by Shawn Weber, JD, CLS-F* | Jul 25, 2022 | Family & Divorce Mediation
Looking for a miserable divorce? Here’s how!
Under the best of circumstances, a divorce can be an awful experience. Even if you have done all your research and know exactly how divorce works, it is still often a very toxic and harmful process. But there are some things you can do right now to make sure that you have a completely horrible, miserable divorce. Here are some tips:
1. Hire the cheapest attorney.
You get what you pay for and an attorney can be the difference in having a good divorce or a miserable divorce. So by all means, hire the cheapest attorney in the phone book if you want a miserable divorce. But if you’re looking for a good divorce, it might be worth finding a more experienced and reputable lawyer in your local area.
For California divorces, we recommend finding a specialist in family law who is certified by the California State Bar Board of Legal Speclialization. Such attorneys have had to meet certain experience requirements and have passed an extra bar examination for family law specialization. You will often see the person referred to as a Certified Family Law Specialist or with a designation such as “CFLS” or “CLS-F”.
2. Find a shark to represent you.
Make sure that you find the toughest and meanest attorney you can find. Make sure she is very expensive. Look for the largest ad in the phone book and find the picture of the attorney with the angriest face. This is indeed a sure way to increase the conflict in your divorce and make things completely awful.
A shark attorney will do a good job of running up the clock and the billable hours, but generally won’t care about you at all. The shark will unnecessarily increase the conflict so that he can increase his billable hours. In fact, what little relationship you have left with your soon to be ex will be out the window and you will have years of anger and hatred to look forward to. When the case is over, you will probably have to declare bankruptcy because the definition of victory for a shark is that you have $2, your spouse gets $1 and the lawyers get the rest. Best of all, you will spend your kids’ college funds and probably put your lawyer’s kids through school instead.
At Weber Dispute Resolution, our philosophy is to be a dolphin instead of a shark.
3. Whatever you do, don’t get a therapist.
You don’t want a therapist to help you with the emotional turmoil you are experiencing now. Moreover, you want to be plagued by depression, anger, guilt, and anxiety.
A therapist can help with all of those things, so to truly have a miserable divorce, you want to avoid any mental health professional. By all means, try to deal with it yourself and let your emotions blossom into a full blown temporary psychosis.
Without being sarcastic here, it’s smart to seek counseling from a qualified mental health professional if you believe you are not ready to hear what the other person is saying or the problem is something other than what you see. In truth, it can be helpful getting a third person’s point of view so that you can understand how it might appear to others. It may also provide you with a fresh perspective on things.
4. Use your children as pawns.
One important key to having a miserable divorce is to destroy your kids in the process. Studies have shown that the conflict of divorce does more to harm kids than the divorce itself. So go out of your way to increase the conflict between you and your ex.
Without a doubt, make sure that the kids are in the middle of the conflict. Use them as messengers for adult business. Tell them about how horrible your ex is. Make sure that you fight for every minute with your kids that you can. Be sure to have a lot of shouting and swearing when you exchange the kids. That’s a sure way to make sure that your children grow up to have depression, relationship problems, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders and drug addictions. Best of all, your children will grow to resent you, which would truly make for a miserable divorce.
There is no such thing as justice in Family Court. That’s why to have a miserable divorce you should demand it! It’s a sure way to spend a lot of time, money and energy only to be disappointed. Don’t compromise unless it meets your perfect definition of justice and fairness. Because your spouse probably has a different opinion of what “fair” means, this technique is particularly effective at disappointing you.
Shawn Weber’s appearance on the Bryan Devore Connection
Shawn was recently a guest on the Bryan Divorce Connection, where he shared his Five Tips to Have a Miserable Divorce with Bryan’s viewers. Check it out and let us know what you think.
To learn more about Bryan Devore and the Bryan Devorce Connection, click here.
by Shawn Weber, JD, CLS-F* | Aug 8, 2019 | Family & Divorce Mediation
Every August, the phone rings more at our office. School is starting, and co-parents are stuck on logistics. Who pays for supplies? Which parent gets called when there’s a problem? Who shows up at back-to-school night?
These are real questions. They come up every year, and they tend to land harder than parents expect.
Here is what I tell the families I work with.
Agree on Routines Before School Starts
Sit down with your co-parent before the first day. Do this without the kids, in a neutral location. Cover the basics: emergency contacts, transportation, pickup procedures, homework expectations, discipline, and after-school activities.
Once you have a plan, write it down and share it with your children. Kids do better when both houses are running from the same playbook.
Set a Budget for School Expenses
The parent who does the school shopping often pays up front and then asks for reimbursement. That works fine until the two of you have different ideas about what things should cost.
Set a budget together before anyone goes to the store. Agree on a number. Keep receipts. This avoids the argument that comes three weeks later when the credit card statement arrives.
Handle Extracurricular Activities Early
Sports, music, debate, robotics, drama. These activities matter to kids. They also cost money and require someone to drive.
Before the season starts, decide together which activities are realistic for your family’s schedule and budget. Agree on who provides transportation and who pays the fees. Making these decisions after your child has already committed creates problems for everyone, especially the child.
Coordinate Calendars
School generates a wall of dates: practices, games, performances, conferences, science fairs. Coordinate the school calendar with your parenting schedule early. Make sure your child can attend the things that matter to them.
Keep a shared calendar. Give copies to coaches and teachers so they know which parent your child will be with on a given day.
Plan for School Events
You are going to be in the same room as your co-parent at school events. That is part of the deal.
Agree in advance to be civil. You can manage an hour at a concert or a game a few times a year. If that is genuinely not possible right now, take turns attending on different nights or at different times. The goal is for your child to have a parent present, not for you to prove a point.
Meet the Teacher
Whether you are divorced or not, meeting your child’s teacher matters. Let the teacher know your family situation so they can watch for changes in behavior or mood. Kids going through transitions at home sometimes show it at school first.
That said, keep teachers out of any disagreements between you and your co-parent. Teachers are there for your child. They are not referees.
Both parents need access to school information. Give permission to teachers, counselors, and school administrators to communicate with both of you.
Arrange for duplicate notifications about grades, progress reports, and school events. This way, neither parent depends on the other to pass information along.
One important point: your child should never be the messenger between households. Forms, grades, notices. All of that goes parent to parent.
Use a Neutral Third Party When You Need One
If your relationship with your co-parent is high-conflict, a neutral third party can serve as a point of contact between you. A mediator or parent coordinator can relay information, help resolve disputes, and keep things from escalating during the school year.
This is a practical tool. The phone at Weber Dispute Resolution rings a lot in August and September. We help parents work through school-related disputes before they become court-related disputes.
Keep School as Your Child’s Space
Your child is still processing your divorce, no matter how long ago it happened. School is where they see friends, learn things, and build a life that belongs to them.
Let it stay that way. Support their experience. Show up when it counts. Handle the logistics between the adults. And when you are unsure about a decision, ask yourself one question: what does my child need here?
That question will usually get you to the right answer.
If you need help resolving school-related co-parenting disputes, contact Weber Dispute Resolution or call 858-410-0144.
Read more: Is Your Child College Bound? Who’s Paying for It?
by Shawn Weber, JD, CLS-F* | Jun 4, 2018 | Family & Divorce Mediation, Professional Practice & Training
I regularly serve as a pro tem settlement judge on the Mandatory Settlement Conference (MSC) Panel with the San Diego County Superior Court. While I enjoy helping folks through their MSCs, the help is simply too little too late for many people.
Often, the preparation for the MSC is nearly as stressful and costly as preparing for the trial itself for everyone involved including the attorneys, clients, and other professionals who may be involved.
Lawyers need to certify that discovery is complete and prepare elaborate briefs. Waiting until the very end of a case to attempt mediation does the parties and the professionals a great disservice. The pained and stressed-out expressions on the faces of the parties and counsel at the MSCs I facilitate say it all.
Better Options for Settling Cases: Early Mediation
There are many options near the beginning of the case to settle issues, manage discovery concerns, and resolve unnecessary conflict. Even (and especially) high conflict cases can benefit from earlier intervention with a mediator to short circuit the conflict. Attorneys benefit from early mediation because it helps them settle the cases with a realistic chance of settling successfully. It frees them up to focus on trials for cases that won’t settle.
Here are some ideas for how you can engage the ADR services of a mediator early in your family law case.
Meet and Confer – On Steroids
Every family law attorney is aware of the requirement for the “meet and confer” conference. Too often it’s simply given lip service by a short phone call to opposing counsel without discussing the issues. Because lawyers sometimes give less attention to what needs to happen to settle, the case stalls.
Why not have a facilitated meet and confer settlement conference to identify the issues and formulate a plan for a swift conclusion?
Discovery Management At Lower Cost
Often the most expensive part of a case is the discovery, which involves elaborate and arcane procedures to gather as much evidence as possible. Sometimes this takes place whether the case needs the information or not. The adversarial process spurs less and not more cooperation in discovery. As a result, parties can face months or even years of time-consuming, expensive discovery wars.
Why not use a mediator to help “referee” the discovery? Most discovery can be provided informally at much less cost. A mediator can help facilitate the discovery process to specifically target discovery needs. The mediator can help everyone conclude the case with fewer headaches and less stress for the lawyers. This results in a lower cost for the parties.
Successfully Managing the High Conflict Case
There is a common misconception that people cannot mediate high conflict cases. It’s simply not true.
Most high conflict behavior in divorce cases is based on fear and hurt. That’s because Court proceedings tend to exacerbate and actually encourage high conflict responses. So, engaging a good mediator early in the process reduces conflict by managing the fight-or-flight response.
Rather than encouraging conflict including ugly public fights in court, consider short-circuiting conflict with a mediator experienced in high conflict. If the parties learn early how to interact productively, it then makes the rest of the case go more smoothly, and often more quickly.
Use Early Intervention Through Mediation to Resolve Interim Issues
The terribly backlogged family courts sometimes take months to hear even the most routine (and sometimes pressing) interim motions. Working with you and your clients in mediation, I can help you resolve interim questions like support and custody in a fraction of the time and cost compared to filing a Request for Order. Because a mediated settlement conference efficiently resolves interim issues, the parties can relax a little more. Instead of reacting to ongoing problems, people can focus on concluding the case.
Consider a Court-Ordered Family Centered Case Resolution Plan Per Family Code Section 2451
Court ordered family centered case resolution plan under the California Family Code Section 2451 is a valuable tool in your toolkit.
One little-known Family Code provisions involves the use of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) as part of a court-ordered family centered case resolution plan. It is described in Family Code Section 2451. Additionally, California Rule of Court 5.83 describes how to implement the plan. Parties can appoint a case manager as part of the plan. They can also apply Code of Civil Procedure Section 639 to appoint the case manager as a discovery referee. Further, Family Code Section 2451 (a)(3) gives protection to attorneys who follow any discovery plans adopted as part of a court-ordered family resolution plan as follows:
“Limitations on discovery, including temporary suspension pending exploration of settlement. There is a rebuttable presumption that an attorney who carries out discovery as provided in a family centered case resolution plan has fulfilled his or her duty of care to the client as to the existence of community property.”
This Family Code section 2451 procedure has been effective in my experience. It can do a lot to reduce costs, and keep the case moving quickly towards settlement.
Because there are many ADR options beyond an end-of-case settlement conference where a mediator can make a huge difference, the key is to start early. Call on Weber Dispute Resolution to help. We have the training, skills, and experience to get your family law case past stuck. Our approach serves to support existing relationships with legal counsel, and will preserve the family’s wealth by reducing family conflict. Peace of mind is priceless.
