There are three typical ways a divorce process can end: Reconciliation, Judgment, or Settlement.  Very few cases reconcile once a divorce process is started, and very few cases go all the way to Judgment.  In other words, most divorce cases settle, either before going to court, or at some time during the court process.  But settlement takes lots of different forms , and those different forms can have a significant impact on whether people feel good about their settlement or not. Many clients and potential clients have asked me if there is any statistical research on outcomes for different processes, or even whether there is any data on whether a particular process is considered more "successful" than other options.  Unfortunately, I am not aware of any large scale study comparing Mediation, Collaborative Law, Arbitration, Self-Help Negotiation and Litigation, or even anything close to comprehensive.  There is some research comparing mediation and litigation , but not muc

Guest Post from Julie Tolek * That magical moment that you have been waiting for has finally happened. Your significant other proposed and YOU SAID YES! Or you proposed and YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER SAID YES! You both have your wedding goggles on and all you can see are hearts and rainbows and as you start to plan the wedding, romance is in the air and the love is palpable. You set the date. Your friends and family then save the date. The flowers have been ordered. The wedding planner is pulling everything together. And then one of you dares utter the “P” word. Prenup. PRENUP. PRE. NUP. The record stops and the world goes silent and time stops and you wonder if you really heard what you thought you heard. PRE Nope.  Or if you are the one who brought it up, you wonder if it’s too late to slur your words so they sound like something else. “Honey, I said we need to CLEAN UP. I can’t BELIEVE you thought I said PRENUP!”  And then you avoid eye contact. Everything is awkwa