10. Mediation Divorce & Paternity Q&A Episode (BONUS)

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

Sydney Mitchell: 0:13

Welcome everyone to today’s bonus episode. Matthew and I are going to be tackling some of the questions that you, our listeners have submitted over the course of the past couple of months here. So we’re just going to get right into it. Matthew, our first question that we have really to answer today is what is the difference between legal separation and divorce,

Matthew Brickman: 0:32

Really Sydney. It comes down to what state you’re in. So we’re just gonna talk about Florida because we’re both in Florida and I’m dealing with Florida law. So in Florida, you’re either married or you’re not, there is no legal separation. And so how they figure out the confines of the marriage is date of marriage to the date that you file your divorce papers. You’re either married or you’re not. If you want to move out and live separate then great, that’s your choice. But Florida is not going to recognize that as a line in the sand for dividing up assets or different things, because there is no legal separation on some States, they actually have a legal separation where you can file documents and you’re legally separated. But in Florida, there is no legal sector

Sydney Mitchell.: 1:16

In the States that have legal separation. What exactly does that mean?

Matthew Brickman: 1:19

I’m not really sure. Cause I, you know, I don’t practice in other States, but I would assume, and this is just an assumption, having a legal separation, you can file documents similar. I mean, I would think they’re probably similar to what we would do like a postnuptial agreement, which says, okay, we’re now legally separated. So from this period until we finally filed divorce, what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. Now what’s mine is mine. What’s yours is yours and so then they can just be legally separated. And I think that some States I’m trying to think, I wouldn’t say maybe North Carolina, maybe they actually have a, it’s weird as a cooling off period where you can file for divorce, but they won’t grant it for maybe a year. I think, I think I was reading this when a friend of mine who was in North Carolina was wanting to get divorced and I was researching North Carolina law and basically, you know, so yeah, you’d have basically a legal separation cause you filed, but they won’t let you get divorced yet. So you’re legally separated. But thankfully I don’t have to deal with that in Florida

Sydney Mitchell.: 2:23

In, in, and again, this might be just a, you guessing question, but in North Carolina, what would be the benefit of something like that?

Matthew Brickman: 2:29

Yeah. I have no idea at all because the longer, so you and I had had discussions about the different levels of relationship and the pros and cons in the dating phase. There’s no rules and the intimacy stage where now you’re married. There’s no rules. Everybody makes them up inside their relationship. Well, when you say like, okay, this is not working anymore and you still have no rules, that’s a dangerous place to hang out. And if you’re forced to hang out in that place with no rules waiting for a year, until you can get divorced, I just see it just tensions, mounting, frustration mounting, and it can get really destructive that then finally, when the court goes, okay, we’ll allow you to get divorced now. Like who needs a cooling off period like that? When, when a court was okay, fine. Now we’ll let you, you could imagine emotions are high. Tensions are high, frustration levels are high. And then people come in and you want to talk about being positioned in your belief system or you come in with the accusations, like over the past year, he did this. She did that. And I don’t see a benefit in any way, shape or form. It’s the same way. I don’t really don’t see a benefit of a legal separation. You’re either married or you’re not. I think that’s just the easiest way to deal with it.

Sydney Mitchell.: 3:43

Right? Okay. This is, this is a perfect segue into another question that we received. What is the difference between a no fault divorce and an at fault divorce?

Matthew Brickman: 3:53

Okay. So again, let me, let me just back up before I say again, what I love about family law, opposed to every other type of law is it is governed state to state. You don’t have the federal government getting in the way of the families. So different States have different laws when it comes to family law in a state that has no fault. That’s like Florida, that if two people are married and one of them decides that I don’t want to be married anymore. Then the court is able to grant a divorce. It’s not that, Oh, well they did something. Therefore now I’m allowed to get divorced. Now there are States, there are some States where it has to be. Somebody has to be at fault. Otherwise the judge’s hands are tied. Like the court cannot give a divorce. For example, let’s just say Tom and Nancy, Tom and Nancy are married and Tom and Nancy just, you know, they just grew apart.

Matthew Brickman: 4:54

The kids are grown. They’ve moved out. Nobody cheated. Nobody did anything. They just want to be divorced. So they filed for divorce and the court goes well. Alright. Who screwed this marriage up? Did you do it? No. Did you do no. Well then, sorry, we can’t give you a divorce readily. They cannot now. So Vance. Wow. That’s why I think it was back in the seventies where they came up with the term irreconcilable differences and that says, okay, look, we just have differences that just can’t be reconciled. We just can’t figure it out. And that gave the court the ability to divorce people without having to lay blame with one side or the other. Now I will tell you that in a state that is an asphalt state. If somebody is at fault, then yeah, it can have serious repercussions on the time sharing and custody of the kids. Uh, alimony, as well as dividing up the marital assets.

Sydney Mitchell.: 5:49

I was going to say their anatomy. So many implications that affect an asphalt.

Matthew Brickman: 5:53

I mean, I would, you know, in Florida is not one of them, but I would imagine if somebody cheated on somebody, then that’s going to go to character. And they’re going to use that to say why the other parents should not have equal timesharing with the child, or if somebody was taking money out of the bank and using it on an extra marital affair, you know that there’s going to be an unequal distribution of marital assets.

Sydney Mitchell.: 6:13

I was going to say, in addition, what are, okay? So like you just mentioned cheating. Maybe it’s a financial immorality. What are some other decisions that somebody could make in a marriage that would deem them at fault in some of these States? And it sounds like most States are no fault, is that correct?

Matthew Brickman: 6:27

Most of them are no fault. Yeah.

Sydney Mitchell.: 6:29

In a few States that are at fault States, what kinds of things would deem them at fault?

Matthew Brickman: 6:34

Other than infidelity criminal acts, you know, criminal acts, domestic violence definitely would come into play. That’s probably your main ones. I mean, look, if nobody’s abusing somebody and nobody’s cheating on anybody and nobody is stealing from anybody, you’re probably not getting divorced. Right. So those are your, I mean, I would imagine those are probably your three main ones. Okay.

Sydney Mitchell.: 6:59

But most States are no fault States. And in Florida where we are Florida, isn’t at fault,

Matthew Brickman: 7:04

What does a no fault state? So you don’t have to prove that somebody did anything. If you want to get divorced, unfortunately you can just file for divorce. Nobody has to be at fault.

Sydney Mitchell.: 7:12

Okay. Another question that we received was how much does the average divorce cost with lawyers and without,

Matthew Brickman: 7:19

Okay. So the average cost, and this is, as of these are the numbers as of 2019, and we’re recording this in 2020 with attorneys, the average cost is $15,000 for each party. That’s just average. And that usually it starts off with anywhere between like a five to seven, to maybe a $10,000 retainer. And then after that, it’s pretty much pay as you go, you don’t pay, you don’t go.

Sydney Mitchell.: 7:49

Okay. So then together that’s 30 and maybe

Matthew Brickman: 7:53

Yeah, yeah. 30 and even plus, in mediation. And,  it wasn’t even a divorce. The parties were already divorced. They were just arguing over. Where was the 16 year old son going to live for the next two years? And between their attorneys, the guardian ad litem, the mediator, they had spent $75,000 trying to figure out where the 16 year old was going to spend the next two years until he legally emancipated. I mean, so it can get very, very expensive also, you know, while we’re on the subject of costs, let’s talk time because time is money. And so with attorneys, they say that the approximate time with attorneys is about 22 months of your life. Uh, that’s a promise event. So basically prepare for this a tie up two years of your life. I mean, all consuming two years, emotionally, psychologically, physically, mentally, spiritually, like it’s going to take a toll on you. Unfortunately. Now let’s contrast that with, without attorneys. So without attorneys, and I can only speak for myself because I am a mediator that is trained to take people through the entire process, legal process without attorneys. And about 20% of my business is what they call pro se for self represented litigants and without attorneys, the total cost. And this would be pain me, their mediator, and filing the papers with the court, which there’s a filing fee. And

Sydney Mitchell.: 9:32

Which is the filing fee or is it different

Matthew Brickman: 9:34

Where I am, it’s $400 currently. And then if there’s kids involved, then they are required to take a parenting class. Yeah. I have a banner on my website where they can click and get a discount for that, but both parties have to take it. And it’s interesting in Sydney. So when I got divorced in Oh one and it’s 2020, so when I got divorced in a one, my ex wife and I had to go to this class and it was held in the basement of this church in port Saint Lucy. And we actually went together and we sat together and it was taught by this husband and wife who had both been previously married. Then now they’re married. And they also, each had kids have a separate marriage and have a kid together. So, I mean, it was a blended family. I’m sure, I’m sure you understand that with my ex and I walked out of that class, it was a four hour class and we walked out of there going, man, this should be a premarital class, not a post marital class. The information they gave was so good. A lot of it like what I’m trying to do with this podcast, communication styles, co parenting styles, how to work together, post divorce. And it was such a great class. We were like, Oh man, this would have been really good.

Sydney Mitchell.: 10:53

And it would have known that years ago.

Matthew Brickman: 10:56

And so we physically had to go to it nowadays. They have it online where you can do the class online. Some jurisdictions though will not allow their people to go online because they’re afraid that it’s not them going. Like, for example, like if I was to get divorced Sydney and I don’t wanna do this online class and be like, Hey Sydney, you know, can you do this for me? And you’re like, yeah, fine. I’ll take it for you. I’m really good at online stuff. It’ll be fun. Well, did I actually take the class and learn the information? And so we’re like, well, we, since we can’t actually tell if the parents doing it, we want them to go in person. Most, most places are going, yes, you can go online.

Sydney Mitchell.: 11:32

That’s so funny because, okay, so I am back enrolled. So I started college in 2015. I was in school for a couple of years. Then I stopped. I paused taking classes and now I’m back in school anyway. And now for our classes, we, so we take an actually I’m S I’m sure that a lot of this is going to continue through COVID and you know, this digital learning that we’re doing now, all of our exams, a lot of our quizzes that we take, we take them online. You know, we record video of ourselves in our rooms, by ourselves. We have to show picture of our photo ID before we take the exam to verify that we are the person taking the test. And so I’m like surprised to hear that they haven’t implemented something like that because, um, colleges are doing it. So I just,

Matthew Brickman: 12:17

That’s really interesting because I did my education online. And so I went to Kaplan university and got my associates degree in paralegal studies and got a bachelor’s in pre law. And I did it all online and we had to take our tasks and our quizzes and stuff, but there was no verification like your saying now, which I think is really smart. Now. I never had anybody take my stuff. I mean, I wanted to learn the information because I was going to school to become a mediator because I wanted to become a mediator. So I wanted the information that I was just going to school and I was going to get a degree and maybe I’d use it. Maybe I’m not,

Sydney Mitchell.: 12:49

Some people are not, are, you know, not in that boat.

Matthew Brickman: 12:52

Right. So it’s interesting that you mentioned that because my wife and I, we met online in college and we were in classes together. And we had a girl in that class and I’m not going to say Denise’s name because I would never want to say miss Darlene’s name on a podcast. But she actually admitted in a live lecture that her cousin was doing her papers, taking her tests. And we were like, and now this girl could not spell no punctuation capitalization. And she was working for the United States military going to school online, but she actually admitted that she was having her cousin write her papers and do her stuff. And so I’ll tell you now hearing what you’re saying about the ID. Um, my gosh, that would have been great. Cause ms. Denise Darlene would not have been able to have her cousin do her stuff like that. It just wouldn’t have happened.

Sydney Mitchell.: 13:49

Yeah. With technology nowadays, you can’t quite get away with it. Maybe it’s. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman: 13:53

So with the parenting class, that’s another piece that they would have to do, but Hey, so paint, paying for my fee, paying for the filing fee and doing the parenting class. And if the parties wanted, and it’s optional to hire an attorney simply to do final hearing for them, opposed to spending $30,000, they could do it for less than three total and timeline wise, instead of taking up to possibly 22 months or longer, they could actually get it done in less than a month. Now there’s a, there’s a few logistics that go into that, how well the parties are communicating how well they get along, you know, how fast they fill out their required paperwork, you know, whatever that is. But those are the amounts for the average cost with and without an attorney.

Sydney Mitchell.: 14:45

Absolutely. Well, to our listeners, we are absolutely loving answering all these questions. I love the different topics that we’re going to hit. We’ve got a ton more questions to cover as we continue adding in these bonus episodes. So be sure to tune into those and continue sending in all of your questions. If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.