I found an interesting article on the website of the Association of Divorce Financial Planners by Lee Slater, a financial planner in New York City (Go Red Sox! Sorry to my NY readers, but I could not help myself). Mr. Slater’s article 15 Critical Financial Mistakes in Divorce provides numerous helpful points to anyone facing divorce.
One of his critical mistakes noted is the failure to consider the use of divorce mediation since “mediation will save thousands of dollars in legal fees, emotional aggravation and provide more flexibility than the adversarial legal process.” This is certainly good advice, but Mr. Slater does not mention the option of a collaborative divorce, which should also be a consideration.
Another critical mistake noted in the article is hiring a combative divorce lawyer in an effort to punish your spouse. This is really one of the best ways to spend lots of money during your divorce, with most likely little to show for it at the end of the process. Of course, some cases need to be litigated, but trying to “get even” with a spouse during a divorce is definitley a bad move in a lot of ways.
Anyway, take a couple of minutes to read the article as it contains some good advice.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I am Executive Vice President of the Association of Divorce Financial Planners (ADFP), a not-for-profit professional association of divorce financial planners and allied divorce professionals. I would like to clarify a possible misconception resulting from your post. The ADFP is very supportive of the interdisciplinary collaborative divorce approach, and many of our members are actively involved in collaborative divorce groups. Furthermore, Pauline Tesler and Peggy Thompson, developers of the interdisciplinary collaborative divorce method and co-founders of the International Academy of Collaborativ Professionals, will be recipients of our annual Pioneering Award at our annual conference in September. They will be co-presenting the keynote address. Also, Peggy will be leading an advanced collaborative workshop. The article referred to in your blog is an old article and has recently been updated to include a reference to collaborative divorce. There are also other pro-collaborative divorce articles on our website.
Hi Carl:
Thank you for your comment. I know the ADFP is supportive of the collaborative process and thanks for letting me know about the updated article on the ADFP site. If you would like to submit a guest post, please let me know! Using a divorce financial planner can be very helpful in a case.