Massachusetts Mediated Divorce Lawyer Explains How Mediation Can Protect Your Legal Rights

I advise clients as a Massachusetts Mediated Divorce Lawyer that It’s important for both spouses to be aware of the finances of the marriage when you’re going into a mediation process. That’s because you want to be able to evaluate the financial statement that your spouse fills out in the course of the mediation sessions in determining whether or not you think that your spouse was complete and accurate concerning the financial statement. If you were the person in the marriage (I typically find that only one spouse handles the finances in the marriage) then you might want to become cognisant in what you have and what comprises the marital state before you engage in the mediation process. You should educate yourself with the content of the marital estate like the debt that you have, your spouse’s income, your own income, and the expenses that you need to maintain the lifestyle that you generally have.

You also want to think about what would be needed for your spouse to maintain their lifestyle. For instance, I tell clients as a Massachusetts Mediated Divorce Lawyer that people don’t really know what type of retirement account they have. They know they have a retirement account through work but they don’t know whether it’s a 401k or a pension or deferred compensation.  The other ways that people going through mediation would just to protect themselves. Think of all the issues that might come up between you and your spouse regarding anything, whether it’s a parenting issue, when the house would be sold, who would maintain the house in the interim. As a Massachusetts Mediated Divorce Lawyer I’ve handled thousand of divorces, every divorce is unique in some way and present issues that only you know and can bring up to the mediator as something that would need to be addressed. In that way you can protect yourself because it will be addressed.

This informational blog post was provided by Cynthia Hanley, an experienced Massachusetts Mediated Divorce Lawyer.