceedings].
Many questions arise. When then will litigated cases finally get heard? What policies will govern the huge number of cases (read: families) that circle like airplanes awaiting courtroom traffic controller instructions to land, scrambling to touch down at once? Parties to litigated cases will have even less control over concluding their cases than they ever did.
How much will it cost parties to take time off from work in order to attend repeated hearings - never knowing when they are needed or not, or to wait in courtroom hallways for their case to be dealt with - along with the attorneys that accompany them with their fee meters running? How are unrepresented parties going to perform when they are expected to themselves conduct cross-examination, or to know complicated rules of evidence?
And how are parties going to feel about each other after they've listened to the other spouse, domestic partner, or parent take the witness stand and tell the court, court clerk, bailiff, and courtroom observers what a dishonest or poor mom or dad the other party is?
Divorce litigation is about to become way more expensive and time-consuming. We invite you to do the math.
At Desert Family Mediation Services we believe that mediation is the only dignified way to begin to end the financial and emotional interconnections of your relationship. Mediation is not necessarily easy. It is not for everyone. Many people will be forced by their own desires or the attitudes of the other person to wait in the courtroom hallways endlessly. But others will be much more fortunate, and this may be you.
I predict that the consequences of the Elkins rules in the coming decade will set in motion a backlash that will result in a substantial rewrite of the laws and procedures for family law disputants, and that our coming system will be reforged borrowing many principles seen rarely today outside of mediation. For now the new family code rules are sure to pressure legal consumers to find more economic ways to manage their disputes.
Mediation looks even more practical and sensible beginning in 2011!
Thurman W. Arnold III
Hon. Gretchen W. Taylor
Certified Family Law Specialists
"You Need the Bears"
|
|
| Continue reading "2011 AMENDMENTS to the FAMILY CODE: MEDIATION Becomes Even MORE ECONOMIC" » |
|
| Permalink | Comments(0) |
| |
| November 14, 2010 |
| BENEFITS of MEDIATION Include Receiving ALL RELEVANT INFORMATION |
| Posted By Desert Family Mediation Services |
|
In the typical experience of divorce or partnership dissolution, parties may or may not make use of legal professionals. Estimates are that over 60% of people don't hire lawyers or even consult with them to address the legal aspects of their family law matter, and in some populations that percentage is much higher. Yet, divorce is exceedingly complicated even for "experts".
Similarly, many people do not seek assistance from mental health professionals when they are ending relationships. Those that do rarely learn about parenting, co-parenting, child development, or peaceful ways to unwind interpersonal entanglements. Yet, we have little innate knowledge about such matters.
In court proceedings over-busy judges make decisions, usually without explanation. As a practical matter, those rulings are not open to question or challenge - in a way that is reminiscent of the power imbalance between parents and very young children. Unlike adult/child relationships, however, judges don't instruct the litigant about anything. There is very little about the Court experience that allows for feedback in ways that might help the parties to understand what is occurring or how to deal or cope with it. Even when parties have attorneys they rarely explain the reasoning underlying the court's decisions to their clients or the basis for their recommendations.
Where the parties have children and cannot come to custody and visitation agreements forensic therapists and psychologists may be appointed who have differing levels of training and mastery, and little time or resources, to make custody recommendations.
The ironic truth is that in family court litigation clients are always the least important and empowered persons in the proceedings. This means that for some people the experience becomes a lonely, clumsy, uninformed struggle that frequently leads to further unsatisfactory consequences.
Mediation and co-mediation offer major benefits and advantages above the customary paradigm. Mediation is first and foremost a forum for educating the parties about all relevant circumstances. It functions to provide a discussion and an exchange of information that is required to make informed decisions possible for each participant. For a person's consent to a settlement to be voluntary and intelligent, they must first be provided all relevant legal, financial, child-specific, and sometimes psychological information.
At DFMS we believe that the mediator's role includes educating parties about the legal principles that affect their dispute, without becoming fixated or stuck on projected courtroom outcomes. People can be way more creative in achieving mutually sustainable resolutions when they also consider areas of common interest, rather than merely applying legalistic formulas. We have found that people can also benefit from understanding emotional reactivity from the perspective of mental health professionals.
Our lawyer mediator Thurman W. Arnold is a Certified Family Law Specialist, a designation and achievement that required a great commitment and investment of time as well as supportive judicial and peer reviews. He has 30 years' experience.
Our retired judge Mediator Gretchen W. Taylor is not only a Certified Family Law Specialist but was a Family Court Commissioner for eleven years, first at the Indio courthouse and then at the downtown Los Angeles Family Court. She has 35 years' experience.
Our psychologist mediator Dr. Jane E. Shatz has decades of professional experience working with children in and outside of the southern California court system. She is an expert in all manner of parenting disputes and issues, and she will make the best family science wisdom, particularly as it pertains to parenting and children, comprehensible.
Our marriage and family therapist co-mediators Karen Horwitz and
David Hayes are exceptionally trained and experienced counselors, and each has the ability to explain complex issues relating to family dynamics and interactions, and to suggest concrete ways of how to modify them and so move on.
Whether you choose one mediator or a team of two interdisciplinary mediators, the most important benefit that you will derive from the mediation process, aside from resolving your dispute respectfully, efficiently and economically, is that of having been the central figures within the process. We will explain the law to you, we will ensure that the process between you and your former spouse or partner is thoroughly transparent and fair, and we will give you the tools to successfully complete mediation and to address future disputes more positively and effectively than if you continued the old patterns.
Mediation is all and only about you and your family. It educates and empowers and so leaves nothing to chance or misinformation. It only requires two willing participants to explore and engage the process.
Desert Family Mediation Services
|
|
| Continue reading "BENEFITS of MEDIATION Include Receiving ALL RELEVANT INFORMATION" » |
|
| Permalink | Comments(0) |
| |
| October 19, 2010 |
| ABA Standards - "ENTERING MEDIATION" |
| Posted By Desert Family Mediation Services |
|
The 2000 American Bar Association Model Standards for Mediation, and indeed the standards for all family law mediation, are based upon the principle of "informed consent." While once known as a medical term, the concept of "informed consent" in the context of emotional lives expresses that choices that are made in family law matters be made voluntarily, with knowledge of all facts important to the decision-making process, including but not limited to the law on marital and partnership dissolution.
DFMS offers mediators with extraordinary expertise and vision in the law of relationships and in the mental health sciences.
We want you to be fully informed about the nature of the mediation process, sufficient to enable you to meaningfully consent to engaging the process. This requires that we be able to "facilitate the participants' understanding of what mediation is and assess their capacity to mediate before the participants reach an agreement to mediate."
If we can't make mediation sensible to you, we cannot obtain your "informed consent" to the process and your jointly derived solutions with your "ex" are unlikely to work. This includes that we be able to explain mediation is and how it differs from other dispute resolution processes, like adversary court judgments and non-adversary processes including collaborative law.
At all times you are invited and encouraged to seek outside and independent legal and other professional advice before, during, and upon completion of mediation as seems appropriate to your comfort.
Always ask us to elaborate on anything that does not feel clear!
DFMS
|
|
| Continue reading "ABA Standards - "ENTERING MEDIATION"" » |
|
| Permalink | Comments(0) |
| |
| June 24, 2010 |
| Welcome to our California Family Law Mediation Blog |
| Posted By Desert Family Mediation Services |
|
We are pleased to announce the launch of our Palm Springs Family Law Mediation blog, with an RSS Feed available. Please click the RSS Feed link to receive our articles as they are posted.
Desert Family Mediation Services opened on June 1, 2010. Our offices are based in Palm Springs and serve the desert cities of Rancho Mirage, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, La Quinta, Indian Wells, Indio, Desert Hot Springs, Thousand Palms, Blythe, and the upper desert communities of Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, and Twentynine Palms. However, because mediation is paced at the comfort level and convenience and participants - in stark contrast to litigation in family courtrooms - we are available to assist families within a larger radius than is possible for traditional family law. We believe the expertise and quality of our mediators and co-mediators will justify our working with couples and partners who live in Riverside, Hemet, Yucaipa, and San Bernardino.
We also mediate in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and the Santa Monica areas and four of our five mediators reside in those cities full time. Mediations in Los Angeles County occur at our Los Angeles Family Mediation Services locations.
Regardless whether you are able to mediate with us we hope that this Mediation Blog informs you about the potential benefits of mediating divorce and domestic partnership breakups so that you investigate whether process is right for you!
Desert Family Mediation Services
June, 2010
|
|
| Continue reading "Welcome to our California Family Law Mediation Blog" » |
|
| Permalink | Comments(0) |
| |
|