1. Recognize that the time for arguing is over – one thing that causes people to spend tons of money to get divorced is that they and their lawyers look at it like a battle where every point is something to be argued about and fought to the death.  The reality is the law is the law here in NJ and so whether you like it or not the outcome for 99.33% of couples who divorce in NJ is exactly the same or falls within some relatively similar range.  If you think being one of the lucky 2/3rds of 1% of people who actually litigate to try and get a different outcome is worth $200,000, please be my guest.  But if you’re looking for a cheap divorce in NJ, this isn’t the way.
2. Cooperate with your legal practitioner – it’s no secret what is needed to get divorced.  The discovery items, the process, the issues and the forms, it’s really all the same whether you make a $25,000 a year or $250,000 a year.  Sure there are more zeros on the end of the numbers in the rich couples settlement but at the end of the day it all boils down to the same things: tax returns, pay stubs, credit card statements, etc. By cooperating with preferably your NJ divorce mediator, you can and should provide the necessary documentation and make the necessary decisions to move the process forward.  If you’re looking for a cheap divorce in NJ, one of the best ways I know how to do this is to be prepared and present everything that is asked of you.
3. Use divorce mediation in New Jersey - it’s a fact: divorce mediation in New Jersey costs anywhere from $29,000 to $76,000 less on average than using attorneys or litigating.  If you’re looking for a cheap divorce in NJ that isn’t one of those fly by night Internet divorce providers for $399, then go the mediation route.  Divorce is an extremely complex process and marriage creates a significant number of legal entanglements that make getting a proper divorce an advanced task.  No book of forms or some guy in a strip mall is going to be able to help you properly settle your issues.

Have any items you’d like to share that can help divorcing couples pursue a cheap divorce in NJ?  Feel free to comment below or give us a call if you have questions about the divorce and mediation process.

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Joseph Dillon is a NJ divorce mediator and Managing Partner of Equitable Mediation Services – a New Jersey based firm that provides client with divorce mediation in New Jersey and divorce coaching services to clients throughout the United States.  Mr. Dillon may be reached at (908) 864-2177.

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Managing Partner and Equitable Mediation founder Joseph Dillon said “I know I speak for everyone here at Equitable Mediation when I say that we’re pleased to be able to assist divorce mediation clients in an office location that’s convenient for them during their time of need and by expanding into Paramus, Saddle Book and Hackensack, we’re able to do just that for Bergen County couples.”

Until recently Equitable Mediation Services focused mostly on Central NJ and the lower part of Northern NJ with office locations in Bedminster, Bridgewater, East Brunswick, Iselin (Metropark), Morristown Princeton, Short Hills, Red Bank and Roseland.  With the expansion into Bergen County and the towns of Paramus, Saddle Book and Hackensack, clients in those areas will still be able to obtain the benefits of mediation in NJ but in a location that’s much closer to their home.  This is especially convenient for those individuals who may live in New Jersey but work in New York City which many Bergen County resident do.

“Our clients come to us from all over the state and up until recently, for those individuals who phoned us seeking mediation services in Paramus, Saddle Book or Hackensack, the best we could do was offer them a meeting in one of our other office locations which for some, wasn’t convenient.  Having these three new office locations is going to make it easier on our clients in Bergen County to get the services they need from a firm they can trust.  We’ve been mediating for a long time and divorce mediation is our full time profession.  Using an unknown firm without Accredited Professional Mediators just isn’t something clients should want to take a chance on.”

Because the laws of the State apply to all clients who are eligible to file for divorce in New Jersey,  Equitable Mediation Services is able to service clients no matter where they live.  Adding three new Bergen County office locations is in line with the Equitable Mediation philosophy of reducing the stress of an already uncomfortable situation by being where the clients need divorce mediation services the most. For information on the new Equitable Mediation Services office locations, please see the addresses below.

• Paramus Divorce Mediation: 140 East Ridgewood Avenue – Paramus, New Jersey
• Saddle Brook Divorce Mediation: (the Park 80 West building)- 250 Pehle Avenue, Suite 200 – Saddle Brook, New Jersey
• Hackensack Divorce Mediation (opening winter 2012) – 401 Hackensack Avenue – Suite 200 – Hackensack, New Jersey

If you have any questions about divorce mediation in NJ or our services, please call us at (908) 864-2177.

Divorce mediation and legal separation have some other important similarities:

1. Divorce mediation and legal separation both allow one party to retain their medical benefits they receive through their spouse as once you are divorced, you will no longer be allowed to stay on your spouse’s benefits and will need to find coverage on your own.
2. Divorce mediation and legal separation both help the parties outline their financial and parental responsibilities while they are living apart.  By defining who will be responsible for the household expenses, children’s expenses, parenting and upkeep of the marital home, we can use the same processes and formulas in divorce mediation that are used in legal separation.  This way it’s completely clear who is responsible for what and how things will get taken care of while you are apart.
3. Divorce mediation and legal separation both can allow you to remain married and engage in certain financial transactions that may be more beneficial while married such as selling a home or receiving Social Security benefits for those close to being married for 10 years or for those married to members of the military.

No matter what the reason divorce mediation in New Jersey can help you create the same agreements necessary to operate your lives as separate entities while you make the most important decision of all that is the decision to divorce. This is a decisoin that will impact you and your family for the rest of your lives so it’s important you take the time to carefully consider it.

If you have any questions about divorce mediation and legal separation in New Jersey, please feel free to call me, Joseph Dillon, at (908) 864-2177 and I’d be happy to explain the differences and how divorce mediation may be beneficial in your situation.

In either case, you need to create a parenting plan, divide your marital assets and liabilities and determine appropriate amounts of child support and spousal support.  Whether you do this through the more peaceful and efficient process of New Jersey divorce mediation or fight this out with attorneys in court and go broke in the process, at the end of the day the result is going to be the same.  The truth is in 99.9% of all cases, the law doesn’t acknowledge the reason for your divorce nor does it reward one party or penalize another for their actions.  It’s only concern is to get you divorced.  I know it may be difficult to swallow (and forgive me if this sounds callous) but in time you will move on and you will get over your shock or assuage your guilt.  Certainly it will take some work on your part to move past the hurt and anger and heal yourself but if you are honest with yourself about what happened and realize your number one concern right now is not to place blame but rather to determine a fair and equitable settlement and move on with your life, you can use New Jersey divorce mediation  to settle your divorce.

Realize that divorce is a lawsuit and that if you file a fault divorce action, you will need to prove your case.  For example, in the case of adultery, you may need to call the third party to court to testify they did indeed have relations with your spouse, thus proving your case and finding your spouse guilty.  But by the very nature of you pursuing a divorce, don’t you already know that?  In the end, if the settlement is going to be the same, who is this going to help?  Is facing the third party in court or proving to your spouse this is in fact their paramour, going to repair your marriage?  Impact your settlement? Make you feel better?  My guess is the answer to all those questions would be no.  Filing a No-Fault Divorce in New Jersey and going the more peaceful and efficient route of New Jersey divorce mediation will not only save you tens of thousands of dollars but help you move past the anger and allow you to get on with the process of rebuilding you life.

Have any questions about New Jersey divorce mediation or No-Fault Divorce in New Jersey?  Please feel free to give me, Accredited Professional NJ Divorce Mediator Joseph Dillon a call at (908) 864-2177.

1. Domestic Violence – if there’s one thing that being in this profession has taught me it’s that under NO circumstances is ANY kind of domestic violence acceptable.  Domestic violence is not limited to physical abuse as most people may think, it can include emotional and verbal abuse as well which in the opinion of this New Jersey divorce mediator can be more insidious than the physical kind.  Years of mental abuse can lead to low self-esteem, a feeling of worthlessness or worse yet, depression or suicide.  It’s also important to note that while a majority of domestic violence is perpetrated against women, men can be and often are victims of domestic violence themselves.  If you suspect you are the victim of abuse, please call the Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-572-SAFE.  
2. Playing the Blame Game – there’s no question that even the best marriages have their ups and downs but if you find yourself in a position where instead of helping your partner through a particularly traumatic incident you spend time telling them what they did wrong and blame them for the outcome, it may be time to reconsider your relationship.  Sure counseling can make people aware of this behavior and in some cases help curtail it but if it comes from a place of deep seeded resentment, it may be time to move on.  As a New Jersey divorce mediator it’s my job to help people resolve all of the issues surrounding their divorce in a peaceful and efficient manner but every so often I get a couple across from me that seems unsure and so I refer them to counseling.  I am always happy to lose a client to reconciliation but if you find your temperature starting to rise and can’t find a way past your anger maybe reconciliation isn’t in the cards for you.
3. When You’ve Lost Respect For Each Other – like the old saying goes, “two ears and one mouth” you need to be listening at least as much as you’re speaking and when you spend more time battling each other in a war of words instead of spending time listening and genuinely trying to understand the other’s point of view, it may be time to question your relationship.  Of course there will be times when you’re tripping over each other verbally trying to get the last word in but when it becomes the only way you communicate, it may be time to rethink things.

As a New Jersey divorce mediator all I ask that if you are considering divorce that you use divorce mediation to work through things as there is no need to take a bad situation and make it worse by hiring a lawyer.  People often think I am pro-divorce when in fact I am anti-conflict and my only goal is to make sure that you and your soon to be ex-spouse can get through your divorce as peacefully, efficiently and with as little impact to both of you and your family as possible.

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If you have any questions about divorce mediation in NJ or how using mediation for divorce can benefit you, please feel free to contact Equitable Mediation Services to schedule a consultation in one of our Northern or Central New Jersey office locations.  Or feel free to visit the Equitable Mediation Services website where you’ll find lots of great information about parenting plans, equitable distribution, NJ child support and spousal support / alimony and contact Accredited Professional NJ Divorce Mediator Joseph Dillon when you’re ready at (908) 864-2177.

In most divorce mediation NJ cases, there is one party that made the decision to divorce and while I can’t say they ever thought they would be sitting across from a New Jersey divorce mediator, there is a part of me that thinks they would drive the process a little more then they sometimes do.  It seems they thought that somehow being divorced would be better than being married yet for some reason they don’t want to do what it takes to move the process forward.  Is it they don’t want to acknowledge the failure of their marriage or they don’t have the emotional capacity to do what it takes to end things?

Most of the time it comes down to a general unwillingness to do what it takes to make it happen.  As a New Jersey divorce mediator, I make it very clear to the couples sitting across from me what will be required of them in the form of discovery documentation, active participation in the divorce mediation NJ process and the review of various memoranda yet when it comes time to providing that documentation or giving feedback on that draft, there is silence, resistance or worse yet, hostility.  Wasn’t it you who wanted this divorce?  Didn’t I make it perfectly clear what was expected of you up front so there was no confusion?  Did I not give you a complete list of everything I’d need and the date by which I’d need it by?  Yet somehow there is confusion.  Somehow there must be a better way, an easier way for us to get divorced without having to do all this work or read all this stuff.

As a New Jersey divorce mediator I can tell you there is a path forward which I will clearly lay out for you but you must be willing to do the work. If you think that the past 15 years of your married life will just get dissolved in an hour or two without you lifting a single finger, I have some bad news for you. But if you’re willing to actively participate in the divorce mediation NJ process and help design your own future, then things will go a lot smoother and with a little bit of effort and a lot of conversation and compromise, you’ll both leave the process far better off than if you hired an attorney or litigated.  So before you pick up the phone to call me, remember: I’m counting on you just as much as you’re counting on me to help move things forward.

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Joseph Dillon is an Accredited Professional New Jersey divorce mediator and Managing Partner of Equitable Mediation Services a New Jersey divorce mediation practice with offices in: Morristown, Roseland (Livingston), Short Hills, Iselin (Metropark), Bedminster, Bridgewater, East Brunswick, Red Bank and Princeton.  Mr. Dillon may be reached by calling (908) 864-2177.

Like the game Jenga in which the tower eventually falls over because too many of the building blocks were removed and its support structure was compromised, NJ divorce mediation falls apart if the parties continue to revisit agreements already made and continue to try and change them once they were deemed resolved.  Does this mean that every decision you make in NJ divorce mediation is set in stone?  Absolutely not!  Does this mean that in light of new information, you should still stick with a decision you made in the past just so you don’t knock the process off track and can get to the completion of your MOU?  No.  You are absolutely free to change your mind at any time and in fact, since NJ divorce mediation is a voluntary process, you can even choose to exit the process if you feel it isn’t getting you a fair and equitable result.  But since progress in NJ divorce mediation is built on making decisions which serve as the basis for the next set of decisions, one must be careful not to upend too much of the progress or the mediation will fail and the tower will fall down.  So if you find yourself asking what’s NJ divorce mediation got to do with Jenga, now you know. I’m betting you’ll never look at board games the same way ever again…

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Joseph Dillon is an Accredited Professional Divorce Mediator in NJ and Managing Partner of Equitable Mediation Services; a New Jersey divorce mediation service with offices in Morristown, Roseland (Livingston), Short Hills, Bedminster, Bridgewater, Iselin (Metropark) East Brunswick, Red Bank and Princeton, NJ.  Please call us at (908) 864-2177 to learn if NJ divorce mediation is right for you,

A simple way to look at it is this.  Is the issue you’re arguing worth $25,000?  I use this figure because that’s what The Wall Street Journal estimates it would cost each party to go to court to hash it out.  This includes correspondence, court prep time and the actual time in court spent arguing the motion.  Sure you may love that couch, or really don’t want to give up that power saw but is it worth arguing over?

And what about the emotional cost?  Have you ever considered that?  Could you even put a price on your sanity knowing that even thought it may not be exactly what you thought you’d gt when you first entered mediation,  knowing you’ll be on the road to rebuilding your life and your future faster and with less stress and at a tremendously lower cost financially, isn’t that worth something in the spirit of compromise?

Naturally as a NJ divorce mediator I cannot tell you what to do but what I can suggest is that you give careful thought and consideration to each issue individually but balance them on the whole.  Certainly your Memorandum of Understanding will represent the collective sum of your individual decisions but instead of treating each one as a battle and trying to “win” each point, think about how your agreement looks on the whole.  Far too often I’ve witnessed couples who come in for a consultation and never move forward with mediation and more often than not I can tell you it comes from the discussions being one-sided.  One party simply couldn’t possibly consider compromise while the other party is expected to give up everything for one reason or another.  I wonder what the first party would say if asked to give up everything?  Something tells me it wouldn’t go over too well…

So when you’re thinking about what route to take with your divorce consider carefully.  Do you choose the more contentious path of hiring an attorney and litigating or the just as contentious path of collaborative divorce or do you go with the empowering, peaceful and cost-effective (both financially and emotionally) hire a NJ divorce mediator?

As I said at the start, I can’t tell you what to do but if I were you, I know which route I would take…

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Joseph Dillon is an Accredited Professional NJ divorce mediator and a Managing Partner of Equitable Mediation Services which serves clients throughout New Jersey including the towns of Morristown, Livingston, Bridgewater, Bedminster, Iselin, Red Bank, East Brunswick and Princeton. Please call (908) 864-2177 to schedule an appointment today.